A Better Spinal Cue

Posted on May 12, 2014 by Justin

I was being coached on rack pulls and was told to arch my back as hard as I could. I did so, started pulling the weight, and YANK; there went something in my lower back. Severe sharp pain indicated the end of my lifting session as well as the next week or two of training. I didn’t know as much as I did now, but the injury — and time away from training — all could have been avoided with a better spinal cue.

There are two basic types of incorrect spinal position in lifting: over extension and over flexion.

Over Flexion, Round Back, or Lumbar Hyperkyphosis

Obvious flexion

This is the position that most coaches, especially the inexperienced, are most afraid of. It’s the default position for new trainees and very easy to identify. New trainees look like this because a) they do not have any kinesthetic awareness (i.e. have no control of what their body is doing), b) typically have no hamstring or lower back strength, and c) have very poor mobility.

Correcting kinesthetic awareness and mobility take time, so the quick and easy fix is to say “arch your back”. Usually this cue will improve a new trainee’s mechanics immediately, and usually hamstring strength, kinesthetic awareness, or mobility don’t have to be addressed for months. This means that people who only coach beginners will default into cuing “arch the back” and ignore other variables. If you neglect to address these variables and just focus on increasing the lifting load, then at some point they’ll experience an injury, great or small. Increasing the weight lifted is not necessarily synonymous with getting stronger.

Over Extension, Arched Back, Hyperlordosis

Too extended

This position is difficult to distinguish from a neutral (i.e. correct and optimal) spinal position, therefore inexperienced coaches overlook it. Experienced coaches occasionally think an overly arched back is acceptable to avoid a rounded back, but a good coach will cue the correct position to avoid injury.

Two areas are often affected by hyperlordosis: the thoracolumbar junction (where the thoracic and lumbar spine meet) and the lumbosacral junction (where the lumbar and sacral spine meet — see image below). These are easy landmarks any coach should be able to identify on their trainee, but don’t worry about the more complicated anatomy under the skin right now. Here we will focus on how the overly arched position is a great way to cause disc irritation or strain muscles.

Note the junctions between different areas of the spine. Click for larger view.

Why These Positions Are Bad

Both spinal position extremes, flexion and extension, can cause injury and are indicative of a lack of strength and positional control. Whether we call this kinesthetic awareness, neuromuscular efficiency, coordination, technique, or mechanics is irrelevant; let’s set the rhetoric aside and briefly discuss why each position is poor.

An overly flexed spine means that the related spinal muscles are not doing their job of holding the spine and pelvis in place. It’s important to remember the integration of spine and pelvis in lifting mechanics as it will determine stability, transmission of force, and subsequently overall strength. If the muscles aren’t doing their job, then they don’t get stronger. But a secondary impact is that other muscles can’t do their job when the spine and pelvis are out of position. The best and most obvious example is with the hamstrings.

A fantastic image I made long ago for this topic.

If the pelvis and spine are rounded — which is lumbar flexion and a posterior pelvic tilt — as they are on the right, then the hamstrings will be slack and the trainee will look like a dog pooping. If the spine and pelvis are in a neutral, stable position — a relative lumbar extension and anterior pelvic tilt — then it pulls the proximal (or higher) attachment of the hamstrings back, thus putting tension on them. If they are stretched and tense, then they can contract (left picture). If the hamstrings are slack and shortened, then they cannot be contracted any more and therefore will not contribute to the movement (right picture).

This example applies to the start of a deadlift or the bottom of a squat. Note the emphasis on “relative lumbar extension and anterior pelvic tilt” — if they occur too much then we can have the “over extension” problem.

Think of an overly extended spine as putting a kink in the body’s trunk, or something that weakens the transmission of force. However, unlike the rounded back, various muscles are contracted and maintaining tension, so everything may look and feel correct…until an injury occurs. This over extension puts a lot of stress on the vertebral bodies. Arching the back can open the intervertebral space in the front and close it in the back (see image below). Structures like the disc, tendons, muscles, or ligaments can fail in an acute injury and produce that “yanking” sensation followed by pain and inflammation.

