Hey, guys! Today we’re going to go step by step to teach you guys how to do squats for beginners. Here we go. So, the squat is the king of all exercises. You’ll build a stronger body and develop strength in your core which will translate into overall, better performance. This lower body movement is what it primarily works and strengthens the hips, the glutes, the hamstrings, quads, and indirectly, the abs.
Squats are going to work your entire body and your core the same way a plank does, but it’s more metrically. It’s really a great, full-body – almost full-body – exercise. One of the good ones. So, the first thing we’re going to talk about, we’re going to start at the bottom and work our way up. We’re going to talk about foot positioning. What we’ll think about with our feet, our feet should be a little wider than shoulder-width apart.
Once you get that, you’re going think about slightly turning your toes outward. Just slightly though. We’re not talking plie. Just a very slight rotation of your feet outward. The wider your stance is than your shoulder– what this is going to do is, it’s going to put your feet in a stance that is going to allow the pressure on the sides of your feet – enable to enact all of those targeting muscles. So, that’s why we’re going a little bit wider.
If we’re in here a little bit too close that doesn’t work very well. So, a little bit wider than shoulder width, and our feet are going to be slightly turned out. Next, we’re going to talk about hip hinge. A lot of people don’t really think about how critical this is.
So, once we’re in our position of our feet a little bit wider than shoulder width apart, we’ve got our toes slightly rotated out, the hip hinge. With this, what you’re going to do is think about sitting back with your hips. Before you think about even bending your knees, we actually going to think about pushing my hips backward, and then going to descend into our squat. That’s going to allow my knees to stay back, behind my toes.
A lot of times, if we’re thinking about starting with our knees bending first they’re going to go way over the toes. That’s not what we’re looking for. Once we’re here we’re going to think about kicking our backside out, then we’re going to lower down. That’s going to keep our knees in the proper position. That’s going to get our glutes back here really activated. If there’s any takeaway from this, always think about “I’m going to push my hips back first, and then I’m going to begin my knees bending.” Okay, next we’re going to talk about the spine – the lumbar spine.
This is another critical piece, and this can be – a lot of times a lot of people hyperextending their backs. They’ll have a bar here and then they starting to bend first, but then the back being pushed out here. Yeah, you don’t want to do that. You don’t want to hyperextend your lower back. What you want to do is think about keeping your back fairly straight, in its natural position.
You shouldn’t feel your tail being pushed up. Our feet are here, our feet are slightly rotated, we’re hinging back, but not pushing back too much. I’m hinging at the waist. I’m not pulling from my lower back, lumber back here. I’m not pushing out. I’m keeping a natural curve in my spine. Just think about pushing and hinging from the waist, then I’m bending. I’m keeping my head and chest straight. That’s another thing.
Don’t think about pushing your butt out. You’re hinging at your hips. Those are two very distinct things to remember because that can put a lot of pressure on your back.
A lot of people are like “Oh, I’m squatting”. It’s a back squat. If you have a bar over your shoulders and you’re doing these squats, it’s actually called a back squat. People don’t realize. It’s actually meant for your lower back. That’s where you have to be really, really careful. Hanging at the waist, and just keeping that natural curve. Next, hip and ankle flexibility.
Proper squats require flexion at the ankle and at your hips to really get down into that descent of a proper squat.
Proper flexibility at the hips and the ankles are required for proper squatting, obviously. I take a very thin weight, I do the same positioning with my feet – a little wider than shoulder-width apart – slightly rotated here. That’s going to elevate me with my ankles, where I’m losing that flexion, where it’s not allowing me to go into a 90-degree squat. I stop about here.
If you find yourself not getting into that 90-degree angle, this is maybe what you need to do until you get that flexion there. Now, so much easier. I could drop all the way down. It’s pretty amazing how just elevating slightly is allowing my ankle to now make up for that flexion that I don’t have. I’m getting the proper range of motion.
Once again, our feet are slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, our feet are slightly rotated out, we’re hinging at our hip. First, before we start actually squatting and bending our knees, our head and chest should be up. We should have a natural spine here. We’re not pushing our back out, or hyperextending it, and we’re lowering down to about parallel to the ground, 90 degrees, and we’re coming back up.
If you’re just doing a bodyweight squat. If you’re doing a dumbbell squat it’s going to be the same thing. The same thing is going to apply here. Hinging, and dropping. Chest, everything up. Getting to that 90 degrees and then if you were to do a barbell squat, the same thing. You would just have your barbell behind you. All those same mechanics are going to apply.
I hope this was helpful. Learning the proper mechanics before going in and doing any kind of lifting is going to make your life so much better. It’s going to make your body function better. You’re going to train your body to do it properly. I hope this was helpful to you.
Thanks for joining me.
