Mastering The Squat

By Nikki Young

Nature didn’t intend for us to sit on chairs, in-fact the bottom of the squat position is natures intended sitting position. There-for the squat is no more than a vital, natural and functional component of your body’s movement and your personal well-being.

To keep your back, hips and knees functioning well in your senior years and your younger years, performing a good squat often will help a great deal. If you don’t move your joints, they are not healthy, regardless of if they are (currently) free from pain or discomfort.

A lot of people will say not to bend the knees past 90 degrees while performing a squat. If you where to sit on the ground with your legs in front of you, and try to stand up without bending the leg more than 90 degrees, you will find it impossible unless you have some un-natural weird movements. Getting up off the floor involves a force on at least one knee, which is largely greater than that of the squat. The same goes for walking up stairs, and when sprinting.

An Olympic lifter will hold a deep squat position while resting hundreds of kilo’s on their chest. Olympic lifters have the least amount of injuries than athletes of any other sport. They are one of the most flexible, powerful and strong athletes with extremely good joint mobility.

10 Points on Squatting

1. Have your feet about shoulder width apart and slightly toed out.

2. Look straight ahead, keeping your head up and looking slightly above parallel. Don’t look down.

3. Keep the midsection very tight.

4. Send your bum back and down.

5. Your knees track over the line of the foot.

6. Keep as much pressure on your heals as possible, staying off the balls of your feel.

7. Delay the knees forward travel as much as possible.

8. Keep your torso elongated.

9. In profile, the ear does not move forward during the squat, it travels straight down.

10. Squeeze glutes and hamstrings and rise without any leaning forward or shifting balance.

Common Faults

The pictures below are some of the most common faults to look for when mastering the squat.

Pic1. Knees directly travelling forward

Pic2. Dropping the Head

Pic3. Torso lean, rounding the back

Pic4. Heels off the ground (losing lumbar extension)

Causes of a Bad Squat

- Weak glute and hamstring muscles; these muscles are responsible for a powerful hip extension.

- Bad flexibility.

- No awareness of the glute and hamstring muscles, resulting in poor engagement and weak control.

- Poor focus. The more awareness you have while doing the squat, the more you will develop good posture and technique.

The last two points can start to be overcome with a frequent exercise regime. Most people start to become aware of their muscles when they can feel them. I find a lot of people that have had a fairly sedentary lifestyle find it hard to work out how to engage muscles because they can’t ‘feel’ where they are, sometimes to the extent that they find it hard to flex their bicep muscle, or even squeeze their shoulder blades together. The more strength movements you do the more you can feel where your muscles are and how to engage them.

Although there are many areas which could result in a bad squat, I will cover the more predominant ones and some of the best stretches to do to over-come them. Keep in mind that muscle tightness isn’t the only problem for a bad squat, having a muscle imbalance or weakness could also be the issue.

In picture 3, Steve is demonstrating a forward torso lean along with lumbar extension (rounding). The forward torso lean indicates tight hip flexors. Losing lumbar extension is the result of tight hamstrings and tight erector spine muscles. The best stretches for these are;

Hip flexor
With one foot resting on a slight rise, step a big step forward with the other foot and lower your body with a bend in your back leg. Exhale and return to the starting position.

Erector spine
Lie on your back with one leg raises and straight and your arms out to your side. Exhale and lower your raises leg towards the opposite hand, keeping your elbows head and shoulders flat on the floor.

Hamstring; semitendinosus
Lie on your back with one leg straight and the other leg locked at the knee. Exhale and bring the raised leg towards your face, keeping the leg straight.

Hamstring; Biceps femoris
Lie on your back with one leg straight with foot pointing towards opposite shoulder and the other leg locked at the knee. Exhale and bring the raised leg towards your opposite shoulder, keeping the leg straight.

Hamstring; semimembranosus
Lie on your side with one leg straight, raise the leg not touching the ground, point the foot towards your head and bring towards the head as far as possible, keeping the leg straight.

In picture4, Steve is demonstrating a squat where the heels need to come off the ground to enable the squat to go deeper. This indicates poor ankle flexibility. This is very common. The best stretches to over-come this issue are;

Soleus
Place one foot on an incline bench and bring the knee over the foot so you end up on the balls of your feet. Hold on to the end of the bench as you attempt to lower your heel back onto the bench without starting to straighten the leg. This is the best stretch for the soleus.

Soleus
Stand on the ball of one foot balance on an edge or step. Exhale as you bend the knee and lower the heel to the floor.

Gastrocnemius

Stand with the ball of one foot balanced on an edge or step. Exhale and lower your heel to the floor.