Let’s face it. We are doing a lot of air squats at home these days.
If you are about to air, goblet, front, back, overhead, or even Zercher squat (try that wild one out sometime), start in the same place. The feet.
After you are standing with your feet under your shoulders you want to “GRAB” the floor. How in the world do you do that?
Focus on the the big toe first, try to grab the ground with the big toe. After this, rotate your weight towards the outside of the ball of your foot (where your pinky toe connects to the foot). Keep the big toe down while you do this. Lastly, let’s make sure the heel is still on the ground.
These are the three points of contact we should always keep between the feet and the ground when squatting. This keeps your weight balanced right in the middle of your foot. We should be pushing through this and not our heel when standing up from the bottom of the repetition.
As you do this (feel free to try right now if you are standing while reading), you should feel a lot of tension generated in your hamstrings and glutes. Your knees should already begin turn slightly out as well. Perfect. Now you can head down into that beautiful squat.
If you start with that good foot grab, the other parts of your squat you desperately want to fix like your knees caving in, coming up on your toes, arching your back, or even just not getting deep enough will all begin to fall in line too.
So when you’re gonna squat, start with the feet!
If you think you need some personal squat form corrections let’s discuss personal training. Reach out to a coach here!