Note how the posterior aspect could be pinched down under a load.

Note in the right image how the posterior aspect of the lumbar spine could be pinched down if this spine was loaded with a lot of weight.

This is not supposed to be a comprehensive look at acute or long-term injury, but merely a demonstration to understand how loading the spine in this way could result in one. Long-term loading with hyperlordosis can worsen or cause poor mobility issues as well as degenerative disc issues. Using poor mechanics chronically is probably the most common cause of lifting related injuries as they will cause nagging problems, or will result in a “final stroke” injury (see The Final Stroke).

How To Cue A Better Position

Enough talk about how and why, let’s correct it. The concept revolves around adding tension to the lower abdominals by simply contracting them a bit prior to moving the bar and maintaining the tension throughout the lift. No, this is not a monumental cue, but it’s something that many ignore and it can eradicate a lot of positional errors.

Simply contract the lower abs. They don’t need to be clenched like Houdini readying himself for a gut punch; just put some light tension — about 25 to 50%. Yet this cue must be accompanied by a solid “chest up” position. While standing in a neutral position — anatomical position will suffice for the teaching process — lift the chest towards the chin. Do not lower the chin to the chest, but lift the chest. This is thoracic extension and is the first step to good spinal positioning. Next, contract the lower abdominals, which are usually lower than the belly button. The trainee or coach can lightly press on the area to test the tension. Go ahead and contract them as hard as possible and then lighten the tension to 25 to 50%. Don’t worry about being exact, just maintain a little bit of tension. This creates lower abdominal tension, which is the second step to good spinal positioning.

Some people might call this “pelvic floor activation” or other five dollar phrases, but abdominal contraction will a) place tension on the abdominals to not allow the pelvis to anteriorily tilt, thus preventing an over-extension fault, b) helps actively increase the intra abdominal and thoracic pressure which increases the trunk stability which increases the transmission of force which inevitably increases lifting efficiency and safety, c) provides tension on the front of the pelvis to compliment the posterior chain’s tension, and d) ultimately helps keep the spine in a neutral, force transmitting position. I could probably write a single post on each one of those points, but I think you now understand why abdominal tension is helpful.

The biggest fault with contracting the lower abdominals is not emphasizing the “chest up” thoracic extension with it, which is why I make “chest up” the first step. If you contract your abs without “chest up”, you can possibly round your back and fall into the pooping dog model (extremely safe for work). Pooping dogs are funny, but not on the platform.

How I Integrate These Cues

I have a few rules for lifting, and one of them is, “Whenever the bar is moving, treat it like a maximal lift.” This means you put yourself in the most stable, efficient possible whenever the body is loaded regardless of the weight. That means a big, full breath is held with the chest up with tension on the lower abs. When I coach, I think in terms of “passive” and “active” cues. I want spinal stability to be a passive cue, meaning it is something that I shouldn’t have to cue and is routine to the trainee. If they always have good spinal position, I don’t have to cue it and can focus on the “active cues” associated with their mechanics in the lift.

We want a solid spinal position to always be there. Remember the steps from earlier:

1. Extend the thoracic spine
2. Contract the lower abs

After explaining what these concepts are and teaching their respective positions, I cue them with:

1. “Chest up”
2. “Lock the abs”

Remember that cues are supposed to be representative of a concept you concisely taught the trainee. You will almost always need to adapt the way you act, speak, and use terminology with your respective trainee. Teach the concept, teach the position, then use a short cue to remind them of that position. I like the simplicity of “chest up” and “lock down the abs” or “lock the abs”. I specifically teach trainees to lift the chest, take a big breath, and lock the abs when the breath is held. This gives them a sequence to perform every single rep on every single set. Lift the chest, take a breath, and lock the abs. It should be automatic, so teach it as such. If this is taught in a single session, then the coach only needs to occasionally remind the trainee and instead can focus on the mechanics of the squat, deadlift, and so on.

