CategoriesCorrective Exercise Program Design

Are You Engaging the Right Muscles When You Squat?

I’m in Europe for the next two weeks traveling.1

Fear not. I’ve still managed to queue up some stellar content for you in my absence.

Today Dr. Sarah Duvall is pinch-writing for me talking about a topic that’s relevant to anyone who likes to lift heavy things: Squats (and how to make them feel better).

Her new resource, which she developed alongside fellow coaching superstars Kellie Hart and Meghan Callaway – Glutes, Core, and Pelvic Floor Workout System – is on sale starting today (6/28) and runs through 7/2.

It’s stellar and I think you should check it out.

Copyright: viacheslavmaksimov / 123RF Stock Photo

Are You Engaging the Right Muscles When You Squat?

Several months ago Tony and I met at Caffe Nero to talk shop.

After a combined 30 + years of working with people, we have both come to the conclusion that strength is your friend!

It’s your friend for rehab, for life and for aging.

In other words,

“You need to lift shit to fix shit.”

It can get a little tricky, because I’ve often found for patients with tightness or pain that we have to first make sure the right muscle is doing the work before overloading.

A great example of this is doing squats but primarily loading quads and low back instead of balancing the lift with glutes and abdominals. Or doing deadlifts but primarily feeling them in your back, never your glutes or hamstrings.

So you’re lifting and trying to get stronger, but in reality if you’re experiencing the above you’re overworking a subset of muscles instead of the intended target.

That’s why you should always know what muscles you want to work and where you should feel it.

Educated lifting!

Let’s take a second to break down the ever-elusive squat a little further. There are so many varieties from goblet to back to front squats and everything in between.

You’ll want to pick a variety that feels best for you, but I’d like to share a couple tricks for squatting in a way that targets your glutes and abs. This will be especially helpful if you primarily feel squats in your quads and low back.

Let’s work from the ground up at 4 key areas of the body.

#1. Keep Your Toes Firmly on the Ground

Somewhere along the way the cue to lift the toes got popular.

This is an easy way to shift your weight back to help get the squat more into your hips instead of your knees.

When we make cues too easy they often miss the mark. It’s true that you want to sit back into your hips, but the body follows patterns and when you pick up your toes you set off a flexion chain in your body that can increase hip flexor activation and decrease abdominals.

Give it a try now.

Pick up your toes for a squat and focus on how much you feel your abdominals. Now, give me a nice short foot (big toe down, arch engaged, weight spread evenly between the ball and heel) and see if this grounded foot turns your abs on more.

Those hardwired neuro patterns are hard to break, and having great foot placement sets the tone for the rest of the body.

 

So how do you sit back instead of coming forward onto your knees? Try practicing your squat by sitting back to a box or chair.

This will help train the pattern without picking up your toes.

#2. Sit Into Your Glutes

You want to feel your glutes lengthening for your squat.

It’s not a deadlift, your knees will bend, but it shouldn’t be all knees.

Two signs you’re not lengthening and sitting into your glutes:

  • You have to fold in half to sit back. (Now, if you have really long femurs or a narrow stance, you’ll need to lean forward a bit more. But if you widen your stance and you still find yourself bending over at the waist, it might be a good idea to check your rockbacks.)
  • You start with a neutral spine but then overarch your back to sit into the squat. Overarching the back and lengthening the hamstrings is a great way to look like you’re sitting back into your glutes when in reality you’re just going into a big anterior pelvic tilt. If this is the case, your low back will often feel tight after your squat.

To fix the folding in half, try holding on to something when you squat, like suspension straps. Then you can practice sitting back and down into those glutes.

 

#3.  Neglecting to Keep a Neutral Spine

How we initiate a motion sets the tone for that exercise.

So if you arch your back to start, then your brain gets the signal, “this is a back exercise.” If you lengthen your glutes to start, then your brain gets the signal, “this is a glute exercise.”

Sitting the tone is important!

It’s much easier to do something right from the start than it is to play catch up. Wait, are we talking about life or squats?

See if you can spot the difference between initiating for the glutes lengthening vs the low back overarch?

 

#4. Head Alignment

Let’s do a test.

Look up at the ceiling and squat.

