Quick fixes for your squats

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All winter sports require strong leg muscles, good balance and core support—all benefits of doing regular squats. The squat is one of the most common and basic exercises performed in strength training and offers a tremendous bang for your buck.

There are many reasons you should be doing squats, if you aren’t already doing so. Getting out of a car, climbing stairs, skate or ski, all depend on strong legs. Squats strengthen your leg muscles, especially the quadriceps, glutes, and core, burn calories and help prevent injury. The inner thigh, hamstrings and calves are all challenged. Additionally, the erector spinae serve as stabilizing muscles in a squat. They help strengthen your core and promote good posture.

Form is so important in squats, and there are four common problems you often see; excessive forward lean, low back arching, low back rounding, or a lateral hip shift. Muscle imbalances, like tight hip flexors and calves, or weak core support, are often the culprits here. Lacking the mobility in your hips or ankles, forgetting to use your core muscles, or weak gluteal strength all contribute to problematic squats.

A fun and humbling test to improve your squat would look like this: Crawl on the floor for a few paces, rock forward, and without using your hands, stand up. This effectively demonstrates ankle and hip mobility, and core and lower body strength needed to transfer your weight up into standing. This drill exemplifies strength and mobility, important qualities in a squat.

Let’s look at two quick fixes to improve your squat technique.

Hip hinge with Dowel

The hip hinge is one of the most important cues to think of when you perform a squat. Hinging at your hips, in any type of squat, saves the spine stress and strain, as the motion is focused on the hips, not the back. The dowel teaches you to maintain a tall spine, without the head falling forward, a common mistake. The dowel exercise also helps correct excessive forward lean, or the lower back rounding.

Hip hinge with dowel
Photo by Connie Aronson
The dowel must remain in contact with these 3 points throughout your hip hinge range.

• Place a dowel, or broom stick on the base of your skull, the thoracic spine –your upper back, and the sacrum.

• The dowel must remain in contact with these 3 points throughout your hip hinge range.

• Think of sinking your hips backwards, and return to start position.

• Your legs can be straight or a slight knee bend.

• Do 8 x, slowly.

Squat with heel lifts

If your calves are tight, or you lack ankle mobility, try placing gym plates or a wedge under you heels in a squat. This will help you bend at the ankles (ankle dorsiflexion) an action that brings the shin over the foot. Improving your ankle flexibility will also help you flex into your ski turn more dynamically!

Squat with weight
Photo by Connie Aronson
Squat form: Squat down by bending hips back while allowing knees to bend forward, keeping back straight, knees in line with toes. Descend until thighs are parallel or just past parallel. To rise back up, contract glutes and pressure through whole foot. 
Perfect squat form ( with overhead arms )

https://www.mtexpress.com/wood_river_journal/fitness-guru-quick-fixes-for-your-squats/article_118dc396-9cdf-11ed-ac22-6babf844dcdc.html?fbclid=IwAR2w_aB0sjZrmDfKmS_PnBv4Rlz5oPKQ99yz3u1YrxdOMyVse5pkaAIcRbc

Preventing Tripping and Falling As You Age

Falls can be traumatic after a certain age. My father passed away from complications from a fall, one of the most common causes of severe brain injury. He hit his head while helping my mother get groceries out of their car one morning. As tragic as my family’s loss, falls happens all too often in people over 65; The Center for Disease Control reports that 1 out of 3 people over 65 will suffer falls and that they are the leading cause of injury death. Twenty -30% percent of fallers suffer the inconvenience of hip, pelvis or spine fractures that not only make it harder for them to get around, but chips away at their self-confidence. Recent studies show that strength training alone is not enough to prevent falls and improve balance among the elderly. It certainly is important to retain muscle strength as you age, because in your 50’s your strength starts to decline at a rate of 12-15% per year. But could it be that older people trip and stumble more often or is it because they are less able to recover balance after a stumble or trip? Is it because their balance is off? In a study on the prevention of falling in older folks, The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research February 2011 stressed the importance of not only power and quadriceps strength, but balance training also.

Swing , sway and stand

A lot of factors, like falling history, muscle weakness, eyesight, number of medications, arthritis,fear of falling and home hazards all contribute to fitness decline and falls. During the actual fall, the study demonstrated that lack of lower leg strength predisposes them to fall. Their “swing phase “is off; their thighs aren’t strong enough to allow them to regain their balance. This means these older people end up taking too many small steps or arm reactions and end up tripping.

For a simple balance exercise try rising up on your toes, keeping your weight aligned over your big and second toe. This trains the sensory, or balance receptors in your ankle and foot. These muscles send out important sensory information to control standing balance. An exercise such as toe-raises, for example, trains the sensorimotor inputs, all providing valuable information about body position with respect to the supporting surface.

Stepping down off a small step is a good exercise as the study showed that the down phase of stepping in this age group is altered because of very tight ankle muscles. Stepping up onto a step is an example of a strengthening move to help strengthen the whole lower body. Although not a chipper subject, The Department of Health and Human Services recommends 4 preventative measures to avoid falls. 1. No matter how old you are, stay active 2.Make your home safer, by removing clutter from stairways and doorways, for example. Almost half of falls happen at home. 3.Have your doctor review your medications for side-effects. Some medications can make you light-headed or drowsy, which can lead to a fall.4.Have your eyes or eyeglasses checked. Poor vision can increase your risk of falling.

Connie Aronson is an American College of Sports Medicine Health and Fitness Specialist and IDEA Elite certified personal trainer. She is located at the YMCA in Ketchum, Idaho