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Overhead Squat Assessment 1: Introduction
The Overhead Squat Assessment 1: Introduction is an introductory guide to performing an overhead squat assessment. It is designed to provide an overview of the most important points to consider when performing an overhead squat assessment. It covers topics such as proper technique, what muscles are being assessed, common errors, and how to properly assess a squat. This guide is intended to help coaches and athletes gain a better understanding of what's involved in performing an overhead squat assessment.
Transcript
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This is Brent coming at you with the
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going to be a series of videos by request. In this first video, we're going
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to go ahead and go over what is ideal posture?
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What is that ideal that we're judging our overhead squat assessment against? As
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well as how to setup the overhead squat assessment for your patient or client, so
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that you know you're getting an accurate read as we go into "signs and symptoms." So
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I'm going to have my friend come out.
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Leanne is going to show us exactly what good posture looks like. Now, you guys
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notice I have some key words written up here. These are the key segments, or
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joints, that I want to look at to make sure I have everything lined up ideally.
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Now we start with the feet.
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That's because everything stacks on top of the feet, so if I were to fix her head,
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fix her shoulders, fix her hips, and then try to fix her feet, there is a chance I
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can change all of that alignment back up. We're going to go ahead and start bottom-up.
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Now with the feet, there's basically three things to think about.
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I want them parallel, hip-width, and I want to make sure that I have some sort of
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medial arch, which I'll explain in a second here.
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So first things first, feet parallel - let's define that term. Feet parallel is
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going to be second toe pointing forward. If you guys just threw your hands out in
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front of you, you guys will notice that it's actually your index finger that points
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upward, and your thumb kind of points in, so if you thought about your feet
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doing the same thing, it's actually second toe pointing forward. Big toe's
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going to point in just a little bit. I know you guys are going to see a lot of this
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turnout. So the next thing is going to be hip-width. Now be careful.
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These are not Leanne's hips. These are Leanne's thighs. This is her vastus lateralis. Her hip joint
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is actually just underneath her ASIS. So her ASIS, for those of you guys who are
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familiar with your palpations, not a hard palpation to find. You're just going to
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go ahead and find what most people call their hips, the top of their ilium, palpate
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around. You guys will notice a notch right before it become soft tissue. So, we
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want to make sure that the feet are in line with that ASIS. Alright, her hip joint is
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right behind this point.
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Next, I want to make sure that she has some sort of medial arch. Now, it is very
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helpful when you guys do your overhead squat assessment, to have somebody take
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their shoes off.
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They can probably
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leave their socks on unless you guys are doing some more advanced assessments, but
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at least the shoes off will allow you to see this little space in here. I
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shouldn't say, I don't know if you guys are aware, where the first metatarsal-cuneiform
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joint is and cuneonavicular joint is, but these bones right here, in the
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middle of her foot, shouldn't be touching the floor. If you guys see those
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bones riding on the floor, that is going to be something we notice on our
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assessment as a dysfunction.
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I want to at least try to get them set up. "Hey, can you maintain that position?"
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Good. Alright, the next thing we're going go to is the knees. Now in static posture, we
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expect her knees to be in-line. But when she moves, "if you can give me a little
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dip here, and give me a little quarter squat," we're going to want to see her
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patella track over her second and third toe. So once again, if I go back to this
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position with my hands, this would be analogous to the middle of my hand
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I want my patella to track right through the middle of my foot. Now the
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lumbo-pelvic hip complex, as you guys can see here, LPHC, has several things
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that we're looking at, or at least four or five things that I'm looking at right
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off the bat. "Leanna, you can go ahead and turn sideways." I want to number one, make
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sure she's in neutral. "That's okay." So I had you guys palpate the ASIS here. If
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I were to put this part of her pants on her ASIS, palpate around her ilium, and
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found this other bony notch here, which "go ahead and turn your back to the
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camera. There you go." You guys can see these two bony notches, being her PSIS, are
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actually a lot closer together than the ASIS are, but if I go ahead and put the
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back of her pants up on her PSIS and then I line up her pants, that gives me a good
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idea of whether her pelvis is level, and that's the first thing I want to notice.
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"Is this level? Or is she turned in a little bit," which you guys might already
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know, is an anterior pelvic til. Usually what comes with that, is now we see that
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there's this excessive curve. We wanted a neutral curve, which we saw Leanne
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started with, and then as we go through the overhead squat assessment, we'll talk
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about
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something called an "excessive forward lean," and I also want to make sure that
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Leanne, even just standing there, has a little bit of abdominal tone. I know you
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guys have seen, "hate to have you do this Leanne,
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but go ahead and totally relax out your TVA." Alright, so you guys see those people
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who have like, they have no abdominal tone whatsoever.