This spine is mostly neutral, but I figured you’d think it was nice to look at.

The Result…

…is a nice, neutral spine that transmits force without any spine or hip deviation throughout the lift. Most athletes, lifters, or trainees who don’t use this method would benefit from a short linear progression focusing on this spinal position (i.e. 2 to 4 weeks).

A strong, neutral spine will allow the hips to properly externally rotate during squats and pulls (a very important concept that leaves the scope of this post). It will also avoid subjecting the soft tissue structures around the spine from receiving force incorrectly, which is ultimately the best way to prevent lifting related injuries. Most linear progressions are associated with nagging aches and pains with the occasional injury that prevents training. Lifting does not cause injury; improper mobility and mechanics in lifting do. Anyone who tells you that injuries are a byproduct of training is just making excuses for hurting their trainees. You’ll probably experience an injury in your pursuit of strength, but they don’t happen “just because”. Lower spinal injuries are entirely preventable, and by using the cues described above — with appropriate mobility work, programming, and recovery — you can actively work to avoid injuries.

Some other articles you may be interested in are:
Rack Pull Tidbits
The RDL
The Butt Wink
Hyperlordosis
“Hip torque”, toe angle, and squatting

Soft Tissue Work Isn’t The Enemy

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Justin

It bothers me when people, even the educated ones, say that muscles are “just not firing”, as if there is a total lack of innervation in an otherwise healthy individual (i.e. no radiculopathy or motor unit issues). Sure, muscles can be rendered ineffective because of tightness or bad mechanics — and thus their inclusion in movement is impaired — but they aren’t “not firing”. Subsequently, you don’t “teach muscles to fire” in the absence of the pathology mentioned above. This was my first issue with the article “Your IT Band is Not the Enemy” by Robert Comacho.

There’s so much silly in-fighting in the strength and conditioning world I feel the need to preface this god damn article by saying I’m sure Robert is a nice guy, an effective coach, and I don’t think he’s a piece of shit. I’m just going to disagree with the point of his article and I’m sure he’s man enough to accept that. And if he’s not, then he’ll scream into his pillow.

I’m actually disappointed in this article since it said the foam roller may be the enemy, yet there wasn’t much evidence supporting the statement. There are a lot of things that can result in a tight iliotibial tract, or IT band, because there are quite a few structures that interact with it. The author is right in the roles of the TFL and the gluteus medius in how they attach to the IT band with their inferior (or lower) attachments and help stabilize the knee. The vastus lateralis (the outside quad) also has some IT interaction and can affect function in the area as well. Note that other muscles that don’t actually touch the IT band can exacerbate tightness or pain too. But describing articulations with the IT band is incomplete because movement and mechanics will dictate muscular function and therefore tightness and pain at the IT band.

Bad posture, movement, and lifting mechanics will influence what muscles are used, overused, or ineffectively used (though they will still fire, mind you). This is the stuff that will dictate whether or not muscles like the TFL, glute medius, or vastus lateralis are tight and whether or not the IT band incorrectly receives stress and loading. It leaves the scope of this article to detail a comprehensive look at mechanics that effect the IT band, but some mechanic faults include the navicular drop (collapsed foot arch), knees moving in on any movement including walking, running, squatting, etc., and having tight internal rotators at the hip and weak external rotators (for the IT band’s purposes, I’m referring to the posterior fibers of the glute medius). If none of that made any sense, it just means doing athletic stuff with shitty technique will cause IT band issues and that a coach should be fixing it.

But I want to focus on two ideas:
1. Soft tissue work is being demonized.
2. Readers are so quick to hear someone’s opinion and immediately accept it as gospel, stroke its dong, and revel in its post-coitus warmth.

