When you squat you use pretty much every muscle from the waist down. The big guns – the glutes and deep hip muscles, quadriceps, and hamstrings – provide the main drive. Other muscle groups, such as the abs, spinal muscles, and calves work to stabilize you and keep you from falling over.

The squat sounds like a great exercise to be doing, right? It is a fantastic exercise, but not all squats are created equal.

The most popular squat exercise is the barbell back squat, in which a weighted bar is balanced on the shoulders behind the neck. This is the one we all learned back in high school gym class and the one every powerlifter likes to brag about. But for all its popularity, the back squat hides a dirty secret: it’s one of the most dangerous exercises for your low back, hips, and knees, even when done with perfect form.

To see why, we need to start with a quick biomechanics lesson. The spine is made up of 24 vertebra balanced on top of your pelvis that are separated by fluid-filled shock absorbers called discs. The spinal cord travels down the middle of each of the vertebra and exits the spine as peripheral nerves through spaces posterior to the discs called foramina.

There are four major groups of muscles that keep everything balanced in place: the abdominals and glutes working in opposition to the hip flexors and lower spinal muscles. When these sets of muscles are the proper length and strength, life is good (as far as biomechanics go). However, when your abdominals and glutes are weak/lengthened or your lower spinal muscles and hip flexors are tight/shortened, your pelvis tilts forward. This is what’s known as lower cross syndrome, and in this day and age it’s rare to find someone who doesn’t have some degree of forward pelvic tilt due to the amount of sitting most of us do on a daily basis and the extra weight so many people keep in their butts and guts.

Why should we be concerned about pelvic tilt? First, it’s one of the most common root causes of chronic low back pain, as tilting the pelvis forward pushes the sacrum (tailbone) up and back, closing off the foramina between the base of your spine and your sacrum. Nerves and surrounding soft tissues are incredibly sensitive, so it makes sense that they will be irritated by any change in the size or shape of these foramina spaces. This can lead to low back pain and swelling and potentially even more disabling conditions like sciatica. Second, it puts extra pressure on the posterior aspect of the discs in the lower back, forcing them into a wedge shape that increases the risk of a bulge or herniation.

The problem with back squats is that it’s next to impossible to perform them with a completely erect spine and pelvis. Any time you lean forward and arch your back you’re tightening/shortening your low back muscles and hip flexors and lengthening your abdominals and glutes. Add in a bunch of compressive weight over a span of 25 or 30 reps several times per week and it’s easy to see how back squats encourage anterior tilting pelvic positioning.

So now we can talk about front squat. Unlike the back squat, if you lean too far forward on a front squat you’ll drop the weight, so you have no choice but to keep your spine and pelvis upright. In addition, because front squats generally require less weight to get the same effect on the body, they put less compressive and shear force on the knees, lowering the risk of meniscus or ligament damage.

Wait, I said the front squat requires less weight for the same effect? Weightlifting mythology may have you believe that the back squat activates more muscle fibers or that the front squat will primarily target the quadriceps, but that’s not so. A 2009 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found:

• There is no difference between front and back squats in which muscles are being activated.
• Front squatting less weight results in the same muscle activation as back squatting more weight.

That last part is important. You won’t be able to front squat the same amount of weight as you back squat, but it’s okay. You’ll still be working those muscles just as hard.

Ready to switch over? Here’s a quick rundown of key points for safe and effective front squatting:

• Use a clean grip instead of a cross-arm grip, but remember that your chest and shoulders support the weight, not your hands.
• Your feet should be approximately shoulder-width apart and your toes should always line up with your knees. Rotate your feet out about twenty degrees and keep them flat on the floor throughout the entire exercise.
• Push your chest out and keep your elbows up. This provides a solid base for the bar to rest on and prevents you from rounding your upper-back.
• Focus on a point in front of you instead of looking up. Prolonged cervical extension is bad for your neck.
• Push your hips back like you’re sitting down in a chair. Keep your knees behind the front of your toes during the entire movement.
• Descend slowly until your thighs are parallel to the floor (or deeper if you can), push from your heels and drive upwards. Don’t bounce out of the squatting position.

References:

1. Gullett JC, Tillman MD, Gutierrez GM, Chow JW. A biomechanical comparison of back and front squats in healthy trained individuals. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2009 Jan;23(1):284-92.

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post Save Your Back by Switching to Front Squats appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The Functional Movement Screen (FMS) is an evidence-based exercise philosophy developed by Gray Cook, one of the world’s most respected injury-prevention specialists. According to Cook, the primary cause of athletic injuries is neither weakness nor tightness, but rather muscle imbalance. Just because you can bench five hundred pounds doesn’t mean you won’t dislocate your shoulder during the opening kickoff of a football game. Raw strength does not equal functional strength, and ignoring whole-body stability in favor of isolated muscle mass and power is a recipe for disaster.

