You Don’t Know Squats: Avoid These Five Squat Mistakes!

You Don’t Know Squats: Avoid These Five Squat Mistakes!

Colin McGarty

Are you squatting the right way?

Avoid these five squat mistakes to maximize your workouts!  The squat is a simple exercise that many people mess up.  In fact, we don’t recommend that you grab a barbell or any heavy objects for squats, until you can do some decent looking bodyweight squats first.  You will build a strong and sexy set of wheels, prevent injuries, and avoid achy knees with these five tips.

 

 

 

 

1.Keep Your Back Flat!

One of the biggest squat mistakes beginners make is to round their back.  This isn’t necessarily a problem with a bodyweight squat; however, as you start to add weight and load your spine, you are setting yourself up for a back injury.

The rule is to keep a neutral spine.  Many folks confuse this with an upright torso.  Some people, especially taller lifters will lean forward.  The forward lean is ok and natural, it’s more about keeping a neutral, flat back.  If you are rounding your spine time to fix it!

2.Keep Your Heels Down!

Many lifters naturally tend to lift their heels up as they descend into the squat position.  Squatting on your toes will increase your chance of knee, hip, back and foot injuries and severely limit your ability to move any substantial amount of weight in the future.  This is often caused by tight ankles.  If you are squatting heels up, time to stretch and mobilize the ankles, and you may want to place a weight plate under your heels while you are working on fixing it.

3.Your Knees Cave In!

A common mistake among many lifters is to have one, or even both knees, collapse inward during the descent of the squat. Trainers call this valgus knee or knock knee during squats.  This can contribute to knee injuries. Usually it can be fixed by coaching them to drive their knees out and it often is a sign of week glutes.  To avoid injury and fix this, practice shoving your knees out, possibly even placing a mini band around your thighs to reinforce the new pattern, and start working your glutes until the problem is solved.

 

4.Bouncing Your Squats

Avoid the twerk, or bouncing into the bottom position of your squats.  Ever seen a new lifter free fall into the bottom of a squat and then bounce back up?  Some elite lifters weightlifters use the bounce to rebound out of the bottom position of a squat.  This is referred to as compensatory acceleration.  However, if you are training for fitness you will get far more bang for your buck, and avoid injury by using a controlled tempo on you squat.  Stick with a speed that lets you feel the your muscles working.

 

5.How Low Can You Go?

Not everyone needs rock bottom, ass to grass, squats!  When I first started coaching I used to try and force this.  If your toilet seat is below parallel, then you need to squat below parallel just to take care of business…

BUT after watching hundreds of people squat, I now realize that the right depth varies from person to person.  Anatomy, flexibility, mobility and injury history are key factors in squat depth.  So, what’s the right depth?

Squat to the lowest point that still looks great and follows all the above rules.  If you look beautiful squatting to parallel, but then go below that, and you butt wink, rounding your spine, and your left knee collapses, don’t do it!  Squat to the lowest position that still looks great and allows you to maintain integrity.

 

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Four Week Kettlebell Workout for Strength

Grab two heavy kettlebells and try this strength workout!  You will get stronger, build some muscle and have fun throwing around the heavy double kettlebells!

On most of the exercises start with a weight that you can barely do four reps with and slowly build strength over the course of four weeks.  Practicing the movements three times a week with this high volume will lead to impressive strength gains and build some lean muscle.

Kettlebell Workout Instructions

Perform this workout three times a week on non-consecutive days.  Do five sets of each couplet.  Rest about 90 seconds between exercises.

Couplet One

Double Kettlebell Front Squat_SARA_2

 

Double Dead Clean and Front Squat

Renegade Rows

 

RenegadeRow_Andy_2015

Couplet Two

 

See-Saw Press

1.5 Deadlifts

 

 

Do the following repetitions each week: 

Weeks One: 5 sets of 2 repetitions

Week Two: 5 sets of 3 repetitions>

Week Three: 5 sets of 4 repetitions

Week Four: 5 sets of 5 repetitions

Week Five: Grab Some heavier kettlebells and start over!

 

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Avoid the Seven Biggest Push Up Mistakes!

I LOVE push ups!

My love affair with pushups began in the military where they are a staple exercise and measured during fitness tests. They are perfect for the military because you can do them anywhere, anytime. No equipment needed. The can be modified to train for strength, power or strength endurance.

Every Army Infantry “HOO-AH” school begins with a fitness test involving pushups. 48 is the MINIMUM number you need to squeeze by. Do less and you are cut from school.

The worst feeling in the world is hearing,

“47. 47. 47. 47. 47…”

Try doing your 48th push up about 20 times because the Cadre decides your form sucks, or they just want to play “f*ck-f*&k” games with you.

Avoid doing your 48th push up multiple time by making every rep beautiful!

 

 

Here’s the seven biggest push up mistakes:

Mistake 1: Your head hangs low!

If you can see your feet because your head is drooping down, your pushups are wrong!