The Demonization of Soft Tissue Work

Foam rollers increase range of motion and reduce pain. My IT bands are tight and my knees hurt. Therefore I should apply the roller to my IT bands to solve these problems, right? Unfortunately, more often than not the answer to this question is a resounding “no.” It’s quite possible you’re actually doing more harm than help and further stretching an already abused and over-elongated piece of tissue. (From Robert’s article)

Unfortunately, most people do roll on their IT band excessively to try to fix it. Robert is right to criticize this, but he makes it seem like there is no place for it and fails to acknowledge that good coaches will not prescribe this. In his defense, he does clarify that, “It wasn’t my intention to state that foam rolling/stretching have no place in this type of rehab, It was more to point out…that the solution may be a bit more complex. (From a reply of his in the comments).

Fair enough, but then why suggest in the title of the article that the foam roller is potentially the problem? That’s like saying guns are a problem instead of the psycho pieces of shit who wield them against innocent people. It may be Breaking Muscle’s fault (the website that published the article); I know that The CrossFit Journal gave my article a shitty title when they published it. A website or journal needs to sell, and unfortunately people are more likely to click something if it’s controversial or big boobs.

As much as people want to say foam rolling or using lacrosse balls is actually harmful, the practical evidence suggests otherwise. Should we just mash on shit when it hurts? No, sir. But well thought out and executed soft tissue work can not only improve a lot of issues, but they are necessary in the absence of a good physical therapist. If you — whether you’re a trainee or a coach — want to improve your knowledge about this, then get your nose in a book or a college class and learn musculoskeletal anatomy. Learn about biomechanics and how to optimally distribute force efficiently. Learn about trigger point therapy and different types of injuries. I wrote two articles (“Why Anatomy Is Important” and “Learning About Strength and Conditioning“) that include some resources about this material, but I’ve learned most of it by doing and thinking.

This article isn’t a guide on how to do soft tissue, but I want to defiantly stand against the notion that it’s the enemy. Stupid soft tissue work is the enemy, just like the stupid use of Valium and a heavy machinery is the enemy. Coaches and trainees who actually give a shit need to think, which leads me to my next point.

Use Your Fucking Noggin

Below is something I saw on Facebook.
A few things:

1. The post the person linked to is from “I Fucking Love Science”, which is a stupid fucking piece of shit Facebook page that is the epitome of irrelevant material and aims for self popularity instead of the dissemination of knowledge. Read Maddox’s entertaining article about it.

2. I really wanted to be way more of an asshole, but I actually have a pretty thick filter. The point: if there were a giant ligament in every person’s knee, don’t you think somebody would have noticed in the last 2,000 years?

3. People ate this steaming bullshit up and then asked for seconds and thirds. This is a problem.

Readers are so god damn quick to immediately and irrevocably believe whatever they are being told, regardless of the qualifications of the person writing it. It could be written by some goober who has never coached anyone or someone who has many degrees and athletes, but is borderline retarded.

As a consumer about training information, you need to be openly skeptical about everything you read or hear. Hearing something that makes you feel good or that you agree with doesn’t make it 100% true. If the coach who has been watching you squat for two years tells you to do something, they should have the ability and the proverbial balls to explain it to you, even if it’s merely a hunch or experiment.

When a guy like Robert writes an article that says your foam roller is the problem, don’t immediately say, “I FUCKING KNEW IT. THIS PROVES WHAT I’VE THOUGHT ALL ALONG.” Read what the dude is actually saying, question it, and see what info you can use. Discuss it. Think about it.

Foam rollers, rumble rollers, lacrosse balls, and Theracanes are not the enemy; our brains are. Let’s hold them accountable.

Efficient Training: Conditioning Technique

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Justin

My travels have led me to many gyms ranging from performance centers for special operations personnel to CrossFit gyms, from storage containers to globo gyms. There is a constant in all of these facilities: inefficiency.

One of the biggest training abominations is the lack of proper technique during high intensity conditioning workouts (which includes “met-cons”, CrossFit workouts, or otherwise). Typically lifting exercises, or derivatives thereof, are infused into high intensity conditioning with an attached performance standard. This is a fantastic way to create an abnormally high work output as an adaptive stress, yet not at the expense of making a decrepit athlete.

