Exercise of the Week: Improve your Squat Today!

Increase Hip Mobility and Thoracic Extension with Overhead Squats

By John Gaglione

Over the next few weeks I will be outlining some exercises that will help improve squat technique. Squats are one of the best exercises to improve leg strength. Squatting is also a fundamental movement pattern to learn since a good squat requires a great deal of mobility in key areas for athletics. A well executed squat requires mobility from the ankles, hips and the thoracic spine, which can help transfer to a solid athletic stance on the field. The problem is many people do not know how to squat properly or they may not have the adequate mobility to do so. The cook squat to overhead squat is a great way to teach someone how to squat with proper form as well as gain mobility.

The most common mistakes I see when people are performing squats are that their backs are rounded, their knees cave in, and weight shifts forward causing their heels to come off the ground. Many of these mistakes can be due to a hip , ankle, or thoracic spine mobility limitation or it can be form related. This exercise will help improve mobility in these areas as well it well help reinforce good technique to those athletes who already possess adequate mobility.

In the first part of this exercise the athlete will set up in their squat stance will the toes pointed slightly out. As a general rule of thumb the wider the squat stance the more the toes will flare out to the side. In general most athletes will want to set up with a moderate stance, where as a powerlifter might want to set up wider in order to limit the range of motion so he or she can squat more weight. The athlete will grab the insides of their feet and pull themselves down into a deep squat position. They want to “keep their chest proud” and be able to “wiggle their toes”. This will ensure the spine is in a safe position and the weight is shifted toward the heels. This part of the move places emphasis on stretching out the hips and improving ankle mobility. The athlete should also push their knees outside of their forearms. This will ensure the knees track the feet and stay “out”.

The coach should really emphasize keeping the chest up becuase it is very common for the athlete to pull themselves so far down that their lower back(lumbar spine) rounds and the pelvis shifts backward(posterior pelvic tilt). I have included a picture below, which does a pretty good job of illustrating this. The person in the picture is squatting deeper than should with his hip mobility.

From this position the athlete should actively pull the shoulder blades down and back (retract and depress) even harder and bring the arms overhead while sitting back in the deep squat position. Make sure when the athlete lets go of their feet that their body doesn’t change position.  The athlete should proceed to drive their heels into the floor and execute the overhead squat. The athlete would then repeat for a given number of repetitions. This part of the exercise helps to improve thoracic spine extension and improve the function of the stabilizer muscles in the upper back while squatting. By keeping the arms overhead it will also help teach the athlete to keep the chest up.

This exercise will help improve squat technique with our athletes. I like to use this move as part of the dynamic warm up, but it can certainly be used as a strength building exercise for young athletes  as well. The cook squat to overhead squat will help build mobility in the ankles, hips, and thoracic spine and can be a great addition to your dynamic warm up. I will continue to included more drills like this to help improve the squat and other big lifts as well.

I hope you enjoyed the exercise of the week! Any question please feel free to leave a comment or e-mail me at gaglionestrength@gmail.com. Keeping training hard!

Educate, Motivate, Dominate

-Coach Gaglione