What's up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com. You’ve got stop squatting like this. Here’s the thing: there are so many causes
of this and many other squat problems that a lot of times, it’s very difficult for
us to come to grip with the fact that we’re actually making this mistake when we squat. One of the most helpful things you can do
is film yourself when you’re squatting so you can see what’s happening here and be
very objective about it. But I can tell you this: as a physical therapist
this is a complex problem. There are a lot of potential reasons, but
I’ll tell you, regardless of what your cause is, you do need to fix it. We know that the most important thing you
can do when you’re squatting is to try to establish a vertical bar path. Which means, the bar needs to go straight
up and down. I'm not talking about the angle of your torso
because that will change whether you’re high bar squatting, or low bar squatting. What I’m talking about is, no matter what
position you get that bar in, you need to be able to move it vertically. That’s for a lot of different reasons. I don’t care whether you’re training just
to be stronger. There, we need to make sure we’re being
efficient because a bar path’s efficiency is going to be critical to your strength. You want no waste in strength. Even just for overall athleticism and performance
in the gym, you still want to have, and perform the exercise correctly. So, let’s talk about, if you’re someone
that does this. Here’s what could potentially be happening. First and foremost, where is the setup of
the bar when you start? Potentially, you’re starting a posterior
that’s setup too far. Meaning, the bar, if you were to drop a line
straight down, is not going through the center of your foot. We know that the best balance point for your
foot is going to be the center of your foot. Just slightly behind the ball of your foot. And we know if we can get that bar setup there,
and then establish that pattern of straight up, and down, we’ll be in a good position
on the squat. But a lot of times, we’ll get that bar a
little bit behind that, a little more over the heels. It doesn’t come back to bite us until we
try to get out of there. That’s because, if the bar is sitting back
further, when I go to push up against it, I’m pushing into that positioning. I’m pushing up, where? From the back of the hips. The low back goes up first, as opposed to
driving the entire torso up. That almost encourages my hips to do the initiating
of that. Where, if my hips go up – we’ll talk about
that a little more in depth in a second – then my torso, and the rest of my thoracic spine
is going to fall forward. But we want to make sure, if we’re going
to setup properly, we’re going to be setup over the center of our foot. The next thing we could be dealing with is
a dorsiflexion immobility. Meaning, we lack the ability to get our ankle
into dorsiflexion, as you see my ankle moving here. We know as we go deeper into the squat, the
requirement of our ankle to get into more, and more dorsiflexion are higher. In order to get to the bottom of the squat,
at a proper depth, that dorsiflexion has to be there. If we don’t have it, what happens? As we’re going down into the squat we start
to lose the ability to deepen into our ankle, and therefore, our knees go a little bit more
forward, the body gets thrown offline, and you’d actually see this floor-bar path happen
a lot sooner. Really, more toward the descent, and not what
I was showing you in the beginning here, where it seems to go down properly, and then make
this drastic alteration. So, if we’re talking about that drastic
alteration where we can actually get down straight, and then we see this big “U”
shape on the way up; now we’re dealing with one of three other things. The first thing I would start to question
is quad weakness. Why is that? Because when we get down to the bottom, that’s
when our quads are going to be the most in demand. Again, even if I’m doing a low bar squat,
which is less quad dominant, it’s still going to be the point in that squat that the
quads are most in demand. So, I have to have adequate strength there. If you don’t have the ability to get down
here with good strength, then what happens is, your hips – the stronger posterior chain
muscles – are going to be recruited instantly. Your body is smart. It knows how to get out of the hole. So, it’s going to lean your forward to recruit
those muscles more efficiently, and then start driving up. Of course, as you come up you’re going to
torso correct. Your body will come up, and then straighten
back out again. Now, if you’re able to get to the bottom
of a squat, however, and hold it, and perform pause reps; then you’re likely not dealing
with a quad weakness. You have good stability and strength under
heavy load at the bottom of a squat. You’re not likely dealing with quad weakness. That’s actually why I encourage the use
of pause reps a lot in our training. So, we can make sure that we’re not dealing
with quad weaknesses here. But it doesn’t take away the fact that there’s
something else wrong. The next thing I would look for is weakness
in the retractors of the scapula. Your ability to hold your scapula tight the
entire rep. So, what often times will happen is, people
will go down, and they’ll be good, they’ll be nice and tight on the setup. And they’re either forgetting about the
tightness as they get down to the bottom because the focus becomes more “What am I going
to do to get out of the hole?”, or they simply don’t have the strength to maintain
