Quit Cheating Your Squats- Get Low

 Squat Day-

Today I squatted and I felt it was one of the first times in a long while that I didn’t feel as though my knee was really hindering my squat. I can get lower than I could ever hope for before any of my knee problems. Before injusry, blaming my tight hips was a constant echo in my life. (You don’t go through two avulsion fractures of the pelvis without tight hips and quads..) What I didn’t realize at the time, was that everything that I did was contributing to my hips and quads being tighter and tighter and I was content in just being the guy with tight hips that couldn’t get low in his squats. I couldn’t squat low, so I developed my quads further and compounded the problem. I never stretched enough, and I paid for it.  It may have helped the tightness in my quads losing half the size of one of my quads and considerable size in the other, but that isn’t the only reason.

Iron never lies

There is one activity that I had to endure for a long period of time while I was hurt that I attribute to being more flexible now. This activity is wearing a brace from your hip to your ankle that keeps your knee locked into place. Try putting a sock or shoe on while you have a straight leg and you will understand. If every time you want to touch your feet you have to do a hamstring stretch, you are going to loosen up.

Being able to get to or past parallel is very important.

1.Better for Your Knees-

Stopping half or quarter of the way down makes the knees take on the majority of the force of the movement whereas when past parallel the hamstrings and glutes will assist in softening the blow to the knees and help stabilize as you move back up.

2. Develop Your Hamstrings and Glutes-

When you get to or past parallel your hamstrings and glutes are recruited. Rather than simply developing Quad strength, parallel squats develop the hamstrings and glutes. You don’t want huge quads and no hamstrings.

Today’s workout-

4x6 Front Squat

3x6 Back Squat

3x6 Box Squats

4x8 Single Leg- Leg Extension

3x6 Front Squat- Push Press

^^^I cannot for the life of me figure out the name that the Crossfit Games gave to these, any