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You know, they got that little, like beer belly thing going on. Like, we want just a
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little bit of beach belly. That should be kind of normal as were standing there.
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Now,
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next thing we're going to look at is shoulder girdle. When I sit here and I
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got Leanne, "you can go ahead and face the camera." When I have Leanne getting set-up,
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we know that a lot of individuals have a propensity to get here with their
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shoulders. So I want to make sure I at least cue "shoulders down and back" to start,
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see if she can even get to this position. Now this is going to be a little
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interesting when we go into an overhead squat because I'm actually going to actually have Leanne
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throw her arms in the air. Right. Elbows locked. She's just going to go
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straight up, and what I want to make sure is she did exactly what she did, which is
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her shoulders kind of stayed down, as opposed to raising her arms like this,
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where you see shoulders come up to her ears, as I kind of manhandle Leanne here.
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The last thing I want to look for is the head, guys. "Let me have you go ahead and turn
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sideways." I know a lot of you guys see this forward head tilt, and we see this
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like, protruding chin. We want to make sure that Leanne's ear kind of lines up
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with her shoulder assuming that I just put her shoulder into optimal
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posture by cueing her down and back. Now, when you get somebody set up for this
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overhead squat assessment,
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this is what you start with. "Alright, so go ahead and turn straight." But with all
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that being said, you don't want to go heavy, heavy, heavy, on the cues. I don't
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want to cue Leanne into a million positions that she's not used to being
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in. I don't want to give her a million instructions. I want to get a clean
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assessment. So basically what I'm going to do is I'm going to set up her feet,
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make sure she starts with her feet parallel.
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I'm going to make, I'm going to kind of, check out her pelvis. I might adjust her
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pants so it's easier for me to see whether her pants level or not. I'm not necessarily
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saying anything to her.
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Of course, ask permission if you're going to palpate.
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I'm going to go ahead and say "arms up."
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All right, we'll check to make sure that her head's straight. Then, just go ahead and
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have her sit. You guys notice I didn't use a whole lot of words. It's like, "okay,
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feet parallel. Good. Hands up, and go ahead and sit back for me." About all the cues I
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want to give. Alright. So, once we get into the next video and I talk about common
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postural dysfunctions and the common signs we'll see, we'll talk about how we're
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going to notate all this stuff. Now, a couple things you do have to be aware of.
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These things can destroy your squat assessment. Somebody has to be able to
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keep their heels on the floor. Every once in awhile, "let me go ahead and you turn sideways."
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You'll see somebody, "can you squat and let your heels come up?" Have you ever
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seen that? Right? Every once in awhile, you guys will see this, and someone's heels
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will come up off the floor as they're squatting. That is going to destroy your
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assessment. You might be able to guess that they have tight calves from that, but
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unfortunately, because they've lifted their ankle off, you really don't know
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how that's affecting the rest of their kinetic chain. Alright, the other thing we
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want to make sure is they're not faking it. Alright, I know a lot of fitness
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professionals out there, a lot of athletes out there, they've been taught
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how to do a squat. So if you have to, here's the trick I use. Rather than
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having them do an overhead squat assessment,
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I'll have them do a sit and stand assessment. Now they don't necessarily
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know it's an exercise, but you guys, as professionals doing your assessment, know
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that there is no difference between sitting and standing, and your overhead
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squat. So I could say, "go ahead put your hands up over your head.
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Stand up. Good. Sit back down.
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Stand up. Good. Can you sit down with only touching your butt to the chair and
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getting back up? Good." So you guys can see, this is the exact same thing.
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This is also a wonderful regression if you guys have maybe, a less well
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conditioned, or an older population, who can't do an overhead squat to begin with.
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You could break it down, not do the overhead part. You could have them put their
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hands on their waist to start or hands over their head to start, or maybe break
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it apart, and do this part as one part of the assessment, sitting as the other. But
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if I go ahead and take just about anybody and go,
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"Ok. Let me just have you sit and stand." I know from here, at least here, down,
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that's the exact same assessment, and I can get almost anybody to do that.
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Alright, so there you guys go. We have optimal posture, which is going to be
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reviewing real quick, feet parallel, hip-width, with a mild medial arch. Knees
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in line with the second and third toe. That's patella in line with the second
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and third toe. Lumbo-pelvic hip complex - I'm going to go ahead and set somebody's
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pants up so that I can see if her lumbopelvic hip complex is in neutral. Shoulder
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girdle. Shoulders down and back. That includes, even when I put my arms up,
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shoulder girdle is down and back. And then head, I'm going to at least look to try to
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start in neutral position. I hope that this gives you guys a good
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foundation for what is going to happen in the overhead squat video series, as we
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start pulling this thing apart sign by sign. Thanks again.
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