the tight torso, the retracted scapula as they initiate out of the hole. This is something that goes back to a point
I made before. I said the one thing you should be doing every,
single day – every, single day – after your workouts are face pulls. Why? Because face pulls are incredibly important
in reinforcing the number one strength deficit we probably face as human beings. Because of what we do posturally, all day
long. That is, pretty much, try to counteract any
benefits of having scapular strength. All the things we do are in front of us. The weakness is apparent in most of us because
of the posture that our shoulders assume from doing all this stuff. You need to work on your ability to get there. But, I said – very importantly – you might
be someone that thinks you’re doing the right work because you’re doing 100s of
reps. Maybe you’re doing 100 reps of face pulls,
you’re doing 100 reps of band pull-aparts, and you think you’re doing the right thing. I would argue, that means nothing. I want you to do high quality, focused contraction
reps. You’re better off doing 20 sets of 1 than
1 set of 20. That’s something I’ve said many, many
times before. If you find that you’re getting to the bottom
and you’re exhibiting this squat pattern that I showed you in the beginning here, I
would focus much more on, first of all, including both band pull-aparts and face pulls if you
aren’t already. But more so, concentrating on how you’re
performing them. Squeeze every, single rep as if it’s the
only one you’re going to do. Focus on getting a good contraction, hold
it, maintain it, get better at being able to sustain those contractions. So, when you do go through a squat it’s
not a momentary ability to do it, but a consistent ability to do it. Up and down, throughout the squat. Then finally, we get into this situation where
it could just be habitual pattern. So, let’s say you had an ankle mobility
issue that you never worked on. By the way, I have a whole video on how to
address the ankle immobility. That dorsiflexion and mobility. I’ll link it for you guys to make sure you
can see that, because that is a very popular and common problem. But let’s say you had it in the past. You’ve addressed that, and now you’re
good, but you’ve learned this pattern of relying on, and initiating with the hips on
the way up. That’s a problem because, here’s what
happens. I have a demo here for you. Let’s say I have this jump rope and it’s
reflecting my hips, and then the rest of my spine up here. Just like a whip, if I were to initiate movement
here, and drive up with the hips first, what happens to the rest of the rope? It goes from being relatively straight, to
down because it’s a connected chain. Just like our whole body is a kinetic chain. Just like our spine is a connected unit. When I move the pelvis up, the rest of it
goes down. So that means you’re going to throw and
lurch your shoulders forward. Very much like that weakness in the mid-back,
if the mid-back is giving out, the bar is going to go – your body is going to go forward
with your head, with your shoulders. That’s going to cause that forward lurch. The same thing happens here. Just by initiating movement with the pelvis,
I can cause that. But this goes back to what I said was the
greatest squat tip I could ever give. That is going to help a ton of you guys if
you haven’t applied it to this problem in particular. That is, when you get to the bottom of your
squat, the number one thing you can do is try to visualize your pelvis and your ribcage. Your pelvis and chest, and your sternum. Whatever it is that kicks in for you. If it’s your whole chest, you can envision
that scapular retraction, too. So, you can make sure you’re staying there. But this, and this need to move together. So, if I were to take this rope, and now I
take it, and I tighten it, and I keep that tightness, and I move it together, now it
moves up as a unit. First of all, it moves a lot more efficiently. Secondly, it has no more of that drag, which
will cause that forward lurch. So, lots of different things you can do there,
guys. It really comes down to whether or not you
are aware of your own problems. Again, as I’ve said in the beginning, the
number one thing you can do is record yourself. Try to get on the sides. That’s where you’re going to see these
things most visibly. Or have one of your buddies or somebody at
the gym film for you, so you can watch it back. The thing is, these things become readily
apparent. If you need an app to do it, guys, I downloaded
an app. Iron Path is the name. I get nothing for recommending them. Although, Iron Path; if you’re listening,
maybe a trip to Hawaii, or something. I’m sure you’re going to get quite a few
downloads today. But the fact is, it’s a great app, guys. At least it’s a tool. It gives you, if anything else, some feedback
as to how bad it is for you, and how much you’re doing this. That will at least give you a jump off point
to correcting it. Guys, I hope you’ve found this video helpful. If you’re looking for a program that puts
the science back in strength – all this stuff matters. As a PT and a strength coach, guys; it ALL
matters to me. Both ends of this. I’ve got to make sure that you guys perform
these exercises the best, you’re getting the most out of them, and ultimately, for
the athletes that follow me, take it out onto the field to perform better than ever. All this stuff is built into all our programs. It’s over at ATHLEANX.com. In the meantime, guys; tell me what else you
want me to cover. I’ll do my best to do that for you in the
days, and weeks ahead. All right, see you soon.
