I wasn’t sure where to post this, but I thought that the guys on this forum might know a bit more about technique than on the other forums.
I’m trying to teach a friend of mine how to squat, but whenever he starts to squat down, he literally lifts his heels up and comes up on his toes.
Usually when this happens when I taught some of my other friends, I told them to either lean forward at the hips just a little more or to actively think about keeping their weight more on their heels. This usually fixes the problem and also keeps their knees from being too far over their toes.
With this guy though, he just can’t get into the bottom position without coming up on his toes. It’s not an issue of hamstring or calf flexibility. He is actually more flexible than I am in those areas.
First, I told him to literally just sit down and stand up from a bench using correct squat form. Although the range of motion isn’t what it should be, he could do it fairly well. But when I told him to try it without the bench, he immediately came back up on his toes.
I thought it might have something to do with ankle mobility, but I really don’t know. I was thinking of fixing his heels to the floor, but then I thought that might reinforce an incorrect movement pattern. I don’t really know what to suggest to him, so I thought I’d ask here. Does anyone have any suggestions??
Yeah, use a heel block and gradually lower it. Heel blocks are obviously not great for your knees, but if you’re not loading too hard and not using them forever, it’s not a big deal.
The muscles on the backside need to get stronger. Everybody thinks everything is a stability/mobility/flexibility problem, but it’s really a strength issue. Get the low back, glutes, hamstrings stronger, teach him to squat with a heel block that gradually goes away, and there won’t be a problem.
You could also try kicking his feet out wider. It gets progressively harder to get on your toes when the feet are further apart and you are forced to rely on the posterior chain more than on the quads. Toes out too, btw, rather than straight ahead. Pick a weight where he won’t try to cave the knees in because it WILL feel unnatural until he gets used to it.
[quote]Ramo wrote:
Yeah, use a heel block and gradually lower it. Heel blocks are obviously not great for your knees, but if you’re not loading too hard and not using them forever, it’s not a big deal.
The muscles on the backside need to get stronger. Everybody thinks everything is a stability/mobility/flexibility problem, but it’s really a strength issue. Get the low back, glutes, hamstrings stronger, teach him to squat with a heel block that gradually goes away, and there won’t be a problem.[/quote]
Anyone I teach to squat I start them out doing wall squats. Face the wall, toes touching the wall or as close as possible and squat. If after practicing for a while and adjusting foot position does not improve depth then try holding onto a something to practice movement until proper depth can be reached without heels coming off the floor. Than move them back in front of the wall. Before I put weight on their back they have to complete 5 squats without falling back, heels coming off the ground or knees touching the wall. This came out of an article probably by cressey I can’t remember exactly.