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Back Squat
The back squat is a compound full-body exercise that works all the major muscle groups of the lower body, including the legs, glutes, hamstrings, and core. It is performed by squatting down with a barbell held on your back, either with an overhead grip, or on the shoulders, while keeping your back straight. The goal is to lower yourself to a squat depth where your thighs are parallel to the ground, then rise back up to the starting position. This exercise
Transcript
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This is Brent coming at you with a big
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back loaded squat by request. Now I haven't done this video in the past, I
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think part of it is just because in my thinking you guys already know how to do
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a squat. The squat is a squat, the kinetic chain checkpoints for all of our lower
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body exercise stay relatively the same. The back squat in particular has a very
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narrow scope right. So if we're doing a back loaded squat other than possibly
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introducing it in a stabilization phase, this is going to be a strength or max
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strength exercise in that 1 to 12 rep range. I'm going to have my friend Yvette
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come out, she's going to help me go through some of the finer points of a
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back squat. But I think once we get turned around you guys are going to see that
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this is an exercise you already have down, and you just needed to see it
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applied. So first things first, where does that bar go right. We hear a lot of
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questions about that, if you guys palpate you can feel a ridge just underneath
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your your upper traps here, this is the spine of your scapula. The bar should sit
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just above the spine of the scapula on the ridge that your upper traps create.
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You don't want to have the bar way up high where it's putting a lot of
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pressure on your your cervical thoracic junction, there's not a whole lot of
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muscles here to try to stabilize a posterior to anterior force on the
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cervical spine. We want that bar placed here so the friction of the skin, the
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ridge that the spine of the scapula creates, and these large scapular
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elevators can stabilize the amount of weights that it's going to be on Yvettes
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back. Now Yvettes going to go ahead and get in position. Let me also make the
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note here guys that's getting underneath the bar and stepping forward, this is not
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ideal. The only reason I set this up like this is so you guys can see the squat
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technique on camera. Ideally I would have Yvette take a step backwards, so that if she got
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into trouble she could lean forward into the safety rack. She's going to go ahead
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and get in the squat position, stand up, take a big step forward. Now another safety
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principle, I want you guys to be able to see what the squat looks like, if I was
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going to spot Yvette I would spot a Yvette from the back right. I want to be in good
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position to have my hands underneath the bar if that's where she's comfortable. I
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can also put my hands underneath her shoulders, and then I want to make sure
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that i can get my hip, thrust into her backside, so that if she starts falling
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forward or falling back I'm here to stabilize her. I have heard some nasty
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stories of personal trainers getting themselves into trouble with with
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clients falling over on this exercise, there really shouldn't be a reason for
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that providing that you can get in this position and spot them. Now I know Yvette
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is very very comfortable with this weight, she can actually do at least double this
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weight, so I'm going to spin around to point out her form here. So first thing I want
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you guys to notice, I've actually had to have Yvette bring her feet just a little
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closer. You knowing your kinetic chain checkpoints; feet parallel hip to
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shoulder width no wider, knees over feet, hips over knees, she has a neutral pelvis
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and her head when she's up is facing up, other than that she has a nice neutral
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spine. As she descends into a squat, go ahead descend into a squat here,
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notice that all of this stuff stays nice and aligned, her head actually starts facing
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down a few feet in front of her, as her spine comes down she wants to keep that
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cervical spine neutral. So let's see another one of those because it should
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all sound really familiar, it's the same kinetic chain checkpoints we keep going
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over. I think the popularity of the powerlifting squat has actually
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confounded what you guys already know. Now let's have Yvette go through another
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one and notice what her range of motion is. Her range of motion is as far down as
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she can control with optimal mechanics and no pain. I don't care how close your
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butt is to the floor, I don't care for femurs are perpendicular to the floor.
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None of that matters if it requires compensation for her to get down there.
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She's actually doing a wonderful job of maintaining perfect alignment, if I know
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that she has good alignment, I know that her like tension relationships are
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optimal, I know that I'm getting the most out of her muscular system, as well as
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putting the least amount of stress on her arthrokinematic system. Now the one
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big cue I would give you guys to help increase the strength of this exercise,
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which is a cue that i've found works really really well, so the prime mover of
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this exercise should be the glutes, right in order to get the glutes firing when Yvette
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gets to the bottom, i'm going to have
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her squeeze her glutes and thrust her hips forward in order to get herself up.
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So she's actually throughout thinking about thrusting her hips that way, which
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is more or less the direction of force that your glutes imply or glutes
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impose. How does that feel Yvette? Good. Now I'm going to have Yvette go ahead and
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rack this back up. I'm going to help into this position as this is awkward. All right give
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her a couple seconds breather. I'm going to have her turn around because there is
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one thing that I want you guys to watch for, if you see this i would say that a
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back-loaded squad is contraindicated, and so i'm going to have Yvette actually get
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underneath the bar on the back-up. Take a step back good, she's going to get into
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position. Now what I see in the gym a little bit which always gets me worried,
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is what's called an asymmetrical weight shift. I know some of you guys know what
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I'm talking about where somebody squats down, and I can't have a Yvette do this
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because just to have her do it would be dangerous, but have you guys ever seen
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where somebody does this thing towards the bottom, where they they get a little
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wink sometimes what we call it where they actually shipped laterally. If you guys
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see that that increases the load on the lumbar spine and lumbosacral joints a
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whole lot, that is setting somebody a promo back pain. If I saw that I would go
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back to my corrective exercise, take the back squat away from them. I know that
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that might cause a little bit of an argument with your
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patient, but I would take this this exercise away from home for a little
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while, while I had a chance to correct this.
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So just kind of reviewing guys I think you've always known how to do the back
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squat.The back squat is the same as the front squat video we did, it's even kind
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of the same as the lunge video we did, or the step up video. It's always the
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same kinetic chain checkpoints, we're looking for optimal alignment. I have to
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say I've been somewhat disappointed what I've seen especially on a fitness realm
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recently. We made so many strides towards improving the quality of human movement,
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this whole idea that it is as important to move better as it is to move more, and
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somehow through the popularity of certain programs, and the popularity of
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powerlifting which i'm not against, all of a sudden i'm starting to see that
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super super wide knee turned out squat, this is nothing more than a compensation
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pattern just as you would assess it during an overhead squat. Yes will this
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feel better to somebody who has lower leg dysfunction, absolutely but why not
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fix their lower leg dysfunction, stretch their calves, activate tibialis anterior.
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There is going to be a price to pay for this, I can guarantee that this will
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increase adductor Magnus tonicity, it's going to increase biceps femoris, it's
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going to increase the stresses that are placed on your hips and lower back; and
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over the course of time this is actually far more dangerous than
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this is while fixing compensation. Now you might not be able to feel it now, but
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over time these little things, these little form things start to add up. So
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guys this is me giving you my view of the squat. I think you guys will be great
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benefits from a squat, considering using it with inside of that small parameter
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of strength and max strength train. If you want to work on multi-planar
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movement, three dimensional movement as I've heard it's called, I don't know that
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I would use a back squat for that exercise, and always always always
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quality of movement first. It is not enough to have people move more if you
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can also make them move better. I hope you guys get great results, talk to you
