Week 4: Squat Technique

One of the functional movements that CrossFit teaches is the squat.  The squat is one of the nine functional movements that is involved in just about any Workout of the Day (WOD).  A squat movement is important and necessary for any individual's own physical growth.  This movement is done on a daily basis by nearly everyone in the world.  That is a reason why CrossFit is able to work for everyone because the movements taught and done during a WOD can be reproduced in everyone's normal daily activity.  If these functional movements are not done that individual has a higher risk of losing a simple functional movement.  Not doing a functional movement is worse than doing a funcitonal movement as long as that individual is working with proper technique.  While anyone is susceptible to injury, working on improving technique can decrease the likelihood of an injury occurring. 

Doing squats can help an individual's own athletic ability, and help improve their own mobility, and strength in their hips, back, and kness if done properly.  If an individual has a knee injury once healthy and the mobility is there they can start working on rehabilitating that knee with doing squats.  The squat will help the knees build up strength and mobility so that individual is able to regain their natural movement without the pain and agony of not performing this movement after an injury.  This is also the same if an individual were to hurt their back or hips.  The squat movement is not rocket science or was it produced by some trainer it is a natural movement and should be done.

While at the bottom of the squat an individual is at the intended sitting position.  If someone is ever over in Russia they may see individual's on the side of the street sitting in a deep squatting position within a group of people.  This position was intended for a natural sitting position not a chair.  How an individual moves from the bottom of the squat to rising up to the top and finishing with standing up is a natural movement and method for any squat.  The hip extension in the squat is an all around good natural human movement.  Working towards an explosive hip movement will help with stabilizing the finishing movements in a squat. 

There are different forms of squats that are performed in CrossFit WODs.  One of those is the air squat which is a squat that is done without any weight other than that of an individual's own body weight.  The back squat is another form of squats where an individual places some type of weight on their back.  A front squat is where the individual holds the weight in front of them in a racked position.  One of the final squats is the overhead squat where an individual holds the weight over their head in a controlled manner.

How to Squat:

1.  Start with the feet about shoulder width apart and slightly toed out.
2.  Keep you head up looking slightly above parallel.
3.  Don't look down at all; ground is in peripheral vision only.
4.  Accentuate the normal arch of the lumbar curve and then pull the excess arch out with the abs.
5.  Keep the midsection very tight.
6.  Send you butt back and down.
7.  Your knees track over the line of the foot.
8.  Don't let the knees roll inside the foot.
9.  Keep as much pressure on the heels as possible.
10.  Stay off of the balls of the feet.
11.  Delay the knees forward travel as much as possible.
12.  Lift your arms out and up as you descend.
13.  Keep your torso elongated.
14.  Send hands as far away from your butt as possible.
15.  In picture, the ear does not move forward during the squat, it travels straight down.
16.  Don't let the squat just sink, but pull yourself down with your hip flexors.
17.  Don't let the lumbar curve surrender as you settle into the bottom.
18.  Stop when the fold of the hip is below the knee-break parallel with the thigh.
19.  Squeeze glutes and hamstrings and rise without any leaning forward or shifting of balance.
20.  Return on the exact same path as you descended.
21.  Use every bit of musculature you can; there is no part of the body uninvolved.
22.  On rising, without moving the feet, exert pressure to the outside of your feet as though you were trying to separate the ground beneath you.
23.  At the top of the stroke stand as tall as you possibly can.

Reference:  www.crossfitjournal.com