Yes, that is not grammatically correct, but functionally correct. You don’t choose the squat, squats choose you. A squat will look a specific way because of how THAT person is built. To understand how that works, we have to understand what is suppose to happen in the first place.
What is the squat?
It’s the most natural human movement in the world, right? Maybe. The bottom is, that’s just a normal resting position. The top is, but that isn’t really a part of the squat, that’s just standing. Down and back up is the tricky part. Coming up is easy, granted to picked the right path to get to the bottom. So DOWN is tricky, especially since you have to possess specific things to get there – “there” being some arbitrarily determined location dictated by some external force.
Types of Squats
In addition to just a body weight squat, here are the 3 major barbell squats. These probably represent 20% of squat variations but seem to be performed by 80% of people. The red arrows denote the relative contributions of hip flexion and ankle dorsiflexion (DF) with each type, which are opposite of each other. In practice, the front squat is probably the “easiest.” The weight acts as a counterbalance, so you can get away with less hip flexion and ankle DF. The overhead squat is not depicted but it is a low bar squat with the arms overhead in a snatch grip, requires a much greater demand of trunk stability.
Generally speaking, the are some visual requirements for the squat, as noted to the right. Of note is #1, knees over toes “in the frontal plane,” meaning you are looking at that person straight on.
To the left is general joint motions needed to squat. All obvious except #4, thoracic extension. Thoracic (upper back) extension is less obvious. If you don’t know how to brace your trunk and/or are stiff or weak in the upper back, you’ll compensate with too much low back extension. This causes a bunch of other compensations, likely a major cause of the dreaded “butt wink.”
ANATOMICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Limb Versus Torso Length
How long your legs are relative to your body is probably the most important factor in matching style of squat with an individual. The above photo illustrates this perfectly. At the same height, having longer legs will make you lean the torso more forward. Based on the bar placement, these are both “high bar” squats. If you decide to (or your body type decides for you) to push your hips back, it would make more sense to move the bar farther down the back to keep it over the middle of the foot. This is a “low bar” back squat.
I keep putting the names in parenthesis because ultimately I don’t think either one exists. A long time ago someone squatted, and we named it. Not vice versa.
Hip socket shape
This will help determine a optimal squat stance, and stance can dictate back angle. Generally, the wider you put your feet, the more upright your torso. Here is a way to check hip socket shape.
If you like seeing just how deep a rabbit hole can go in regards to body shapes, check out this video:
Two joint ranges I think are important to talk about are hip rotation, specifically internal rotation , and ankle DF. I think they are important to talk about for different reasons.
Hip Internal Rotation (IR)
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No credit for this image because the site contains nocebic language and fear mongering.
As you squat, the ball and socket that is the hip joint has to maintain some congruency as you descend, and it does that by rotating in the socket. This is overly simplistic, but the hip external rotation and abduction that occurs when lowering into a squat tries to pull the head of the femur forward, so you need hip IR to not let that happen. I’ll admit I don’t fully understand it, acknowledge I could be wrong, and have trouble visualizing it. But, this video of someone with ZERO hip IR was my “ah-ha” moment.
As I trace the hip socket, the femur pulls the entire body, and the foot rotates in. If the foot was anchored on the ground, depending on the rest of her structure/strength, you could get a whole smorgasbord of compensations happening throughout the back, hips, knees, and ankles the deeper she tries to squat. That’s not helpful.
Ankle dorsiflexion (DF)
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ormal DF range of motion is 20 degrees, ideally with the knee straight and with the knee bent. After you adjust your feet based on hip socket shape and account for how long your legs are, you may need more ankle DF. Someone probably came up with how much more using an app and/or the Pythagorean theorem, but likely the answer is more than normal. So basically just keep trying to get more until your squat looks like what you think it should look like. To me, that doesn’t seem practical.
Both of these will determine squat depth, but for different reasons. Both will limit your depth, but hip IR is more important because you need it to initiate the squat. You can’t “push” through that. Ankle DF is important, but I think a tad over-treated because there are several workarounds that can be used to often are not.
So that is the squat in the nutshell. Typically I see someone with long legs/short torso (unfriendly squat body type) wearing minimalist shoes (Nike Metcons, Reebok Nanos, No Bull Trainers, etc., that don’t give extra ankle DF) trying to figure out why he/she sucks at the high bar/overhead squat (an extreme version requiring large amounts of trunk stability AND ankle dorsiflexion). I think we get so wrapped up in the movement that we lose sight of the intent of the movement. If the goal is strength training, pick another movement. If your goal is that movement, realize you will have to spend time to make sure that movement fits you. If it doesn’t, and you still want to do it, realize you are going to have to spend a considerable amount of time to CHANGE your structure. That’s not impossible, but you have to commit yourself to that process.
We will cover what it takes to commit to that process in future posts.
3FN 