My True Intention

My intention with writing this “squatting series” was to empower and educate while answering some questions I had as it relates to human movement science and the complex motor patterns that contribute to our ability to move. In the process, I have succeeded in offending and pissing some people off (*high five Mike Boyle*) but I want to make something clear. 

The purpose of a training system is to provide support in helping an individual reach their goals in sport and life, and exercises are just tools to aid in the building process of physical and psychological attributes.

With this said your training system is about empowering an athlete’s performance, not inflating the egos of the trainers and coaches who’ve designed the program. Be careful how you let your ego defend a tool that may not serve as the best or appropriate tool to develop your athletes.

Once again I am not referring to power lifting, strongmen or Olympic weight lifters. All three of these are strength sports. Success in these sports is based on weight room statistics, whereby strength gains in the weightroom directly correlate to how these athletes perform in their lifts.

What I am referring to is that the focus of training and development of athletes shouldn’t be on developing strength to support increases in weight room statistics, but rather toward supporting explosive movement on the field or court. When strength and power development is combined with sport-specific skills, this leads to high levels of athletic performance.

The “Balanced” Athlete

This figure to the left was popularized by Gray Cook in his book Athletic Body in Balance. He uses the pyramid structure to show that an athlete’s foundation should rest on sound functional movement.

Functional movement can only exist in the presence of structural health and efficiency. Structural health refers to having sufficient levels of mobility and static stability. Efficiency refers to dynamic stability and motor control (coordination) which allows the body to recruit muscles in the proper sequence in order to create specific movement patterns.

Performance consists of all the “fun” stuff that gets most coaches and trainers excited, which consists of developing different facets of strength which include relative, maximal, speed and explosive strength.

Skill is left up to the sport coaches. Athletes must become great technicians of their sport in order to perform at a high level. My job as a performance coach then is to improve their performance capacity with strength and power development WITHOUT adversely affecting their functional movement patterns.

From Sport Problems to Movement Solutions

In his book Fundamentals of Special Strength-Training in Sport Yuri Verkhoshansky describes athletic performance as a:

“complex interaction of many movements in which sport becomes a problem solving activity in which movements are used to produce necessary solutions”

Verkhoshansky said this in 1986 while also stating that:

“the effectiveness to use one’s motor potential to achieve success is the essence of skill acquisition.”

This was published over twenty years ago. So essentially he’s stating that functional movement (which directly affects one’s motor potential) and performance capacity are prerequisites for skill acquisition.  So when training athletes how did we deviate from focusing primarily on improving movement ability and motor potential that dictates one’s performance capacity, and just focus on weight room statistics?

With this I hope you now understand that the body’s ability to move is dependent on coordinated movement. The neuromuscular system communicates through a series of sequenced muscle actions which are contained within a motor program.

Within this motor program different muscles will be recruited to take on roles during different times of a particular movement. The roles that a muscle can take on are known as prime mover, synergist, stabilizer and neutralizer.

A prime mover is the primary muscle responsible for a movement task. During the movement the synergist assists the prime mover to carry out a particular movement task. While the prime mover and synergist are working, a stabilizer then becomes active in order to maintain proper joint alignment and create a solid platform for the prime mover and synergist to work from.

While all this is happening neutralizers help to maintain joint position by resisting any compensatory motion caused by surrounding muscles to ensure they don’t interrupt the primary movement task at hand. The ability for these muscles to work together is made possible by intermuscular coordination.

But most individuals who have habitually back squatted have altered their motor programs in an effort to move maximal and challenging loads, which usually results in compromising the function of both stabilizers and neutralizers. They chose to compromise functional movement in an effort to build more strength.

The end result is a change in the ability of certain muscles within a motor program to contribute to movement and force production creating a neuromuscular imbalance. This neuromuscular imbalance causes synergists to become overactive due to the decreased function of stabilizers and neutralizers during movement tasks which in turn can alter the function of a prime mover. I have personally been guilty of this within my own training as well as with the athletes that I have and are currently training. Luckily no one has been hurt but there were some close calls.

