Transcription
If you're over 60, this is the worst way to squat, but it's exactly how I see most people doing it. And squatting like this quietly puts you off balance and is one of the worst ways to build your strength.
But in this video, I'm going to show you the safer, smarter squat that protects your joints and helps to keep you strong. In my 10 years of practice, I've noticed so many people squat like this with their arms straight out in front, leaning forward. And yes, it does feel easier, but it's easier because your body is secretly compensating in all the wrong ways.
And when you put your arms out in front during a squat, your body uses them like a counterweight. It stops you from falling backwards, but only by forcing your body to lean forwards. That forward lean does three things, none of which are good after 60.
First, it shifts the load into the knees instead of the hips, which can be a problem if you've already got some knee pain. And second, it reinforces poor balance because you never teach your body to truly stabilize itself. And third, it reduces glute activation, which is the exact opposite of what we need to stay strong and independent.
Look at the two side-by-side videos of me squatting now. And you can see on the left side, my arms are out in front, which brings my center of gravity really far in front of my body. That makes me off-balance. And if I was to take my hands away, I would definitely fall back.
But if you look at the other squat, that's me without my arms out in front. And I've trained my body to keep my center of gravity closer to my body, which means I'm much better balanced than when my arms are away from my side.
So, how do we fix it? Well, let's turn your squat into something that actually works for your body. And I'm going to teach you my stability-first squat method, which is a simple three-step technique to transform your squat and make it twice as effective as it currently is.
Now, before I show you it, I just need to make you aware it's not suitable for everyone, and please avoid it if you've got pain.
Now, the first thing we're going to do is a counterweight squat, which I call the goblet squat, which is a great replacement for having your arms out in front. Because if you take your arms away straight away, yeah, you're going to feel like you're going to fall backwards if you're used to doing it like this. But there's a way that we can get a double benefit whilst fixing the problem at the same time.
So, for this, you're going to need a small weight or a bag filled up with books and we're going to hold it tight to our chest like this. So, going to take my weight, hold it with two hands in like this, and instead of having my arms out in front, they're now here. But because I've got a little bit of weight in front of me, now when I start to squat down, it's going to compensate for the loss of those arms out in front by just ever so slightly shifting center of gravity forward. And that's going to keep me well balanced.
But the nice part about doing it like this is we can also make a squat harder. Because for most people when they try and progress their squats, they just do more reps. But after a certain point, that isn't the best approach. The best approach is to try and make the movement harder. And when you've got a bit more weight in your hands, that's an easy way to do so.
So, the counterweight squat looks like this. You're going to do exactly what you did before with your arms out in front, but you're going to hold a weight. And this will a) keep you stable, but b) make the movement more challenging, so you'll get stronger as well.
And by the way, before we move on to the next step of the stability-first method, if you want a step-by-step routine that's tailored to your exact level of strength and mobility, why not check out my free Stronger for Life road map. You can find a link to it in the description box below this video.
Anyway, let's have a look at the next step now, which is something that almost everyone gets wrong when they squat. When you squat, your feet are your foundation. And one of the reasons people feel so poorly balanced when they squat is because they put their weight through the wrong parts of their foot. Too much on your heels and you'll fall back and too much on your toes and you end up stressing your knees up here.
Instead, what you need to do is focus on pressing your weight into three specific points. And we call this the tripod foot setup. You want your big toe, your little toe, and your heel. This instantly improves your balance and stops that common wobble when you get to the bottom.
So, I've got my shoes and socks off now to show you the tripod setup. What you're going to do is put your feet about shoulder width apart. And we want to push down with the big toe, then push down with the little toe, and then make sure our weight is going through our heels on both sides.
Now, this won't feel like that much is happening, but it sets you up perfectly for the squat. And once you're pressing those three points into the floor, you can now sit down nice and comfortably and then come back up and you'll be perfectly balanced right throughout the squat.
Now, let's look at that final element to our stability-first squat method, which is so simple, yet so many people miss it. The final element to a proper squat is what you do with your posture. And to fix your posture when you squat, you need to do something called the hip back, chest tall technique. And here is how it looks.
So you're going to start off standing tall like this. And the first thing you're going to do is try and sit back as if you're reaching for a chair just behind you. So I'll show you that movement again. We're not moving anything else. Not our knees, not our back, just our hips. So pushing the hips back as if you're about to reach for a chair. They'll stop way before you lose your balance.
And then the second part of the movement is we're going to push our chest out at the same time. Okay? So, we're going to go hips back, chest out, and then we bend the knees. Now, this sounds so simple, but it can be transformative for people who've never done it, just to put it in that sequence. So, hips back, chest out, and then bend.
And that almost magically improves your balance when you squat. It stops you from tipping back and it stops you from doing that rounded kind of squat that many people do. That can become problematic when we start to add weight to the movement. Because if you're anything like most people I speak to, you want to progress over time. And to do that, we eventually have to add weight to the squat. And if we can't squat without weight, how are we supposed to squat with weight?
So that is how you fix your squat. And when you put those three things together, the counterbalance, the tripod technique, and then the sit back, chest up technique, you're going to magically fix your squat in just a few weeks of practice.
And if you want to learn what might happen to your body if you commit to doing the right kind of squat for 30 days in a row, click the video on the screen right now and I'll show you. And I'll see you over there.