Master the squat and hip mobility: LIVE TODAY

[Kit_L]

A similar discussion can be found here, too:

And you wrote:

... and the stretch is very intense in the whole back of the leg. Would this be advisable?

Definitely.

[Neil Gillies]

Kit,

Firstly, thanks for the outstanding courses.

You talk in the ankle stretch videos about levering off/impinging on the bones at the front of the ankle. You also mentioned in a previous post that there are no structural limitations to full squats in humans. I have obtained range of motion in my ankles during stretches such that I am impinging on the bones. However, I still can't get into a full or single leg squat unless I am up on the balls of my feet. Is it possible that my proportions don't allow a full squat or is an increase in hip flexibility and improved softness in my calfs and hamstrings likely to overcome this issue.

Thanks in advance,

Neil

[Kit_L]

Neil,

Please post an image of you trying to do the full parallel feet squat. Cheers, KL

[Joakim Anderson]

I didn't read through the whole thread yet so I might be repeating someone's idea, but a friend and I found a funny little thing while going through the series today.

In the squat version of the RollStretch, if you can fit two people on the stick, facing the same way or opposite each other, you can definitely feel more by moving independently or even doing it as a game: whoever gives up first loses. And twisting around to induce pain on your friend is permitted, it's even the whole point. Pretty fun.

[Kit_L]

Nice! make sure the two involved are not trying to hurt each other though!

[Joakim Anderson]

Good point. It's hard to be violent though since every little move you're trying to do to put your opponent off hurts you just as much.

[Rik]

Hmmm a question about the relaxed lunge (E5 if I recall correctly): I get a very tight sensation in the adductors/gracilis on the front leg. Now I get that I should work on that, and I currently am doing some tailor pose stuff (though that's on hold due to a minor back strain). My question is, is there a quick fix that will allow me to get a better stretch on the hip flexors? I've already tried dropping the knee out slightly, moving the knee in, and some different foot positions. Foot is in front of knee as per the instruction.

[Kit_L]

Hello Phi,

Yes, there is. The 'foot in front of the knee' instruction is to maximise the tension in adductors and hamstrings (specifically to hold the pelvis in position) ​and to maximise the length of the levers we are using to create the tension on the HFs. If that causes too much tension in the adductors (which become hip extensors in this position), then move the foot back towards your hips in increments—and stop as soon as that sensation is tolerable. You want to maintain as much tension in the front leg's adductors and HS as you can, so your back does not extend as you get deeper into the position. This will work particularly well with a partner (where the lever shortening effect is mitigated via the additional vertical down forces created by your partner's weight). If what I have written here is not clear, by all means ask more questions.

Lack of letter "L" noted!

[oliviaa]

Hi Phi

Another way to lessen the feeling in the adductors of the forward leg is to put your hands on a block (or even elbows on a regular height chair) to decrease the amount of forward bend at the hips (hip flexion). However, you will likely need to apply a tail tuck on the back leg, too, to stop the lower back from extending.

Cheers

Liv

[Rik]

Alright, thanks a ton! I'll try it out later today and report back.

[Rik]

Alright, I hope it's okay for me to double-post.

In regards to the tight adductor sensation on relaxed lunge:

Putting the foot closer to me improved the sensation a bit. Putting the foot closer to the centerline of my body also seemed to help. Finally, going up on my fingertips reduced the tight sensation (in my adductors) even more, so I think I will try to find something to put my hands on next time.

I also did the RollStretch squat with a very thin stick and found a cool little addition I believe is not mentioned in the video. If you move side to side using your hips (ie. move your hips left and then right), you can get quite some interesting pressure on the inside of the calf muscle. Just an interesting variation I thought I'd share.

[Nick]

Hi Kit and all,

On Kelly Starrett Mobility wod he talks a lot about talus and calcaneus impingement. What is your take on this?

[DonGray]

Hi guys

Ive been struggling with the cossack squat...ive been training it for what must be 5months the GB way & then a month or so Kits way by using the wall. But still im uncomfortable with this exercise. I dont have the ankle flexibility for starters & also i feel a pain in my knee sometimes - my knees seem very weak doing these. My left knee also clicks a lot when im doing these - is that a problem?

If i dont have the ankle flexibility yet should i still be going all the way down on the wall variation.

Any tips would be very helpful.

