Is it okay for your knees to go past your toes during a squat??

February 19, 2018Leave a comment

Quick tips on when it’s okay for your knees to go past your toes.

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Knees going past toes is a natural human movement pattern during many skills e.g. jumping – in particular jumping forwards. It usually only becomes an issue when involving weights – particularly in beginners.

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❌ If during the deepest part of the squat, the bar position is above the toes (green line). This is indicative of dangerous amounts of force being put through the knees.

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✅ If during the deepest part of the squat, the ‘bar’ position is above the midsole. This suggests the force of lifting the ‘bar’, is being more evenly distributed through the knees & hips – reducing chances of a knee injury.

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🔑 Shifting your body weight back away from toes & into midsole & heel. Practice this during your unloaded warm up drills. ▫️

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Alternatively, if focusing on promoting sport specific movement patterns – like those in sprinting – shifting weight into toes is preferable.

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🔳Bridging The Gap Between Strength & Performance🔳©️

🏋🏻‍♀️ @ann_lovi @cctheplantbasedpt .

*Notes to user* There are also other important variables to consider when allowing knees to go past toes. DM me for more detailed advice.

The difference between Jump Squatting & Plyometrics

February 3, 2018Leave a comment

Quick tips for understanding the difference between Squat Jumping exercises and Plyometric exercises. I see a lot of people getting them mixed up. They’re both good for your body, but each produces differing results – and which one you should do, depends on your goals.

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1. Normal Squat Jumps – typically mean, a DEEPER (fuller) range of movement on the ascent & decent phases. This is good, because it works more muscles, raises the heart rate higher, and burns ‘more’ calories. So it’s great for HIIT and Body sculpting workouts.

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2. Plyometric Squat Jumping – requires as short a ground contact time as possible, thus a shallower range of movement – less time between decent and ascent phase. This is how you appropriately utilities the muscle/tendon stretch shortening cycle aka a plyometric movement. This type if exercise is perfect for increasing running speed & jump height (but not exclusively so). In fact, studies have shown that true plyometric movement is one with a ground contact time of less that 0.2sec. Anything longer than that, actually shouldn’t be called plyometrics 😱

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So why do one or the other? – I recommend, if your goal is to lose weight or burn fat then normal squat jumping is probably the better choice. However, If you play any sport like tennis, football, rugby or track & field and want to improve your running speed, Jumping ability & or agility then plyometric squat jumping is better.

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**Note to user**

I’m not saying that one type of squat jumping can’t produce the physical adaptations of the other, just that one is more efficient at it than the other. Furthermore, jumping based exercises are not for beginners, if you have poor technique you can do yourself SERIOUS short term and long term damage.

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🔳Fall in love with the process and the results will come🔳

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🔳Stay Perpetually Alpha🔳 ©️

Improving High Bar Back Squat Performance

January 29, 2018Leave a comment

Quick tips for improving high bar back squat performance. Force production is a key underpinning factor in squat performance. In this case performance = how heavy you can lift.

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1. Stretching the soleus – This mobilises your ankle joint and the surrounding musculature. Preparing it to move more deeply and efficiently during the descent phase of the squat.

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2. Hip Flexor Dips – Relaxed and lengthened hip flexors will allow more mobility in the surrounding musculature of the hip joint. Specifically, it will allow fuller hip extension (butt squeeze) at the top of your squat. Which is useful for re-aligning your hips before restarting the next rep. And a good habit to into for future progression into jumping based exercises.

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3. Adductor stretch – This type of groin stretch will open up your hips, and allow you to sit more comfortably in the wider the shoulders feet stance of the back squat. Helping you shift your body weight backwards into your heels, which helps activate your glutes more.

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4. Squatting with a weight held in your out stretched hands. This drill and it’s gradual progressions of less weight/no weight/hands behind head, is to slowly teach you how to properly distribute your body weight back into hip muscles and heels when at the optimal & safest point of force production in your squat (90 degrees).

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5. Position feet slighter wider than your shoulders – this can be key for lifting heavier. Squat width is variable, depending on what muscles in your legs you want to focus on. But if you want to lift as much as possible, within whatever rep range you’re working at then you want to activate as many muscles as possible. And this wider squat stance will recruit your adductors more increasing the potential for force production and a heavier lift. Furthermore, a wider stance helps move the hips more freely, facilitating the parallel squat.

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Thank you @megan for being my demo girl! Who knew your dab was so POWERFUL

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🔳Fall in love with the process and the results will come🔳

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**Note to user**

This is not an exhaustive list, and there are other ways to improve high bar back squat performance & technique.

Improving posture during dead lifting

January 28, 2018Leave a comment

Quick tips for improving deadlifting in individuals who cannot hip flex while maintaining a ‘straight’ back. In my experience this is due to tight hamstrings inhibiting the movement. However, i found it can also be simply due to lack of familiarity with this movement pattern. In both cases, this progression scale can help.

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1. PNF (contract and relax) stretching of the hamstrings to increase their length over time. This increased length should allow for a greater degree uninhibited hip flexion. This is best done with the assistance of a partner, but using a towel for resistance works too.

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2. Dead lifting on your knees from an elevated platform (I feel like i invented this regression 🤓 but I probably didn’t). This removes the inhibiting hamstrings out of the equation, helping you effortlessly hip flex with a ‘straight’ back. Add an olympic bar to increase difficulty.

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3. Dead Lift standing upright, with the bar on an elevated platform. This progression will help use the newly learned correct hip flexing and posture technique in a practical sense. While still staying within the limits of hamstring flexibility. As the hamstring length increases over time, keep reducing the hight of the platform pushing your ability to maintain the correct posture deeper and deeper into dead lift.

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4. Perform the conventional dead lift like a BOSS.

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🔳Fall in love with the process and the results will come🔳

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**Note to user**

This is not an exhaustive list, and there are other ways to improve dead lifting technique. Furthermore their effectiveness will be determined by what the underlying causes for the biomechanical deficiencies.