It’s hard to maintain technique while fatigued with a high ventilation rate (breathing hard). In fact, it’s actually beneficial to test an athlete or trainee’s ability to use quality technique while under duress as it can help them do so in their sport or job. For example, if a football player or soldier can’t maintain mechanics in the middle of the 4th quarter or towards the end of a mission, their body position could be compromised and opened up for poor performance or injury.

Yet executing poor positioning in a workout specifically designed to maintain it while fatigued is obviously missing the point entirely. Training needs to serve a performance enhancement purpose — an adaptive stress — instead of merely completing a task or workout.

Don't know if this is CF, and it's a power clean, but it has all of the same faults as a crappy thruster

I don’t think this is CF, and it’s a power clean, but it has all of the same faults as a crappy thruster

Using poor technique can have a future debilitating effect because of the trainee learning bad positioning, but crappy mechanics also loads musculature ineffectively. If a workout includes thrusters, then faults like the knees caving in, thoracic spine rounding, elbows dropping, and wrists cranking back into extension results in a) structures not being loaded properly and b) focusing the force application on the wrong structures. The former means the trainee doesn’t receive beneficial work on the related musculature and the latter means they end up putting stress on specific structures that cause or contribute to injuries. Nagging soft tissue injuries are almost always caused by doing many reps with poor technique. Mobility work can treat the symptoms, but the root cause will almost always be poor mechanics.

Proper technique that distributes the force across the musculature will use the maximum amount of muscles intended for a given movement. More muscles working most efficiently means more force production which results in optimal performance. Good mechanics = optimal performance.

If or when you conduct high intensity conditioning, ensure that you don’t compromise technique for the sake of doing the workout faster. If the work is too difficult — whether the weight is too heavy or the reps are too high — then account for this by adjusting the workout as you go, doing fewer reps per set, or by not programming that weight or number of reps in the first place.

If you are a coach, then ensure your trainees can conduct relevant movements properly before increasing the duress in a high intensity environment. Don’t put your trainee in a workout that allows bad positioning, and if their technique degrades, then cue them into efficient technique or throttle them back so they can maintain it. Sure, showing that your trainee hit a performance PR is nice, but not at the expense forgoing efficient movement mechanics. Your job as a coach is to instill good, natural movement mechanics that are transferable to any activity. This will always improve performance and mitigate injury.

Sacrificing good movement mechanics in high intensity conditioning training can lead injury, performance loss, and wastes everybody’s time. Aim to be efficient.

For more on mechanics and high intensity conditioning:
Quality > Quantity
The CrossFit Quads

Efficient Training: The Squat

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Justin

Though I’ve rehashed topics like this ad nauseam in the past (see additional links at end), it’s always good to revisit them and put them back in the fore front of readers’ minds.

445 for 5×5

The squat is the most important exercise anyone can do for any goal.

Want to get stronger and/or bigger? You’ll need to squat since it strengthens the legs and hips through a full range of motion while the trunk isometrically maintains position; it’s a full body exercise. And since it’s training the majority of the musculature in the body, it garners a systemic (i.e. large scale hormonal) response in order to heal the damage done from an effective squat workout. This systemic response is what augments any other lifting you’ve done in the same training session and is the adaptive stress that spurns recovery and strength gain.

Want to lose body fat? The systemic stress response from squatting means hormones are working in overdrive to recover — a process that requires calories and stimulates muscle repair and growth. By using calories and growing new muscle — and doing this regularly with consistent training — the body is in a hormonal environment that facilitates body fat loss. To this day I’ve never had a female trainee not lose body fat on a strength training program.

Want to get faster? The squat takes the hips through a full range of motion and accentuates hip extension — the fundamental athletic movement. The squat also inherently involves a stretch reflex out of the bottom; the musculature about the hips and thighs moves into a position of tension and quickly shortens, or contracts, to explode out of the bottom. The squat perfectly prepares the related musculature for speed and power training as well as teaching the trunk how to stabilize the spine and hips to efficiently transmit force while moving (an important aspect of sprinting). The act of improving absolute strength will decrease the difficulty of repetitive movement, resulting in the capacity for higher or faster rates of work.