Cheers

Don

[Keilani Gutierrez]

the tip that helped me get these solid were really pushing the knees out like in a squat, with the working leg(the bent one). if i let my arch collapse and my knee collapse inward, i'd get clicks in my knee too. not when i push it out. have you tried this?

[DSK]

Hi guys

Ive been struggling with the cossack squat...ive been training it for what must be 5months the GB way & then a month or so Kits way by using the wall. But still im uncomfortable with this exercise. I dont have the ankle flexibility for starters & also i feel a pain in my knee sometimes - my knees seem very weak doing these. My left knee also clicks a lot when im doing these - is that a problem?

If i dont have the ankle flexibility yet should i still be going all the way down on the wall variation.

Any tips would be very helpful.

Cheers

Don

If the knee pain is at the inner knee and it happens even when you preserve the arch, you could try the straddle myofascial release of the inner hamstring/gracilis that Kit demonstrates. This was my problem, and Yuri sorted it out quickly when I took his seminar. The video is in Master the Pancake.

[Richard Stone]

Hi Kit,

Just got this program and am really enjoying it and benefiting from it. So thanks and also I really appreciate the good price on these programs.

My new best friend is the dowel calf roll, brings tears to my eyes, so needed. As are the others of course.

Its my birthday this week so Pancake for my Birthday Actually probably will get all the programs as they look great. I was going to get H2 (mainly for pancake and pike) from you know where but will get the Mastery series first and work on these.

All best and thanks

Richard

[Kit_L]

161803398874989

wrote:

If you move side to side using your hips (ie. move your hips left and then right)

I move the stick up and down (in the sense of closer to the floor) which achieves much the same thing (more of one's upper body weight is transferred through straight arms to the calves as you do, in a pulsing fashion.

Getting this fascia soft will have a big impact on your squat depth, too.

[Kit_L]

@DonGray:

Ive been struggling with the cossack squat...ive been training it for what must be 5months the GB way & then a month or so Kits way by using the wall.

Hang on to something, Don; I mention this somewhere (might be in the Youtube Cossack squat tutorial, though).

Knee clicking without pain not a major problem (Miss O's knees click every time). And yes to DSK's suggestion, if tension/pain just above, or across, the knee on the straight leg is a problem.

[Keilani Gutierrez]

all the glute stretching and calve stretching is starting to show.

the APT seems to affect my HF's before i feel it beneath the pelvis and the shin cramps are a good sign ~

[Boco]

I've recently finished Ido's 30/30 for squats. Along with a lot of calf stretching the squats have greatly increased the dorsiflexion in my ankle. I started having to hold onto something in order to not fall over with my heels on a one and a half inch thick board to being able to hold the squat for a second or two with feet flat on the floor.

That was a huge improvement for me, as I've never had very good ankle flexibility and spent 7 weeks this summer recovering from a sprain in my right ankle. The right ankle still has much less range of motion than the left, however, I don't attribute that solely to the injury. I do notice that when I measure the distance that each knee travels past my foot, it is much greater while doing standing calf stretches pushing on a wall than when in the squat position. I'm guessing that indicates lack of mobility elsewhere that needs to be improved in order to maintain the squat with feet flat and not holding anything to maintain balance. I'm going to keep doing the squats and begin adding other stretches from the squat course to work on the deficiencies.

[Kit_L]

Teaching last day of Into the Stretch in London today. Most of the attendees are people from here or FB, or who want the STfGST take on flexibility, so the weekend has been stronger than a "normal" ITS.

Boco wrote:

I do notice that when I measure the distance that each knee travels past my foot, it is much greater while doing standing calf stretches pushing on a wall than when in the squat position.

The extent the knees need to go forward of the toes is 100% proportionally driven IF the muscles at the back of the legs are soft enough to allow the knee joint to close maximally AND the thighs can close up to the body, as Keilani is demonstrating above. And this is what the RollStretch stuff is for: to soften these muscles so you get deeper in the squat (so, knees as closed as possible; body and thighs as close as possible. Then the knee travel is a function of where on your feet (between toes and heel) your centre of gravity (COG) is located.

The more you practise the bottom position, the closer the lower leg get to the thigh; the closer the thighs get to the spine, the lower the glutes get to the floor, and the closer to upright the body gets. This is why weightlifting boots have a 1" heel: to move the COG forward, so that knees can move more forwards; this redistribution of the balancing effort allows the trunk to become more vertical. [thanks MH!; too rushed]

Russel Cunningham, John Valentine's Oly coach for a long while) has the best squat position under the bar I have ever seen; his thighs are almost parallel to the floor (that's how flexible his ankles are) and his trunk is literally vertical. Many Asians arrange their bodies in the squat like this, too.

