The Issue with Your Squat & How to Fix it

Do you lean forward when you squat? If you were to place the bar over your head like so and then squat like we do every single week at ResetU when we test our clients, would you lean forward like this? If you do, in this video I'm going to show you the secret culprit that's causing that problem. And it happens to like 95% of people that we see. I don't have actual data for you, but if I was to guess, it's like 95, maybe even 97. In this video, I'm going to show you exactly how to diagnose it, how to fix it, and then how you can squat like this and get rid of lower back pain and activate your glutes and all the other cool stuff that comes with being able to squat like that. Let's do it. First things first, I need you to grab a broomstick or a light PVC pipe or a stick like so, and two books that are roughly the same size, because what we're going to do is we're going to figure out if you have an ankle issue. See, the ankle moves the shin forward, and if the shin can't go forward, when you squat, it's almost like you're hitting a brick wall and then your hips just start to shift forward and then your lower back takes way too much tension and all the muscles in the front of your leg start to activate during your squat. And that's all you feel. You just keep squatting like this and feeling a bunch of your quads grow and your butt gets flatter and it sucks. So today I'm going to show you how to find this and see if it's the issue, which it most likely is. Number like 97%. 100%, it's going to be you. You're going to have this issue and we're going to fix it. First things first, we have to test your ankles, test your squat. Now, how we perform our squat test is we go feet shoulder-width apart, make 90-degree angles with the bar, press it over the back of your head. If it shifts forward, it means you have a shoulder problem. You got to see a different video. But from the side view, if you had a cup of water on your bar, does it spill? Does it move forward? Does this happen at all? Or you go straight down down and back up. If you can go straight down and back up, skip this video. You don't even need it. Like, you're good to go. If it moves forward at all, what I want you to do is elevate your heels to those books we talked about, like so. That's going to give you an extra inch on your Achilles tendons. Keep your balls of your feet on the ground and then squat again. Now, if this gets better, if you lean forward less, if you squat deeper, if you see more of your glutes getting activated all of a sudden, then that means the thing that is inhibiting your process in your squat that's causing your lower back pain, causing your knee pain, is the sneaky little ankle right here. Let's test it and figure out why. Now that we've diagnosed that you have an ankle problem, that means these two shin bones are not moving as far forward as they should. There's a couple of things that could be happening. These two bad boys could be not rotating correctly because they're supposed to rotate out as you move. It could be that this bone in the front, the talus, is getting impinged and causing a pinching feeling in the front of the ankle, or It could be that this tendon in the back, your Achilles tendon, the tightest tendon in your body, is so tight that it's restricting the ability to move forward. We're going to diagnose which one it is and then give you exercises to fix it. Let's go. All right. So now we're going to test the ankle. Lay your foot flat on the ground, and I want you to drive your knee as far forward as you can, doing an ankle mobilizer stretch. Make sure that the knee goes outside the big toe. Now, if you feel tension when you do this in the front of the ankle, give yourself a couple of reps. If you feel it in the front of the ankle, it means you have an impingement in the front. If the knee dives super far inside and it can't go forward, it means you have a restriction on the outside of the ankle stopping that spin. And if you feel the restriction in the back of the Achilles tendon, it means that the Achilles is tight. So I'm going to give you an exercise for each one of them. Make sure you test both ankles because they could have different problems on each side. I know I have that. So let's begin. All right. First one we're going to do is we're going to stretch out the front of the ankle. So if you had that pinching feeling in the front of the ankle, this is for you in one of your ankles. One of mine honestly is a pinch in the front of the ankle. The other side is the Achilles. So I'm going to show you how to fix both because I have both. You're going to put your knees on a decorative pillow. Pick the ugliest one and the darkest one because it's going to get dirty on the ground. Then you're going to put your big toes together. Come around here. Get this. You want a heart-shaped formation with your feet. Once you have that, put your hands on the ground and then drop your butt down nice and slow in between the heart. Now, if this is providing enough stretch, it's okay. Stay there. If you want to make it more of a stretch, lift your arms up and sit all the way down. Perform 10 of these nice and slow and focus on stretching the heel out. That's the goal. Now we're going to move on to that twist. Next, we're going to work work on the rotation of the ankle. Now we're going to go into another ankle mobilizer, but we're going to do it in a lunge. I'm going to take one hand, place it on front of the ankle. The other hand, I'm going to push the knee out so that it goes outside the big toe, and we're going to work this outer range of motion. So what it looks like is you've got one hand on the foot, you pull back, stretch the front of the ankle out, and you're pushing outwardly while keeping the foot flat. So we're retraining the outside of this ankle bone to release all the tendons in there, to release and move outwardly away from center. Do about 10 reps of this. And if you have that Achilles tendon problem, do this last move as well. Now, for the Achilles tendon, the best way to do is activate release. So get the calf to activate and then release. That way you can get actual lengthening of the tendon. If you just stretch on it, it's not really going to give you much. If If you have a Voodoo Floss Band, I'll drop a link below. If you have one, this is going to be way easier. And all you have to do is take your Voodoo Floss Band and wrap around the calf and ankle themselves. Doesn't take much time. And this is going to create more compression and squish all of the muscle and tendons together so that when you take the band off, you can have new fluid inside and you'll cut the time that it would take to immobilize this ankle in half. Maybe even a third. It's insane. This thing is amazing. If you don't have it, it'll still work, but get it. It's like $12. Um, next you're gonna go into a downward dog calf raise. So single leg, you're gonna raise your calf like so. Hold it for 5 seconds. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Then exhale and stretch the heel down to the ground. Now you're going to hold this stretch for at least 30 seconds. I would do 3 rounds of this. So after you've done 30 seconds, raise it again. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And then stretch again. And once you've done that, take the Voodoo Band off and do it for one more set if you have a Voodoo Band. If not, do it 3 times. Now, before you go, We don't know if we actually did anything. You have to retest. So grab your broomstick again, go to the side, place it over your head, and then see if you squat deeper without moving forward. If you do, which you should, because we diagnosed everything correctly, you will have a better squat. Your hips will feel better, your glutes will fire more, your knees will have less tension, and everything is better. And as a special service to me, and every single person in the world, please share this video because this is one of the most important things that gets missed all the time and no one cares about it. But you had the courage and the tenacity and the stick through to watch the entire video so you can actually fix it. Please make sure you share with somebody else because this is such an important, like, problem. Like, it's an epidemic. We got to fix this. Everyone has ankle issues. Just share with them. Thank you.