The Overlooked Keys To Better Squats

Who doesn’t want better squats? It is one of the biggest challenges that I had as a coach and having taught educational programs for coaches for the past 20 years, I can tell you I was FAR from the only one. What makes for coaching and successfully teaching people squats work? Well, it isn’t one thing and it isn’t the same thing for everyone. So, what are some of the most important cues you and solutions you can offer.

We Begin With The Feet

Talking about the feet can be kinda tricky for a relatively simple subject. Are your feet important? Yes! You will see from the video below how they can change everything up the body. Do you have to spend a lot of time trying to do “magical” feet exercises to fix every imperfection? No! Simple cues and feedback strategies can offer exactly what we need in establishing a good foundation with the feet.

Learning How To Use The Hips Correctly 

The feet set the foundation, but they are just the start. Understanding how to use the set-up the feet provides the opportunity to learn how to use the hips. Instead of trying to push the knees forward or the hips back, we want to actually pushing the knees out. This actually engages the glutes more and opens space in the pelvis to make room for the body to squat down more deeply.

Optimizing The Core

Core stability plays a big part in our squats and often gets overlooked. Better core stability helps our squats on a multitude of levels…

-Better Proximal Stability: We know from research that when we have better core stability the nervous system is more likely to take the brakes off our movement and we see enhanced mobility in areas of our body like our mobility.

-More Leg Strength: Proximal stability not only leads to greater mobility, but also allows our body to produce more force. The more stable the platform for our legs to operate, the greater force it can express.

How do we put this all together? I break it all down in the video below. This starts us on the path of progressing the squat beyond just going heavier or doing more reps. We end up with more sophisticated progressions of the squat that lead us to much greater solutions and results.

Want to learn more? Don’t miss physical therapist, Jessica Bento’s 2-week course online course (yes, recordings will be available) about knee pain helping teach better movement. You can save 20% with code “coach20” HERE for this week only!