By regularly loading the muscles, tendons, ligaments, and bones with a full-body movement like the squat through a full range of motion, these structures adapt to be stronger, more dense, and ultimately less likely to be injured.

However, in order for all of this to be the case, the squat needs to be performed efficiently with adequate mobility. And the first god damn step is squatting all of the way down — a point in which the hip capsule (acetabulum) is below the top of the knee (or patella). If you’re reading 70’s Big, then you most likely squat to full depth on each rep, but statistically speaking there are a few of you who don’t.

As I’ve said before: Every time you don’t squat to depth, I pour a beer down the drain. And I HATE wasting beer.

For the sake of the gods, let’s make this simple: a cue to help reach depth on any squat type is “shove your knees out”. Sure, there is a lot of other things we could focus on like stance width, toe angle, torso alignment, breathing techniques, chest positioning, eye gaze, and so on, but anyone can squat to depth if they shove their knees out. The rest will figure itself out.

Dat depth.

Shoving the knees out externally rotates the hips to point the femur out away from the mid-line. It helps clear the femur from impinging on front of the hip capsule and surrounding tissue and allows for more hip flexion, AKA depth. It also helps create the “torque” at the hip that Kelly Starrett frequently talks about and results in distributing the force application across the hips and thighs efficiently (more on that here). It can help if the “knees out” cue is originating at the outside of the hips (imagine a twisting motion on the lateral hip that results in the knees out).

Since I’m preaching to the choir about squatting to depth, it’s up to all of you to help your friends do the same. If you frequent a gym and establish relationships, then it is your honor-bound duty as a lifter to help them. Don’t be a dick and just ask them if they mind if you say something about their squat — most people are very open to this because they secretly have no fucking idea what they are doing and ultimately have six pounds of anxiety building in their chest. Don’t over-complicate the matter — make simple and quick adjustments and give them a single cue before sending them back to the bar. For example: narrow up the stance, change the toe angle, then just have them think knees out — the first two are passive cues that they don’t have to think about and the last is the only active cue they worry about.

Whether you’re a half squat abuser or you are guilty by proxy, spread the word that the only way to squat is to full depth.

More 70’s Big articles on squatting:
A Half Squat Is Not A Squat
Squat All of the Way Down
Low Bar vs High Bar Squatting

AC Discusses Squats

Posted on April 24, 2013 by Cloud

Here’s the third installment of “AC teaches you how to do stuff more awesomely.” So far, he has gone over some tips on how to press better and how to bench better. Today, he goes over how to coach the squat.

There are two basic variations of the back squat: High Bar and Low Bar. They’re two different squats, but there are semi-similar ways to go about learning/doing/coaching them.

I want to help you teach the squat in general. First and foremost, you are going to to have the athlete stand in front of you like a mirror. Next, you are going to tell them to place their feet shoulder width apart. Just like the grip on the bench, this stance will provide the longest ROM with the most musculature utilized in the lift. It’s similar to the bench in that it’s harder to put your femurs into external rotation the wider you go (shoving your knees out). Next, their toes are going to be slightly pointed out. This will allow the athlete to shove their knees out to perform full ROM and get external rotation more than if their toes were pointed straight. If the toes are straight (most athletes don’t have the mobility to accomplish toes straight and knees out) and the athletes knees are forward instead of out all that muscle and bone and fleshy area of the hip/femur mash into one another making it harder to achieve depth. With that said, have the athlete squat down to depth and stay down there. Note: this is without the bar. Have the athlete take his hands, put his palms together and with his elbows, shove the knees out. All of this is being down while maintaining extension in both lumbar/thoracic spine (WE ARE STILL AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SQUAT).

