A Primer for Building Foundational Squats

Many people ask me about teaching athletes to squat. So I thought I'd put together a post showing some of my "go-to" teaching movement sequences and share a few helpful points. This post will not go into any depth about working with people who have significant mobility restrictions -- we'll save that for a future post. But this should give you some practical tools and cues to help you build your process and progression. A word of caution -- I use capital letters in this post. 

And that's my first point: We all need a process. This is the process I've developed over the last 15 years or so. It's not perfect, but I've found it helpful -- for me. EVERYONE I work with uses this process. So everything I do within my system of programming builds from the elements in this process. New movements will have familiar elements of movements already learned. 

Second point: You will probably need to use a few explicit instructions at the start. Stance width. Toe out. Help people find this right away. And then let them know that these things are important to dial in for any kind of squat. Then give them frequent and consistent opportunities to feel themselves squatting. After a bit, you can give them different squat puzzles to solve.

Third point: Check for old myths lurking. Many people, even very young athletes, have heard the following statements: 1) Don't let your knees go over your toes; 2) Sit back; 3) Keep your weight on your heels; 4) Look up; 5) Chest up and back arched. Get rid of these ideas quickly and you'll see big changes in movement. You thought someone had limited ankle dorsiflexion, but really they were just trying like hell to keep their weight on their heels and not let their knees move forward.

My cues: Move down, not back. Elevator legs. Knees first. Full foot. Look straight ahead or even slightly down. Stay tall, you don't need to arch. 

We want to cultivate body awareness of spine vs hip flexion, but we do not have to go crazy with isolated hip hinging work. This is a topic for a whole separate post.

Remember that any load on the front or back of the shoulders will change the center of mass and likely affect mechanics. Sometimes you will need to preferentially use one or the other to build the awareness, comfort and confidence before someone progresses to the other. A medball can be a very effective external cue. "Get low and touch the ball to the ground, then get tall and reach the ball up to the sky." These simple instructions tend to -- but not always -- help people sort things out on their own.

I use the Medball Squat & Press Series to introduce the squat to everyone. Most people do it in every warm up session. Many elite athletes have used it on the road -- some at the top of the half pipe. It's a great recovery movement sequence: Squat & Press, Diagonal Ups, Rotations for a little active leg rest, Giant Circles and then faster Squat and Press to finish if there is the desire to move with some power.

I use Barbell Warm Up A to introduce all barbell squatting, basic barbell literacy and terminology. Let's get this clear: IF YOU ARE GOING TO ASK YOUNG PEOPLE TO SQUAT WITH A BAR, YOU NEED TO TEACH THEM HOW TO SQUAT WITH AN EMPTY BAR AND WARM UP WITH PROGRESSIVE LOADS BEFORE THEY DO THEIR HEAVIER WORK SETS. Every. Single. Session. And please, teach them how to load plates right and to know what weight their loaded bar is. Pounds and kilos.

If you are going to power clean, YOU MUST TEACH THEM TO SAFELY RACK THE BAR.

If you are going to clean, YOU MUST TEACH EVERYONE TO FRONT SQUAT WITH A PROPER RACK POSITION. This movement sequence helps anyone develop the wrist, shoulder and thoracic spine mobility to rack the bar properly.

Barbell Warm Up A: Muscle Clean, Front Squat, Press, Push Press Behind the Neck, Back Squat, Back Squat into Press. 3 or 5 reps each. Use 10 and 15 kg bars at first. Rest between exercises if you need to. If you do 5 reps of each movement, with a 20 kg bar, without rest, you will have built a nice bit of fitness. If you emphasize full grip on the bar from day 1, you will get the shoulder and spine mobility to fully grip and rack the bar properly. It will take time. If you release the barbell to the fingertips, you will not be asking the shoulders and spine to contribute their full share. If the athlete has a long history of bench press and short ROM lat pulldowns or pull ups, this may be a long and challenging journey. Pick your priorities.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE USE AN EMPTY BAR ONLY. This is mobility and body awareness movement sequence. No other load is EVER necessary. 

Barbell Warm Up B is for those who want to learn and use snatch-related movements in their training. IT IS VERY IMPORTANT TO LEARN HOW TO SAFELY SECURE A BARBELL OVERHEAD BEFORE YOU ASK ANYONE TO DO A WEIGHTED OVERHEAD SQUAT WITH A BARBELL. You must also understand the impact of grip width on wrist/shoulder loading. Torso lean and shoulder/spine position will be profoundly affected by any lack of ankle dorsiflexion. These are not trivial issues. Squat stance with the OHS may need to be a little wider than for front squat or bodyweight squat.

Barbell Warm Up B: Muscle Snatch, OHS, Snatch Grip Press Behind the Neck, Back Squat, Snatch Grip Push Press Behind the Neck, Snatch Balance.

I'm happy to go into greater detail on any of these movement sequences. Let me know if you have questions.