[Rik]

I've yet to see an oly lifter squat in shoes with shins resembling anything near vertical (perpendicular to the floor, not just vertical in the frontal plane). If you think about it, this makes sense: ankle comes up, knees shift forward, bringing the hips further forward, meaning there is less forward lean of the trunk needed to keep the center of mass over the mid-foot and hence why the torso stays more upright.

If you would keep the shin more vertical, you'd end up shifting the knees back a bit, meaning the hips are sat further back which in turn means there has to be forward lean of the trunk to keep the center of mass over the mid-foot.

Of course, how closed the knee angle is affects how far back the hips sit relative to the knees, and in fact with shins vertical you can get this distance between knees and hips to be a little closer because the femur, too, can also be more vertical. However, since you cannot get the hips over the ankles in this situation (the shins are in the way), you're still going to need more forward lean than in the knees forward situation, where you can get the hips over the ankles.

I hope that was somehow coherent.

[Craig]

I think kit made a brain fart there. The shins are sent further forward with the raised heel, compensating for a lack of ankle flexibility. The Torso, however, approaches vertical. Without the shoes, and with ample flexibility, there are two different "end positions" for the squat. One with the knees as far forward as you can, allowing the quads to approach parallel to the ground, and the torso to approach a vertical position. The hips in this version are completely uncompressed, although the calf is pressed very close to the hamstring and the glutes are usually touching the achilles tendon. The other is with the knees as far back as you can, this brings the shins to vertical. To do this version, you need to have quite impressive compression at both the knee joint and the hip joint, meaning the shin, quad, AND torso are all approaching vertical and very close to being parallel to each other (you can imagine a capital N squashed from both sides). This variation requires less ankle flexibility, but greater flexibility across basically the entire rest of the body. I have only ever seen 2 people who can do both positions almost perfectly; my martial arts coach Dapeng, and Ondrej. I wonder if Ondrej reads the forums and can post a picture for us of each position?

[Boco]

Kit and Craig thanks for the advice. I'll have to start working on those exercises. I know that my back is very rounded in order to not fall backward. I'll look for the roll stretch videos and start on that.

[Kit_L]

Thanks for the corrections, guys; when I made my post I had just finished reading an article on Boris's site; and the assertion regarding the desirability of vertical shins was still running around in my brain. Unweighted squats, Oly squats, and powerlifting squats are very different animals. I have corrected the shin/knee relationship in the comments on Oly lifting.

I hope Ondrej can post a pic of him in the full squat; it is a lovely thing to see. For unweighted (bodyweight) squats, I am convinced that softness of the muscles at the back of the legs (hamstrings and calves) is really important, as well as sufficiently loose ankles. How much ankle flexibility required is a matter of proportion, I feel.

Many of you have seen me put a leg in half lotus; if you are relaxed enough in the quad/HF on the receiving thigh, the whole muscle literally flows out of the way, reducing the need for external rotation in the folded leg. A deep squat position requires the same 'flow' capacity in the muscles at the back of the leg, I believe, and this is the purpose of the RollStretch techniques (and why MH's "wedge" wall exercise can help so much).

Phi's comments are well taken, too; thank you. One comment: in powerlifting, and using a low bar position (almost mid-back), I have seen lifters in the squat bottom position whose trunks are below 45 degrees to the floor (these are the strong lower back "good morning" style lifters; we used to have one in the heavy weights room). These lifters rely on massive glutes and lower back strength, and are sometimes referred to as "back" lifters. In that position, their shins are almost vertical—the knee angle is almost 90 degrees in the bottom position) and their trunks are close to between their thighs. This position allows the weight shift to happen via the hips moving backwards rather than the knees moving forwards—all the flexion needed for balance over the COG is happening in the hip joint, rather than the knees. No Oly lifter can squat this way, of course.

​Last comment. In the bodyweight squat, I have been working on trying to put my forehead on the floor, with feet flat on the ground. I can do this in the Yoga pose:

http://kitlaughlin.c..._full_squat.jpg

(though my back is much more rounded than hers, mostly because my glutes, hamstrings and adductors are not as loose as hers); this is a wonderful lower back and glute stretch for me. I mention this only because we all want a near-vertical trunk in the full squat, but this is only one of the options and only one use of the bottom position.