Did you feel how you wanted to overarch your back?

Now, put your chin to your chest and squat.

See how you wanted to tuck your bottom?

Our body follows our head. You’ll never see a gymnast look the opposite way for a flip.

Playing around with head positioning and where the eyes are looking can dramatically change a squat. If someone is having lots of trouble keeping their abs engaged, I might have them look down just a pinch more. If they are really having trouble sitting into their glutes, I might have them look up a pinch.

The real takeaway from this is to know where you should feel an exercise and make sure that is what’s working. When you’re doing squats, you should feel both your glutes and quads working, as well as your abs and low back. A balanced squat works everything, and working everything means you’ll be able to do more and get stronger without getting hurt because the effort is shared.

Want to learn more about where you should be feeling an exercise and which muscles should be working?

You’re in luck!

Glutes, Core, and Pelvic Floor Workout System

Three expert coaches in the fitness and rehab industry came together to build an incredible 12 week workout program to help you reach your fitness goals.

Everyone – women AND men, powerlifters AND CrossFitters, Batman AND Care Bears – can spend more time developing their glute, core and pelvic floor strength and integrity.

Sarah, Kellie, and Megan are phenomenal coaches and have put in a ton of work to make this a resource that can equally help (and be applied) fitness professionals and general population alike.

Fitness Professionals: to be able to assess and write effective corrective and training programs to address things like pelvic floor dysfunction, rectus diastasis (which effects males too), incontinence, and many other “intricate” issues that aren’t easy to train around (much less talk about).

General Population: to show you the basics needed to feel great and to set yourself up for as much success as possible if or when you choose to attack the iron.

Batman (in case you’re reading this): to fight crime in a more efficient and timely manner.

This program is thorough AF and the beauty is that it requires minimal equipment and can be done at home or in a gym.

I’ve performed a few of the workouts & movements myself and lets just say its highlighted a few glaring weaknesses on my end. What’s more, I’m learning a lot. This WILL make me a better coach.

The price is heavily discounted – $200 OFF – for two days only (6/28 and 6/29).

  • It increases $100 on June 30th – July 1st.
  • And then increases to full price on Monday, July 2nd.

You don’t have much time to take advantage, so I encourage you to do NOW.

—> Hurry! Click Me <—-

Categoriesbusiness

Announcing CORE: Remember When I Said I Never Wanted To Own a Gym? Yeah, About That

Some of you may recall a blog I wrote a few months ago titled I’m Not a Businessman, I’m a Business, Man.

36100738 - strong businessman

Copyright: fotogestoeber / 123RF Stock Photo

I spilled my heart into that post and revealed a few personal things. Namely, that after leaving Cressey Sports Performance to pursue other opportunities, I had zero interest in ever running or owning my own gym.

[More to the point: I wanted to iterate to fitness pros that the “end-game” in this industry is not gym ownership, that success should not be dictated by whether or not you own a gym, and that, contrary to popular belief, you can do quite well in this industry – with a lot of hardwork, consistency, and expectation management – without that monkey on your back.]

After watching Pete and Eric in action for over eight years I came to the conclusion that “business” wasn’t my strong suit.2 My strengths weren’t in dealing with spreadsheets, client retention strategies, marketing, ROI, scheduling, and endless phone conversations with parents, athletes, prospective clients, scouts, and Comcast.

Moreover, I wanted no part in worrying about overhead (rent, payroll, equipment replacement, etc) or any other “unexpected” snafus such as CAM expenses, trash removal, and which insurance policies were the best fit for the the business.

You know, Health Insurance, Liability Insurance, In-Case-The Avengers-Show-Up-and-Wreck-Shit-Up-Collateral-Damage Insurance.

When we opened CSP I recognized that my strengths resided in being on the floor, coaching, demonstrating to young athletes that the garbage they listen to today is not hip-hop, and serving as brand ambassador. I’d let Pete and Eric take the reigns on “building” the business.3

Of course, in hindsight, despite my aversion to being a “businessman” in the ten years I’ve been in Boston (eight of which were at CSP) I did end up building a “business,” in that my brand – Tony Gentilcore – became a thing.

Thanks in large part to both Eric and Pete I was able to leverage the CSP brand to facilitate the growth of my own.

