Your Squats Ain't Worth SQUAT If You Keep Making This One BIG MISTAKE !

Lauren 'LC' Wells
Oct 28, 2015
6 min read

So you are probably giving me the mean face right now because I trashed talk your squat!

Yeah I said it!

Your squats aint worth SQUAT. . .

if you don't do this one very important thing I'm about to tell you in a moment.

I want to open the eyes of many of you who are out there working on getting FIT!

Especially those who are doing this powerhouse exercise!

I believe it's very important to become self aware of your body and knowledgable of exercises you are doing before you actually do them to prevent any injuries.

Take it from me!

I've had several injuries after being rear ended by a pick-up truck from a car accident years ago resulting to a couple slip disc, hip impingement and minor head injuries. Although that sounds bad, at the time I didn't realize how injured I was. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know I had these injuries until 3 years later!!!

YES...3 YEARS later!

So after three years and many workouts later, exercising with these unknown injuries caused them to worsen. All because I didn't know to properly warm up which I will be sharing with you in a bit. Now I knew I was a little 'banged up' and noticed I couldn't do certain exercises how I did prior to the accident, but I had NO IDEA that I was almost handicapping myself by not doing exactly what I am about to tell you to do prior to exercising.

There are a few things that are very important you may need to pay attention to before you are performing certain exercises.

Let's talk about one exercise in particular. . . .

Squats!

One of the best and most popular exercise that should be in everyone's workout routine. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, build muscle or both! Even if you are injured, believe it or not squats may help and stregthen your muscles leading you to a speedy recovery. Of course this varies on the injury. Be sure to check with your physician prior to performing any exercises. When I started implementing squats (weighted squats that is) into my strength training program, I recovered pretty fast and quickly gained strength that I NEVER had! Even before my car accident.

This is me squatting 145lbs! Oh yeah baby!

Squats are one of the best exercises. They burn more calories per rep than almost any other move! Although, it's one of the best exercises it can be difficult and cause injuries if not done properly.

First, if you’re going to be doing any kind of squatting exercise you should focus on this one thing prior to performing and exercise!

ACTIVATE!

Many people fail to do this before squatting. This ONE MISTAKE can be the leading cause of an injury.

By activate- I pretty much mean "turn on" the muscle getting them warmed up ready to go! When squating activating your posterior-chain (back) muscles such as lower back, glutes and hamstrings before performing squats are important. These muscles should be the main muscles engaged when squattingn which is why it is vital they are activated first. However, there are many of you out there whose posterior muscles are lounging around having a slumber party!

And why is that?

A lot of people are anterior-chain (front muscles) dominate and are mostly using their quadricep (thigh) muscles when squatting, which causes them to squat over their knees which eventually can causes knee pain and lower back pain due to leaning forward especially when squatting with weight.

I have heard many times from my own personal clients and prospective clients tell me they can't squat or are afraid of squatting because it hurts their knees or back. The key is making sure you are using the right muscles and not over compensating over-active muscles and to do that is to ACTIVATE the under-active muscles FIRST!!

So how do I activate under-active muscles?

You want to perform exercises that engages your glutes and hamstrings. I, myself perform bridges before squatting and I also make my clients do them as well. Performing single-leg bridges first and bridges on both legs second. (Don't worry I'll show you how in the video below.)

It's great to train single leg first because it allows you to work on stability which allows you to engage your core more and allow you to train each leg individually rather than one leg being more dominate than the other. I would recommend doing at least 3 sets of 10-12 repetitions.

For a challenge: You can perform your bridges with your feet elevated using a step, bench, TRX, bosu ball. You can also progress the exercise by adding weight at your waist using dumbbells or a barbell making it more challenging requiring you to use your glutes muscles more. Now that you know how to get your glutes and hamstrings all fired up, let's talk about the proper way to squat!!

Before you get too excited and start copying people you see in the gym or online- DO NOT SQUAT WITH ADDED WEIGHT! START WITH PROPERLY SQUATTING YOUR BODY WEIGHT FIRST!!

Here are 6 key notes to doing a proper squat:

1. Stand with your feet slightly wider than hip-width apart, and your toes are slightly pointed outward. (I always tell my clients to think of a clock, you want your feet at about 11 o'clock and 1 o'clock)

2. Try not to extend your knees past your toes. Focus on putting your weight on your heels NOT YOUR TOES, so that way you’re sitting back and keeping your back upright. You can also put 2.5lb flat plates under the toes, which elevate the toes and shift body weight to the heels making it easier on the knees because your not leaning forward as much!

3. If your knees buckle inward that means you have some imbalances and your glutes, hamstrings and calves are under-active

4. Squat down until your thighs are parallel with the floor. (If you don’t go down that far, you’re cheating yourself from the benefit of a full squat. By performing properly and going down enough like your sitting on an imaginary chair, you’ll feel it in every muscle in your leg working towards a strong core along with strong legs and a strong back.

5. If you can not get down low you can regress the squat by performing wall squats with a stability/exercise ball.

6. Be sure to keep your head up, and abs tight by contracting your abdominal muscles drawing your belly button to your spine to keep from arching.

How to contract abdominal muscles?

My clients always ask this. I always tell them to think of when you’re coughing really hard those are the same muscles you use or imagine I come charging to punch them nearly hitting them in the stomach and then they get the point!! Lol. OF COURSE I DON’T HIT THEM!! But the way you engage your abdominal muscles to block the hit is pretty much how you contract your abdominal muscles! Get the picture!

Prior to activating posterior muscles, stretching especially dynamic stretches that allows the hips to open for better range of motion and foam rolling the over-active muscles should be performed before starting exercises. Will update you guys on some great stretches and also on foam rolling soon for those who have no clue what that is!

Check out this video as I show you how to properly activate those posterior muscles were talking about!

Alright! So this tid bit should set you up on a good path to have a better squat and better range of motion. Now many people have asked me what I think about the 30 day squat challenge!? Well I’m gonna just say I’m NOT a fan and spot training is a waste of time, and such high reps on the same muscle groups!?!....lets just say MUSCLE OVERKILL! But that’s another whole story and another blog post I promise I will write about real soon!

Anyhow, hope this helps and you have a better understanding on the principles of squatting!

Thank you so much for reading!! Please comment below with your feedback on this post. Don’t forget to share at any of the links below!

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To Your Well-being,

LC