Posts Tagged with "squat technique"

You’re Not Broken If You’re Asymmetrical. You’re Normal.

One of the more flagrant “mic drops” I toss down whenever I speak to a group of fitness professionals (remember when we used to be able to do that in person?) is that forcing people to adopt a symmetrical stance while performing basic lifts such as deadlifts or squats is more likely hurting people rather… Read more

A Tale of Two Squat Patterns: An Assessment Case Study

I know, I know. What a dry, bland, title for a blog post. But if I would have titled it what I wanted to title it: “That Time I “Fixed” Someone’s Squat In Five Minutes, BOO-YAH, God Damn I’m Good. And While I’m Here Bragging About Myself: Did I Ever Tell You About That Time… Read more

How to Address a Hip Shift During Your Squat

Do you exhibit a hip/weight shift (swaying to the left or right) when you perform a squat? It’s one of the more annoying things that can happen in the weight-room. It ranks somewhere in between people who don’t re-rack their weights and kipping pull-ups. Admittedly, it’s rather common and almost always a benign occurrence; most… Read more

Will Squatting Make You Tight?

Short Answer = No. Long(er) Answer = Read more below. Will Squatting Make You Tight? I can’t believe we still have to have this “debate” in 2020. While it’s not nearly as prevalent of a thought process as a decade or two ago, there are still people out there under the impression that lifting appreciable… Read more

Stop Corrective Exercising People to Death

There’s a prevailing thought in the fitness industry – particularly amongst personal trainers and coaches – that everyone we come across is somehow broken or dysfunctional, and that in order to make things “right” we have to resort to an onslaught of endless corrective exercise protocols before a barbell is even looked at. You know:… Read more

Alignment Affects ROM

I had a new client start at CORE recently who, before we even met in person, let it be known that 1) he hated techno and 2) he hated squats. Well, why don’t you let me know how you really feel? Personally, whenever I email someone for the first time, my approach is to just,… Read more

Individualizing Your Squat Stance

I’ve often championed the notion that there’s “no such thing as textbook technique.” How we’re taught to execute certain exercises in a textbook often won’t translate to the real world because, well, we don’t live in textbooks. This is a theme that’s hit on several times in The Complete Trainers’ Toolbox. Sam Spinelli, one of… Read more

The Big Toe and the Squat

Two things with regards to the title of today’s post: I’m thinking it could pass for the title of the next big children’s book. Searching stock images for “big toe” pretty much made me want to throw up a little in my mouth. I’d place it  somewhere between kipping pull-ups and gonorrhea in terms of… Read more