The Mind of Gray Cook

Gray Cook is probably one of the most under rated minds in both the rehab and performance industry. I’ve been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to have all of my questions answered by Gray in person. And one of the concepts that he pointed out to me was that there are three foot/hip stances (bases of support) that must be both corrected and conditioned within the body and they are the:

  1. Symmetrical (Bilateral) Stance
  2. Asymmetrical (Split) Stance
  3. Single Leg (Unilateral) Stance

Keep in mind that the back squat is performed in the symmetrical stance and the one thing we must realize is that movement deficiencies in a single leg or asymmetrical stance can be “hidden” within a symmetrical stance.

For example you may have someone who looks fine squatting when loaded but has a difficult time performing bodyweight split squats and lunges.

Will loading an athlete like this in the back squat make them a better athlete? And could back squatting impair their ability to develop the proper motor and movement patterns by reinforcing improper muscle sequencing that can exacerbate their movement deficiencies?

Gray explained to me that your inability to display proper spine and joint alignment in one pattern shows that you may be at risk for injury when performing that particular pattern during sport play. Keep in mind that athletic movement during active sport play will always randomly transition between a symmetrical, asymmetrical and single leg stance. Your inability to transition efficiently between these stances while controlling your posture (spine and joint alignment) will maximize injury potential and minimize performance capabilities.

I also asked Gray what he would include within a program and training system in order to produce explosive athletes that also have sound movement ability with great structural health and efficiency. As he hesitated and gave me his finest Virginia bred grin, I just knew he was going to refer me to one of his DVDs or books, most of which I already own, but he didn’t. So according to Gray Cook, here’s a list of what should be the back bone of a sound program:

  1. Deadlift before you Squat: we all learned as babies to stand up out of the bottom of a squat, so one of the best ways to regain the ability to squat is from the bottom up. This is essential because you must learn to bend at the hips and not the low back in order to move properly.
  2. Teach correct lifting technique with a dowel rod or broom stick: allows for proper muscle sequencing and coordination.
  3. Front Squat instead of Back Squat: allows one to get more core activation and maintain better posture without compensating with the hip flexors and quads for an underactive and weak core.
  4. Do single leg work statically and dynamically: allows for you to maintain postural control to protect the spine while being able to load the legs more.
  5. Avoid overloading that will compromise posture and the ability to control one’s center of mass: Once you lose form on a lift, the lift is done. Trying to muscle the weight up may lead to muscle imbalance and injury.
  6. Monitor spinal loading: you can teach athletes how to move explosively without excessively loading the spine. The discs in their lower back region will be very grateful.
  7. Always do what’s in the best interest of the athlete/client based on their health and performance goals!

The goal of this type of program is not to create great weightlifters; the goal is to create high performing athletes. Instead of squatting I’ve become a huge fan of the conventional deadlift and hexbar deadlift. I found the easiest way to teach someone how to squat and move is to have them deadlift using a hexbar. Giving the simple cue of “maintain your posture and standup” has cut the learning curve in half because they receive immediate feedback and can feel when they’re doing it correctly.

I only recommend the conventional deadlifts to athletes with high training ages (non-beginners) that have sufficient mobility in the hips and are able to control and maintain their posture-no rounding and bending at the lower back, EVER! I also see the conventional deadlift as a good anti-trunk flexion core exercise which is another reason why I don’t use this with beginners.

New Rules to Lifting

So if you’re trying to figure out how exercises fit into the three foot stances here’s a breakdown:

Symmetrical Stance

  • Deadlift (Hexbar for beginners, conventional for more advanced)
  • Front Squat
  • Lateral Squat/Lunge
  • RDL
  • Good Morning

Asymmetrical Stance

  • Split Squat
  • Reverse Lunge
  • Forward Lunge
  • Split RDL
  • Split Good Morning

Single Leg Stance

  • 2 or 1 Arm RDL
  • Good Morning
  • 1 Leg Squat to Box
  • 1 Leg Squat standing on Box
  • Pistol Squat
  • Step Up

Dropping Your Ego

Who do you choose to train, your ego or your athlete/client? I can recognize this behavior because it’s a problem I had to personally confront. When I was training my ego this resulted in a torn meniscus and cartilage damage  which led to a knee surgery.

Check out the following two books in your spare time and you’ll see what I mean:

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

Keep in mind that sport is a problem solving activity that requires movement based solutions. Is your training system developing the right solutions to the problems your athletes will have to solve in their sport?

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