How To: Barbell Squat | 3 GOLDEN RULES! (MADE BETTER!)

I bet the first time you all try GOLDEN RULE #1, it will change your squat life forever! All about them simple and helpful tips! Now show me your gains Nation! What exercise would you like to see next?

(1:43) - Maximize Your Squat For More STRENGTH, FLEXIBILITY, BALANCE & OVERALL POWER! -    • Maximize Your Squat For More STRENGTH, FLE...  

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Today we’re going to go over the 3 golden rules for the barbell back squat. I also have a bonus rule at the end, so make sure you read the entire article!

Golden Rule #1: Always Go Ass To Grass! (ATG)
We’ve all seen the quarter squats in the gym, where someone loads up the bar with about 7 plates on each side, and they proceed to squat down about 1 inch. That is doing NOTHING. Then there are some of you who may only be going down halfway (to parallel) and coming back up, and believe it or not that’s actually placing more tension in your knees by stopping and then having to get things going at halfway, compared to going all the way down.

If you want to avoid acute or chronic pain in your knees, you need to teach your body full range of motion (ROM). Full ROM is going all the way down, keeping your chest up, ass to grass, and then coming all the way back up to the top on every single repetition. If you’re not able to go full ROM yet, obviously you might have some flexibility issues, but I do have another ARTICLE that can help with that.

When I first started going true ass to grass squatting (all the way down, all the way up), I had to SIGNIFICANTLY lower my weight in order to be able to do that. Something you can do right now to see what it feels like to go all the way down, is put some weight on the bar (about 95lbs or 135lbs depending on how strong you are). Then go down into the bottom position, and try to move your feet around and see what feels the most comfortable to stay in that position, because your form is going to change when you go ass to grass. For me, I used to squat with my feet a little too close, and that was preventing me from going all the way down. So what I had to do was try different foot stances, and go all the way down, and adjust my body in the bottom position to get used to that to perform my reps.

Golden Rule #2: Push Through Heels / NOT TOES!
Again, proper ROM is ass to grass, but when you push up, you push through your heels, so that your feet stay flat the entire time. What often happens when people squat (usually in the beginning due to people having tight ankles or poor ankle flexibility), is that as they go down, the heels start to come off the ground, then they push through their toes to get back to the starting position. If you have poor ankle flexibility, you should probably address that before you start squatting heavy.

What can also happen is that maybe your ankle flexibility is good now, but because you were squatting wrong for so long and pushing through your toes, you’ve developed a faulty recruitment pattern where your body is used to recruiting certain muscles more during a squat. You should be recruiting a lot more glutes and hamstrings, but because you’re pushing through your toes, you’re recruiting a lot more quads and that might be pushing your knees in, causing valgus knee collapse, which can lead to a meniscus tear in your knee, and a lot of other injuries. You definitely don’t want that to happen, especially as you start squatting heavier and heavier weight. If anything, when you squat, you should be focusing on pushing your knees out, and then keeping your knees pushed out as you perform the movement to avoid valgus knee collapse altogether.

So how can you correct this issue if you’re starting to do it? The easiest way would be to get a pair of lifting shoes, because those are going to elevate your heels a little bit off the ground. If you don’t have lifting shoes, you can get a pair of 5lb plates (I wouldn’t go to 10lb plates, just stick to 2.5lb or 5lb plates), and you can put your heels on the plates.

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