Keep your spine neutral. Look three feet in front of your body while keeping your head neutral or in slight extension.

DON’T LOOK DOWN or at your toes!

Think of  lightly KISSING the ground with your forehead in the bottom position.

Mistake 2: You have wings!

 

Look at your upper back. If you have “scapular wings” you are setting yourself up for injury! It means the muscles in your back are not strong enough to keep your shoulders in an optimal position for push ups.

Regress your push up, by elevating your hands until your wings are gone. Go to a hands on the wall push up if necessary.

Shoulders should be pull down and back, lats engaged and scapula retracted.

Mistake 3: You flare your elbows too much!

Avoid impingement issues and keep your elbows at about a 45 degree angle from your body. Or less.

If you have chicken wings and your elbows are lined up with your ears on the push up it’s only a matter of time before you injure your shoulder.

Mistake 4: You look like superman, flying!

If your hands are placed way out in front of your body, under your head, etc you are asking for shoulder issues!

Try dropping your knuckles under your shoulders and remember to keep the elbows in to maximize the benefit of your pushups.

Mistake 5: Your booty is in the air!

Drop it down!

The pushups is fundamentally a plank. So engage your core.

Keep your lumbar spine neutral.

Tighten your glutes and push back on your heels.

Mistake 6: Your hips hit the ground first.

Se Mistake 3 above.

Pick your butt up!

Engage your core and and squeeze your cheeks!!! This will protect your lower back.

Keep your lumbar spine in a neutral position.

Mistake 7: You are doing Half Reps!

You can do 178 “Cheater McHalf-rep” pushups in a row.

Stop kidding yourself. You are doing half reps.

Don’t be a cheater!

At a minimum your chest should come about a fist length from the ground and on top your arms should lock out!  Even better touch your chest to the ground every single time and lock out.  There can be a time and place for reducing the range of motion; however most of the time you need to perform full range of motion exercises to get the most benefit.

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Five Deadlifts Hacks

Picking heavy things up and putting them down is AWESOME! The deadlift is one of the single best full body movements you can perform.

Here’s five tips that you may not already know, to make you a deadlift MACHINE:

1. Narrow Your Stance

One of the biggest errors we see on the conventional barbell deadlift is too wide of a stance.

Place your feet under your hips. This is probably narrower than you think!

For a good reference pretend that you are jumping and place your feet in the position where you feel like you can jump the highest. This will be you most powerful stance.

2. Make Your Arms Parallel

A lot of times people use too wide of a grip. If your grip is too wide, you will end up having to get lower to the bar to grab at. This is problematic for a lot of people. First, because you will have to pull the weight even farther to stand up—longer distance distance equals more work and less weight lifted. Second, many folks lack the flexibility to lock their spine into a neutral position when they have a wide grip

Make your arms parallel to the ground for optimal position.

3. Use a Staggered Grip

Your grip is a weak point on the deadlift. Make it stronger by staggering your grip. Strong hand on top,  weak hand underneath. A good rule of thumb is to line up ring fingers on the gnurling. Often times when clients add a staggered grip their arms do not line up, so using the knurling to measure your hand placement will prevent this.

Finally, always keep your arms locked because bending them will increase the likelihood of a biceps tear.

4. Take off Your Shoes and Get Comfortable

Dump the running shoes and anything with a large cushy heel on it.

You wouldn’t wear weightlifting shoes to run your next 10k, so don’t wear running shoes when setting a deadlift PR!

Go barefoot or use a minimalist shoe. The closer your foot is to the ground the better. It’s less distance to pull the bar  and lock out!

5. Use Chalk

Chalk is here for a reason! It will increase your grip strength. Stronger grip = more weight lifted! Chalk fills in the cracks increasing the surface area of your hand. The larger surface area creates a KUNG-FU grip. So chalk it up!

 

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How To Race a Hare and Win!

When racing against a hare it pays to be a tortoise!

You don’t need to be faster, or a better runner than the hare, you need to be more consistent for the long haul. The tortoise won the race with consistency.

Too many times we see clients go ALL IN—100%. They SPRINT.

They eat perfectly and follow meal plans to a tee. They run in the morning and hit a Team Training session in the evening. Literally, no mistakes!

This lasts for six days.

Then they are ALL OUT—–100% not working out, or eating well. They binge eat, drink for a week straight and get a crazy neck tattoo. We don’t see them for a month. When they return, they have gained 11 pounds, lost all progress, and then cycle begins again.

So, rather than perfection today, shoot for better than yesterday.

Strive for consistency on the basics.

Eat right 80% of the time and hit the gym three to four days a week for a year and you will see MASSIVE results. Skip perfection for 6 days followed by a binge eating session, a neck tattoo and not hitting the gym for 3 weeks.

Shoot for pretty good today.

Don’t wait for the perfect day to start.

Don’t wait for the perfect schedule, perfect meal plan or perfect workout to get started.

Do what you can NOW.

Focus on a little bit of progress TODAY rather than perfection.

 

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