Now this leads into the low-bar squat. Low bar uses a little more hamstring than a high bar, but if your athletes are doing a lot of cleans (full cleans) then the high bar may be of more use to you because the squat in the clean is similar to a high bar squat.

In case I lost your attention…

From there you are going to walk around behind the athlete and place your hands on their low back/hips and apply slight pressure. The weight should be placed right over the middle of the foot, roughly where you tie your shoe laces. THIS IS WHERE ALL THE WEIGHT IS ON A LOW BAR. You are then going to tell them to “DRIVE” their hips into your hands. This emphasizes “Hip Drive,” which is what low bar squatters use to rebound out of the hole.

Notice my hips driving me out of the bottom. Also notice how I maintain my bar position because my spine is in extension. Have them do this once or twice to get a feel for it. Another thing to note here: Their head position is neutral with their eyes fixed on a reference point a few feet in front of them. They ARE NOT LOOKING UP. Looking up destroys the tension that you attained through eccentric contraction in the hamstrings. The hips and knees move forward losing that stretch reflex. You can demonstrate this by doing a 3rd and 4th rep with the athlete in this demo phase. Have the athlete look at the ground a few feet in front of them and then command them to drive up (hands still on the hips), then have the athlete look up as hard as they can (like most coaches tell them too). Squatting should be significantly harder now. Keep in mind this is for the low-bar. You can get away with that more in the high-bar, but it’s not a good spinal position.

Now you can take them to the barbell. Start with just the bar and then move from there. For the low bar, the barbell sits along the spine of the scapula. It’s almost like a ridge that your body creates when you place yourself under the bar. When the athlete is under the bar, move so you can be in a position next to them. From there you are going to give them the last little touch up cues. When they unrack the bar it should coincide with a large breath of air and extension of the spine. Reference my video if you need to look again. Also, when they unrack it their elbows should be applying downward pressure on the bar. Do not let their elbows slack down. All the weight of the bar is on their back NOT on their arms. Again, notice in the video how my elbows stay high. They are going to take roughly two steps back and take the same stance they had when you were teaching them before. Now right before they go, you will tell them 2 last things: A: They are going to have to shove their knees out without their elbows, and B: They are going to REBOUND out of the bottom, so basically they aren’t pausing at the bottom.

Notes:

Take a big breath and hold it for each rep. Each rep gets a new breath and it gets held FOR THE WHOLE REP.

At all times their eyes should be fixated on a reference point. It is hard to maintain balance if they are looking around.

Cues for Low Bar Squats:

“Knees out.” The athlete shoves their knees out for external rotation. Easier ROM, more musculature in the lift.

“Mid-Foot.” If you see the athlete shifting their weight, it can change the mechanics of the squat. This cues them to put their weight back on the middle of the foot.

“Drive.” This will remind the athlete to use his/her hips when they rebound out of the hole.

“Bounce.” This is tough for some people to get, but they essentially have to rebound out of the hole off of their hamstrings, using that eccentric contraction we talked about earlier. This is more of an advanced cue – for beginners, think “control down, fast up.”

Moving on to High-Bar Squats

The High Bar is similar in a few ways, but the bar placement is placed (higher) on the traps. This bar placement changes a few things. The torso has to maintain a more vertical position throughout the lift. The more vertical the torso, the more acute (closed) the knee angle will be. The “knees out” cue stays the same – it’s crucial for both styles of squats. The cue that changes here is “Mid-Foot.” The weight is emphasized on the heel, NOT the mid-foot. Put emphasis on “heels” on the way down and up. “Knees out” is just as important — common for lifters to bring them in at the bottom and on the way up in the high bar variation.

For more discussion on Low Bar and High Bar squats, see Justin’s article on the subject. Remember, neither of these articles is telling you exactly which is better for your situation, or demonizing either variation. If you’re confused, discuss the subject with your fellow lifters, your coach, and contemplate the issue quietly in the godswoods. Or, you know, try ’em both, and shit. If you can’t hit 4 or 5 plates with both variations, you should probably just do more of them. – Jacob