Exercising muscles in isolation will change their shape and size, but it’s not likely to make your body any safer from injury. Working basic body movements, however, will strengthen muscles and make movement safer, whether it’s doing gymnastics or lifting a laundry basket.

Want proof that Cook knows what he’s talking about? During the 2007 NFL season, after Cook introduced the concept to the Bears and Colts during the off-season, both teams utilized the FMS to successfully keep their athletes healthy and both went on to make appearances in the Super Bowl. Athletes throughout the NFL, MLB, NHL, and NBA, as well as Special Ops military personnel, now spend millions annually for trainers specializing in FMS to keep themselves injury-free.

So what is the Functional Movement Screen? It’s a set of seven fundamental movement patterns that can be evaluated to identify movement limitations and left/right muscle asymmetries. It’s a trouble-detection system to prevent injuries before they happen.

The tests are:

1. Deep Squat (Lower Body): Used to assess symmetrical and functional mobility of the hips, knees, and ankles.
2. Hurdle Step (Lower Body): Gauges stability and functional mobility of the hips, knees, and ankles.
3. In-Line Lunge (Lower Body): Used to assess torso, shoulder, hip and ankle stability and mobility, quadriceps ?exibility, and knee stability.
4. Shoulder Mobility (Upper Body): Assesses shoulder range of motion as well as shoulder blade mobility.
5. Straight Leg Raiser (Lower Body): Gauges functional hamstring and calf flexibility while maintaining a stable pelvis.
6. Trunk Stability Push-Up (Upper/Lower Body): Used to assess symmetrical core stability.
7. Rotary Stability (Upper/Lower Body): Assesses core stability in combination with upper and lower body mobility.

These tests place the individual in extreme positions where weaknesses and right/left imbalances become easily noticeable if appropriate stability and muscle balance is not present. The beauty of the FMS it is that just about anyone can learn the basic system quickly and have an effective way of evaluating basic movement abilities. It’s also provides a clear baseline to mark progress and measure performance during an exercise program.

Providing corrective measures for every possible deficiency in these seven movements could take fifty pages of dense reading material (for that, head over to functionalmovement.com. But for everyone else, assuming you perform the screen and discover imbalances, Cook names these as the best across-the-board corrective exercises to fix the most common deficiencies:

• The Chop and Lift (Whole Upper Body Stability)
• The Turkish Get Up (Connects Upper and Lower Body Stability)
• The 2-Armed Single Leg Deadlift (Whole Lower Body Stability)
• The Cross-Body 1 Arm Single Leg Deadlift (Advanced Whole Lower Body Stability)

These exercises should be learned in the order they’re listed, as better coordination is required as you move down the list. There’s no shame in sticking with the simpler exercises for several weeks if the more advanced exercises are too difficult at first.

A potential strategy for adding these exercises to your workout routine is as follows:

Stage One

Based on the weaknesses identified in the FMS, practice the appropriate exercises listed above without weight until you are able to perform them for 5 reps on each side. Only when you can do this flawlessly without weight should you move on to stage two. This stage may take just one workout or may take a week or more depending on your beginning level of balance and fitness. If you weren’t 100% sure whether right/left muscle imbalances were present after performing the seven screen tests, it should be obvious the first time you attempt these exercises.

Stage Two

Based on the weaknesses identified in the FMS, perform 7 sets of each of the appropriate exercises twice per week. Use a comfortable amount of weight with a strong side to weak side ratio of 5 sets to 2 sets and a repetition range of 3-5 reps per set. In other words, perform 5 sets on the weak side and 2 on the strong side for each indicated exercise. Continue with this stage for four weeks, then re-evaluate with the FMS and repeat if necessary.

Don’t have the time? Do as much as you can. Consider that sacrificing forty minutes each week takes less time, and less loss of progress, than six to eight months of recovery after an injury.

As a physician, I want to stress that the FMS is a screen, not a diagnostic tool. As effective as the above exercises are, they won’t correct any underlying structural (whether spine or extremity) issues that only your doctor can properly diagnose and treat.

Nonetheless, utilizing the Functional Movement Screen before beginning a new sport or exercise program can help you determine functional deficits that are often overlooked by traditional athletic physical exams. If the weaknesses exposed by the FMS can be identified and addressed, decreased injury risk and improved athletic performance should follow naturally. Focus on pre-hab so you don’t have to do rehab!

The post Injury-Proofing Your Body With the Functional Movement Screen appeared first on Breaking Muscle.