5 Drills for a Better Squat

Squatting is a fundamental movement skill, as children and babies we all squat, crawl and lunge but due to the demands of work and injuries through life we lose the ability, mobility and functionality to execute these drills correctly.

These stretches and drills below will help to improve the mobility in your hips, the ability to dissociate between lumbar and pelvis and functionality of using those muscles we have forgotten how to. 

1. The spiderman

Spiderman

Is a great mobility drill to improve adductor complex range of the lead leg, hamstring flexinbilty of the lead leg, hip flexor range of the trail leg and also the functionality of being able to balance on one leg.

This drill can be advanced further by using the elbow to drive the lead knee out. 

You can also add in thoracic rotation if the base of support is sturdy enough.

This drill can be alternated between legs as a much more dynamic free flowing drill or could be advanced into a bear crawl type drill on a track and move forwards and backwards.

2. Hip hinging

The ability to dissociate between the lumbar and the pelvis is vitally important for most fundamental tasks and inability to do this is often a cause of lower back pain.

In this drill, hold the broomstick or dowel along your spine, maintaining contact with your pelvis, mid thoracic and base of your skull.

Tuck your bum underneath your hips, tighten your gluteals and abdominals and try to stack each vertebra on top of one another. Now when you lean forwards maintain those points of contact with the broom and lean as far as possible. You will start to feel a pull along your hamstrings.

This can be advanced to a single leg arabesque exercise or an RDL. 

3. Gluteal Self Myofascial Release

The gluteal muscles are a common area for tightness and reduced mobility for a lot of us. They have a large pain referral pattern and trigger points here can spread far and wide. 

Using an Active ball, place it under your right gluteal, place your right foot onto your left knee and pick your bum up using your arms and shoulders. Gently roll forwards, backwards and side to side making sure to cover the whole gluteal area.

This should be followed by some gluteal stretching, one of the easiest to perform is by lying on your back, placing your right foot onto your left knee and hugging your left knee to your chest, completed for 20-30s after exercise for maximum improvements or prior to exercise in a dynamic stretch like a pigeon stretch.

4. Calf active rolling

Ankle range of movement plays a key role in the depth and quality of a squat, a squat where knees fall into a valgus position or where you can not achieve sufficient depth without having to raise on to your toes is often because of a lack of calf and ankle mobility.

 One easy way to improve ankle mobility and calf flexibility is through using an Active roller. By placing the roller under your calf you can either place one foot on top of the other or keep both feet on the roller. Pick your bum up and gently roll forwards and backwards, one simple way to ensure you can target the whole calf is by turning your toes in and out to affect the medial and lateral triceps surae group.

5. Gluteal strengthening 

Despite the gluteals being an area for tightness and trigger points they are commonly an area of underdevelopment too. The gluteals are made up of the gluteus maximus, gluteus minimus and gluteus medius, collectively they provide extension of the hip, abduction and external rotation. 

They reduce knee valgus a commonly seen dysfunction in the lower limb, which coincidentally is also a common mechanism for injury in the lower limb. Lateral knee pain, ITB syndrome, ACL injury and MCL injuries have a common predisposing factor to weak/ inefficient gluteals.

The gluteal muscles help to provide a lot of force during a squat (a fundamental movement) and triple extension mechanics. Triple extension is the principle by which toes are pointed, knees extended and hips extended fully to provide maximal force when running, jumping bounding. The image here shows Yohan Blake at London 2012 dricing out of the blocks with triple extension on his trail leg, full extension, abduction and external rotation. We need to train to be functional not aesthetical.