OK, let’s take on some of the areas Mr. Kono mentioned from Part 1…
If you’re calves are tight, you won’t be able to get enough ankle flexion. This ends up throwing off the position of the barbell in relation to your ‘center line.’
To compensate, the lower back tends to round over. If not, you’re likely to end up on your keister.
Another area that needs to be flexible to hit rock bottom with proper form, are the hamstrings.
Inflexibility here makes it difficult to put the hips in the proper position. This leads to the same thing as tight calves, rounding of the lower back.
Tight calves and hams seem to be more common that tight quads. But stiff quads can cause problems too.
Another spot that I haven’t seen as many flexibility issues are the hips. What I have seen is cramping from maintaining proper hip position in the rock bottom position of the squat.
The problem here seems to be more of a strength issue than a flexibility one.
Regardless of the reason, when the hips cramp up, they tend to move out of position in an attempt to relieve the discomfort. As you’ve probably guessed, this leads to the rounding of the lower back.
As for the strong back arch, there are a few reasons for maintaining it, not least of which is injury avoidance. I’ll cover the other reasons another time.
But right now, if you’re not flexible, you need to work on it.
Doing a regular stretching routine is a good idea. And I’ve also found the following to help…
After warming up, and without any weights, simply squat down as far as you can go while maintaining proper form. Go a tiny bit further so you’re feeling a good stretch, and hold it for time.
If you keep this up, you will eventually notice your range of motion increasing while still being able to maintain proper form.
Stick with it…
Learning how to squat properly, then attacking the exercise with everything you got will lead to some of the best gains of your life…
Train Smart, Train Hard
Ray Toulany
PS: Heavy squattin’ is the spark that can lead to tremendous growth. But you need to have the proper fuel if you want your gains to really ignite…
The BodyDesign Nutritional System will show you how to top off your tanks with high octane fuel for maximum performance and gains, in minimum time…
