A simple squat is one of the most effective exercises for building muscle, and also incredibly functional in how it translates to our daily living. Despite its relevance, it definitely takes detailed work on form, and sometimes instruction, to perfect it.

Correct squatting keeps us from getting injured and is the first step in a number of complex weight lifting exercises like thrusters. Let’s take a look at the common squat problems followed by easy fixes you can use to start correcting these problems.

Squat Problem 1: Your Knees Cave to the Inside

First things first—letting your knees cave in towards each other during a squat is a no-no.

This is probably the most common problem for beginners but persists in those that ignore it and continue to progress their load and frequency of squatting.

If you find one or both of your knees caves in right away, or midway through your squat, you need to fix this movement. If you continue your knee caving ways you’re risking MCL and meniscus damage to your knees as well as hip issues.

The Fix: Use a loop band around your knees and focus on keeping your knees out during your squat. Work on squatting with no weight until you build enough strength in your outside hip muscles to keep your knees from caving in.

Squat Problem 2: Your Arches Cave In

This may be something you notice during other exercises, or even when you’re just standing or walking. The hollow arch space on the insides of your feet may be shallow or nonexistent. This leaves your feet flush with the ground and shifts your weight towards the inside of your ankles.

If you notice this during other exercises, squatting is likely to accentuate this problem. In fact, you’re probably going to have problem 1 if you have problem 2. Your feet are your base and if you’re caving inside with your feet, your knees will typically follow suit and cave as well.

The Fix: Do some banded foot inversion exercises to keep the inside of your foot from dropping. Strengthening the muscles that invert the ankle will help build some ankle muscle endurance to keep your feet in the right spot.

Squat Problem 3: Your Weight Is On Your Toes

Squats are primarily for building your glutes and hamstrings, not your quadriceps. If you’re shifting your weight toward the front of your foot you’re going to feel squats more in your quads. What else? Your heels are going to come off the ground, uh oh.

You’ll never increase your capacity if you’re lifting your heels off the ground, and this needs to be fixed as soon as possible. When squatting you want to have the majority of weight in your heels, this keeps your knees behind your feet and saves your knees as well.

The Fix: Unload, again, and work on sitting back into your heels, like you’re putting your butt into a chair. In fact, use a chair and do some chair taps. When you’re squatting down, tap your butt on a chair then rise up. The chair will keep you from falling down onto your butt. Get comfortable putting weight in your heels and sitting back in your squat.

Squat Problem 4: Leaning Before Hip Hinging

The moment you lean forward, you’re immediately burdening your low back. That’s not its job. For goodness sake save your back, or your squatting days will be over before they started. If you’re leaning forward first, you’re missing step one, the hip hinge.

The first move of a squat is pushing your butt back and hinging at the hips. This does a couple of important things for your squats. It keeps your weight centered and balanced and it builds your glutes and not your low back.

The Fix: Use a resistance band around your waist and tied behind you to a rig or something sturdy. With tension on the band, practice sticking your butt back like you’re starting a Romanian deadlift, the resistance band should basically pull your butt back for you.

Then, use your hips and thrust your pelvis forward against the resistance of the band. This activates your glute muscles and gets you familiar with initiating a hip hinge first.

Squat Problem 5: Shallow Squat Depth

How low can you go? Nobody wants to be shallow, in any way. If you’re squatting and you’re not hitting 90 degrees so your thighs are parallel, you’re cheating yourself. Depth in a squat is what builds functional strength.

Do know that squat depth comes with mobility, repetition, and time. If you’re a beginner you may not have great depth initially, but you will eventually. Don’t even think about increasing load until you’re getting good depth. If you can’t perform a deep and full squat, that should be your first goal.

The Fix: Spend some time in a low squat without weight, some call it squat therapy. You can also use easy, or no weight, and do pause squats—pausing at the bottom for 1-2 seconds before you start your ascent. It’s “oh, so painful, but oh, so good.”

Fix Your Issues Now

One of these problems may resonate with you, or you may even find a few of these problems in your squat now that you’re aware of them. If you do recognize these problems, take the time and start fixing them now.

You’ll be surprised how incorporating these little fixes to correct your squat will allow you to increase your weight and squatting frequency.

The post 5 Common Squat Problems and How to Fix Them appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

“My hip flexors are tight.” “My hip flexors hurt.” “My hip flexors are pinching.” You name it, and I’ve heard it. We’re familiar, for the most part, with what hip flexors are. However, a lot of us are lost on what to do to help them.

Most of us who train frequently are familiar with the psoas muscle, short for iliopsoas, and commonly referred to as the hip flexor.

“My hip flexors are tight.” “My hip flexors hurt.” “My hip flexors are pinching.” You name it, and I’ve heard it. We’re familiar, for the most part, with what hip flexors are. However, a lot of us are lost on what to do to help them.

