The squat is a great exercise for developing your lower body and core strength, given that it is performed correctly. There are various ways of doing it wrong and what people don’t realize is that the movement path of this exercise is not as easy as it looks.
Unless you proactively work on your flexibility and mobility, you likely struggle with tight muscles. Besides that, it can create discomfort and stiffness in your day-to-day activities, and it can adversely affect your range of motion when doing squats.
If you find it difficult to lower down until your thighs are parallel to the ground, or your heels rise when doing a squat, concentrate on lower body stretching and mobility before and after your squats can significantly improve your depth.
For the majority, the main culprits are ankles and hips mobility. Let’s explore mobility drills for you to be able to get into a squat safely and comfortably. We’ll dive into the mechanics of a squat and its correct form and utilize ankles and hips mobility drills for improving squat depth.
One of the most common mistakes when doing squats is half repping, this means the movement does not have a full range of motion. According to research, you should go down as far as possible, at least bringing your thighs parallel to the floor.
Your squats should be either parallel or full range of motion, otherwise known as “ass to grass” (ATG squats). Here’s how to do a squat correctly:
Typically, the deeper you go the more effective the squat will be because of a greater range of motion, which is ideal for strength and hypertrophy. With that said, this requires a high amount of lower-body flexibility, so I highly recommend beginners to master parallel squat first.
There’s nothing wrong with ATG squats either. You can gradually progress onto that as your strength and mobility improve. In fact, you can develop strength and hypertrophy just fine without full squats. Parallel squats will help you to achieve your goals and get the job done.
With correct warm-up involving muscle activation and mobility, combined with light repetitions can increase blood circulation to the working muscles, improve range of motion in hips, ankles, and knees. This will prime you up for the training. Below is a list of what you can do before your session:
The frog pose is a deep stretch that opens up your hips and groin muscles around the pelvic area. This exercise will also target the muscles in your adductors, core, and lower back. This could be a game-changer for your squat depth.
This is a great stretch that helps with the mobility in front of your pelvis. It is a beginner-friendly stretch that alleviates pain and tightness in the hip flexors, knees, and psoas muscles. Be sure to rest your knees on a soft surface such as a yoga mat or carpet.
This stretch will allow unrestricted, pain-free movement of the hip and upper leg. It targets the quadriceps, hip flexors, iliacus and the psoas muscles, which are responsible for hip flexion.
The 90/90 stretch is similar to the pigeon pose as it externally rotates your hips. This is great for improving your hip and glute mobility. During this dynamic movement, you will rotate one hip internally and the other hip externally, which allows your legs and pelvis to manouvre more easily.
The goblet squat dorsiflexion stretch will improve your ankle mobility, knee flexion, hip flexion, and hip rotation. It is important that you breathe into this stretch and get comfortable in this position.
This is a dynamic exercise that will help with your depth in getting lower when squatting. It will release tightness from your calf muscles and ankles that may have shortened over time.
The wall calf stretch is a low-impact drill that can increase the range of motion to the ankle and reduce the risk of injuries when walking, running, or squatting. This will stretch your gastrocnemius and soleus.
Squatting with good form is not as simple as it seems. It requires lower body flexibility that is greater than average. It’s for this reason that you should regularly train your squat mobility. The only way to make strong progress in your legs without injury is to get rid of tightness in the muscles, ligaments, and tendons of the lower body
This is why you should practice these exercise drills in order to achieve proper squat form. If you find it hard to squat properly with enough depth while keeping your body weight on your heels, or you find it hard to keep your knees from caving in, start doing this mobility routine twice a week.
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My name is Pat Chadwick, I am a calisthenics coach with over 4 years of experience in helping people from all backgrounds to achieve their calisthenics goals. My goal is to become the number one calisthenics coach in the world as it is my passion to help people change their lives through inspiring bodyweight movements. I believe everyone deserves the right to feel good about their health, body, and be delighted inside and out.
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