Squatting Properly

loko2468 · July 21, 2008, 5:06pm

“If a client can’t squat past 90 degrees of knee bend without their heels raising or their body bending excessively forward at the waist, but they can squat all the way to the floor while holding onto something, we know there are muscle imbalances and stability issues around the pelvic/lumbosacral region as opposed to a knee or ankle dysfunction.” from http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1767210&cr=

At the moment I suffer from this, and I’ve been searching the web for a long time for how to overcome it. Have not found any answers yet…and my practicing (every morning I practice doing squats and even holding the squat position whilst holoding onto something else for balance) seems to be going nowhere. Just like it says above, if I don’t lean ridiculously forward, my heels rise. Both undesireable! It would help me a lot as a dancer to get rid of this.

Does anyone here know how to improve muscle strength and stability in the pelvic/lumbosacral region for squats? Or direct me to a good resource?

ninjaboy · July 21, 2008, 5:14pm

Magnificent Mobility by Cressey and Robertson is great for lower body mobility.

TNT_CDN · July 21, 2008, 6:09pm

Check out “Asian Squat” on youtube. Sit on a basketball or soccer ball, with your heels close to the ball and with a ramrod straight back. Squeeze your glutes and stand up. That’s a bottom-up squat. Now lower SLOWLY and just touch the ball with your butt and come back up. Repeat about 1 milliion times, then add weight.

TNT

atg410 · July 21, 2008, 8:13pm

[quote]loko2468 wrote:
"If a client can’t squat past 90 degrees of knee bend without their heels raising or their body bending excessively forward at the waist, but they can squat all the way to the floor while holding onto something.

We know there are muscle imbalances and stability issues around the pelvic/lumbosacral region as opposed to a knee or ankle dysfunction." from http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1767210&cr=

At the moment I suffer from this, and I’ve been searching the web for a long time for how to overcome it. Have not found any answers yet…and my practicing (every morning I practice doing squats and even holding the squat position whilst holoding onto something else for balance) seems to be going nowhere.

Just like it says above, if I don’t lean ridiculously forward, my heels rise. Both undesireable! It would help me a lot as a dancer to get rid of this.

Does anyone here know how to improve muscle strength and stability in the pelvic/lumbosacral region for squats? Or direct me to a good resource?[/quote]

I know it sounds redundant, but the best way to strengthen the stabilizers and create the mobility needed for deep squats is…squat, a lot.

Try face the wall squats; stand close to a wall, squat, try to keep your back in good posture without letting your knees spread out latterly away from your feet or hitting the wall, go as low as you can. Do assisted squats, using a rail or counter top or whatever for stability.

Every single day try to do three or four 3-5 rep body weight squat ‘sets’. Deep lunges will help also, try doing deep walking lunges around the house several times a day.

The point in trying to build the kind of stability that you’re talking about is that it should become part of your daily life, not just something you do at the gym a few times a week or whatever.

If you do 20 body weight squats a day, every day for the next three months you’ll be amazed at what your form looks like and how comfortable squats will feel.

TNT_CDN · July 21, 2008, 8:21pm

[quote]atg410 wrote:
loko2468 wrote:
"If a client can’t squat past 90 degrees of knee bend without their heels raising or their body bending excessively forward at the waist, but they can squat all the way to the floor while holding onto something.

e know there are muscle imbalances and stability issues around the pelvic/lumbosacral region as opposed to a knee or ankle dysfunction." from http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1767210&cr=

At the moment I suffer from this, and I’ve been searching the web for a long time for how to overcome it. Have not found any answers yet…and my practicing (every morning I practice doing squats and even holding the squat position whilst holoding onto something else for balance) seems to be going nowhere.

Just like it says above, if I don’t lean ridiculously forward, my heels rise. Both undesireable! It would help me a lot as a dancer to get rid of this.

Does anyone here know how to improve muscle strength and stability in the pelvic/lumbosacral region for squats? Or direct me to a good resource?

I know it sounds redundant, but the best way to strengthen the stabilizers and create the mobility needed for deep squats is…squat, a lot.

Try face the wall squats; stand close to a wall, squat, try to keep your back in good posture without letting your knees spread out latterly away from your feet or hitting the wall, go as low as you can. Do assisted squats, using a rail or counter top or whatever for stability.

Every single day try to do three or four 3-5 rep body weight squat ‘sets’. Deep lunges will help also, try doing deep walking lunges around the house several times a day.

The point in trying to build the kind of stability that you’re talking about is that it should become part of your daily life, not just something you do at the gym a few times a week or whatever.

If you do 20 body weight squats a day, every day for the next three months you’ll be amazed at what your form looks like and how comfortable squats will feel.[/quote]

20 per day times 3 months = 1 million. Just like I said.

TNT

Eielson · July 22, 2008, 6:44am

I usually start out having a little trouble getting to parallel but I use my warmup time to help me get depth. I take just the bar and squat as low as I can until I start to feel I can get where I want to be. Then I gradually work up the weight and have no problem getting the right depth when it is time to do my heaviest sets.

If you have Starting Strength, Rippetoe mentions a stretch that worked great for me. You basically squat and push your knees out with your elbows. That helped a lot for me.

Through recently going through this problem I know that nothing helps with squatting depth like squatting.

Eielson · July 22, 2008, 6:45am

[quote]TNT-CDN wrote:
atg410 wrote:
loko2468 wrote:
"If a client can’t squat past 90 degrees of knee bend without their heels raising or their body bending excessively forward at the waist, but they can squat all the way to the floor while holding onto something.