Are Hip Flexors Always Tight?

Stretching your psoas can help some people in most cases, and it feels good, but you may feel doomed to a daily routine of psoas stretching without making any progress. You may feel like you’re just maintaining, but that your hip flexors will never really change. They are just always tight.

I’m going to get down to the nitty-gritty and explain when and why stretching your psoas is not helping.

Note: Stretching your psoas, in most cases, is a good thing.

This content is for those who aren’t getting the results they need from simply stretching their hip flexors.

When and Why Stretching Your Psoas Is Not Enough:

1. You Have Psoas Tendonitis or Tendinopathy

If you have inflammation, microtrauma, and pain in the tendon (the rope-like portion of the muscle made of more fibrous connective tissue) regularly stretching your psoas is not going to fix it. It has a better chance of delaying your recovery and continuing to irritate it.

2.. You Have a Psoas Strain

When you strain your psoas, you have a small tear in the muscle. Tear is a scary word, but if it’s strained, it’s a small tear. A complete tear would be considered a rupture, and these are much rarer.

If you’ve strained your psoas and you keep stretching it with hopes this will fix your problem; you’ve got it wrong. Pulling a strained muscle is going to subject the tissue to more tension than is desirable during the recovery process.

3. You Sit Almost All Day at Work

If you sit nearly all of your day at work, stretching your psoas for 5-10 minutes isn’t enough. You can’t unwind all the shortening in your hip flexors within a few minutes. I’m not saying it’s pointless, because It can give you some relief, but it’s just not going to get the job done.

4. Your Psoas Muscle Is Not the Problem

If you haven’t been evaluated and diagnosed, you may be guessing it’s the hip flexor, and it could be another issue. Other issues can cause pain in the same area as your hip flexor, like:

• Cam-type, Pincer-type, and Mixed-type hip impingement
• Hip labrum tears
• Osteoarthritis of the hip
• Groin strains
• Hip Bursitis
• Hip dysplasia
• Referred lower back pain

Even experienced clinicians misdiagnosis hip pain, so don’t feel bad if you feel like you’ve got it wrong. The point is that if you’re not improving you should probably get a professional opinion on your hip.

5. You Aren’t Creating Strength in Opposing Muscles

One of the biggest reasons why stretching your hip flexors isn’t enough is because you’re neglecting your opposing muscles. The opposing muscles of the psoas are the gluteal and hamstring muscles. These muscles pull your hip in the opposite direction. If you’re not doing activation and strengthening exercises to create an oppositional force, your hip flexor muscles will always dominate.

The oppositional muscles are notoriously weak, but if you address them, they will fight the good fight for you.

Take a look at all the muscles in this area, in addition to the iliopsoas. The front of the hip is also sensitive because of the femoral artery, vein, nerve, and inguinal ligament. There are a lot of structures that can be involved in hip tightness and discomfort, especially if stretching your psoas isn’t relieving.

6. You Don’t Exercise and Are Inactive

I promise I’m not trying to slam you. If this is you, but it’s the truth. You have to exercise to maintain your physical frame. Deconditioning is a real thing, and over the long run, a psoas issue is small in comparison to the other problems that can arise from deconditioning.

7. You’re Stretching the Psoas Incorrectly

Believe it or not, it’s common to think you’re stretching the psoas when you’re stretching the gluteal muscles. An equal amount of people are close to the correct stretch but are leaning back and involving their back instead of shifting their hips forward. Make sure you know how to target the psoas muscle with your stretching.

Alison Bristow shows trainees the correct movement of the psoas

8. You Aren’t Spending Time on Mobility for the Other Supporting Muscles

Your body works in synergy and isolating your psoas for stretching while neglecting other supporting muscles will not yield results. Creating a comprehensive mobility plan to address hip, back, and leg muscles is necessary. The human body is balanced and complex, and we need synergy to function correctly.

9. You’re Not Avoiding Aggravating Factors

If you keep aggravating your injury, whether it’s the psoas or something else, your chances of making a full recovery are slim to none. As much as we want to work through things and be tough, we have to recognize when it’s hurting more than helping. There’s no amount of psoas stretching that will help if you are repetitively injuring the area.

What Can You Do Besides Stretching for Psoas Pain Relief?

If any of these reasons sound familiar, don’t be alarmed. They’re all things you can change. Also, this isn’t a mea culpa on stretching the psoas, I promise. Stretching is part of the rehab strategy for psoas discomfort, but the rehab process is usually more complicated than merely stretching.

If you’re experiencing nagging hip discomfort or injury that’s not resolving with stretching, consider reaching out to rehab specialists like a chiropractor or physical therapist who can provide treatments for psoas pain relief and a rehab strategy. These issues can almost always be resolved conservatively and without invasive or surgical procedures.

The post 9 Reasons Why Stretching Your Psoas Isn’t Working appeared first on Breaking Muscle.