Over the years I have seen my website grow in popularity, I’ve become a published author in many of the most reputable fitness publications out there, I’ve been invited to speak in places such as Seattle, LA, DC, Chicago, Sydney, London, and Prague for crying out loud, and ticker tape parades have been held in my honor. <—- Only a slight exaggeration.

Not too shabby for a kid from Groton, NY.

When I left CSP, however, I decided the best fit for me was to sub-lease space. Gym ownership wasn’t for me. I connected with a woman who already had a training studio she was leasing (a mile from my apartment no less) and she was kind enough to allow me to vomit strength and conditioning all over the place and bring in my own equipment to utilize the space. At the end of each month she tallies the number of hours I use it and I pay “rent.”

It’s a beautiful set-up. This way I can still train people throughout the week, yet without the responsibility of running a gym. I show up, I make people awesome, I leave, repeat. I still have ample time to film interpretive dance videos write, take care of my distance coaching clients, and travel for speaking engagements whenever necessary.

It’s the life I’ve been living since October of 2015.

And then this happened a few weeks ago:

Introducing CORE

I now “own” a gym. It’s called CORE.4

Own is in parenthesis because it’s not like I said “f*** it, I’m done with sub-leasing and I’m going to open up a 20,000 sq. ft facility in downtown Boston complete with state-of-the-art equipment, parking, and a juice bar that serves gluten-free, dairy-free, non-GMO protein shakes with organic unicorn tears.”

That’s not even close to what happened. (Mostly because I don’t have a bazillion dollars).

Circumstances arose where the woman whom I was sub-leasing from had her dream-job come to fruition and she decided not to renew the lease. She then asked if I’d be interested in taking it over? To which I responded…

Oh. Hell. No! in #JenniferLawrence

However, after putting pen to paper, hyperventilating into a paper bag running some numbers, and discussing things over with Lisa, it made sense to maybe give it a whirl.

Besides it would have been a nuisance to try to sell or find storage for all the equipment I had purchased, not to mention attempting to find another space to train people out of sounded about as much fun as a prostate exam.

Plus, did I mention the studio is a mile from my apartment?

It’s a mile from my apartment.

Basically, there was no denying the convenience factor. And thanks to my wife’s support (and the lessons learned observing Eric and Pete all those years) the concept wasn’t too too daunting.

So, long story short: as of June 1st I took over the lease and have been busy in the time since making the space more aesthetically “me.”

  • Having more flooring/turf put in, purchasing some new equipment & storage items, and having a platform made.
  • New paint on the walls.
  • New logo (seen ^^^) and decals to go on the store front.
  • Adding in a smoke machine, black lights, and disco ball.

It’s nothing fancy-pants, but I’m pretty excited and darn proud of the initial result.

If you’re located in or around Boston (or stopping by Boston to visit)…don’t hesitate to reach out. Deadlifts and Tiesto will be waiting…;o)

Excuse me while I go try not to destroy the back of my pants.

Trial Run of Untitled 6-Week Beginner Course Coming Soon.

In the very near future CORE will be offering a 6-week beginner program designed to educate and prime people to become their own best health/fitness advocate.

The Initial Deets

1. The course will be six weeks, meeting 3x per week in a group setting (~2-4 per class), where the objective is to learn and hammer the basics, enhance movement quality, instill a sense of accountability and intent with training, and set the framework to make you more autonomous.

2. There will also be a nutrition and mindset component, where every other weekend the idea is to sit in on presentations and have questions answered from a Registered Dietician as well as an Exercise/Behavior Change Psychologist (Spoiler Alert: the psychologist is Lisa).

3. It will serve as a wonderful opportunity to surround yourself with like-minded people and become a part of a community who’s sole purpose is to help increase your general level of badassery.

4. Only 8-12 spots will be made available to start. And I’m not saying this to suggest a false sense of urgency or as a way to lure people in. I’m not kidding, only 8-12 spots will be made available.

5. Attendance subject to spontaneous rap battles.

I’d love to find out if there’s any interest in this sort of program from people in the Boston area. If so, please contact me via the “Contact” tab at the top of the website and I’d be happy to provide more details.