The Proper Performance of the Squat -- or any other Exercise

 The “problem” with squats — or any exercise for that matter — is that people make the movement harder and more unnatural than it has to be — when the whole point of exercising (practicing) a movement, should be to make it easier. That is particularly and especially true when one needs to access those capabilities the most — as they grow older and more incapable of all movements.

Obviously, a helpful person advising them is not going to prescribe a manner of performance that makes it much more difficult, tortuous, torturous and even impossible to do it at all — or that elder person will never get up again if they fall, because their “genius” coach will devise a way to make it even harder yet. And it is also not helpful to encourage them to keep on practicing what is difficult, impossible, and even dangerous, on the promise if they keep on trying, they will eventually (a year from now) be able to do it easily — because that person who cannot get off the floor will have long since perished.

So any advice, has to be helpful and meaningful as one is in the moment — but learning the techniques that make such movements possible under the present circumstances and abilities. Then with practice, one simply becomes more effective and efficient at it — and not that the impossible becomes possible because one always attempts the impossible, and makes it so by imposing one’s will over realities.

The proper understanding of all leg exercises is that its primary objective is to move the foot — retracting the toes, and pushing off on the toes — and by that range of movement, one is able to walk, run, jump, dance, play games, lift weights, etc. Simply bending at the knee has little use otherwise — and will greatly stress the knee —but that is what most people do in usually constraining the leg action to just the movement at that joint.

The preferred and noninjurious leg movement, is to hinge at every joint involved — which means the knee must move as far forward as possible in a squat, rather than only moving at the knee joint — as must happen, when foot movement (dorsiflexion) is not allowed — not because nature does not allow it, but because of the manner of advice that is wholly misguided. When the knees are allowed to move forward as one squats — rather than more stress placed on the knees — actually less stress occurs on the knee, because increasingly more movement occurs in the plantar fascia (foot) as well as the tendons and ligaments of the ankle — the tightness and inactivation of which causes a limited range of motion and the problems of balance because the foot muscles are not activated.

Much of exercise advice and performance nullifies the importance of movement at the critical organs of expression — which is the hands, feet and head. That is what the entire musculature is supporting and enabling. Much less important to the body, is how much weight one can handle in the squat, deadlift, bench press — because those movements deliberately disable any movement at those end joints —or insertions of the muscles.

So while one may “burn” slightly more calories working only the large muscles, it is really the fine muscles, that make the difference. Try running (or even walking) without any articulation of the foot movement. That performance is familiar as the shuffling of the feet in old people — and doing so for miles, is not going to do them much good as simply articulating the foot movement — regardless of the more familiar gross movement of the hips and shoulders — if that.

Fine motor control is what people lose most with disuse and age — commonly expressed as the familiar markers of “grip strength, foot strength (balance), and cognition (ability to direct their senses). Awareness is largely this ability to turn one’s head towards the incoming information to determine the appropriate response (action). Many caregivers often point out that the problem of the hard of hearing, is that they don’t direct their attention (head) to the person speaking — which makes listening problematical. That is also the problem with drivers (cyclists) who do not turn their heads to see the conditions around them — but are insistent that it is every other person who needs to be aware of them — and ensure their safety.

Squats are an important movement to do because it can exercise all the major hinges (joints) of the lower part of the body — if allowed to do so rather than prohibiting that free play on those possibilities. It is infinitely more important to have full range movement around all the joints — rather than seeing how much weight one can handle in a constricted and constrained movement — until one is eventually and inevitably injured by that overload and overuse. Many will have long abandoned such movements before it reaches that point of no return and recovery.

What is most important to a long lifespan, is retaining all one’s capabilities through that duration —- rather than sacrificing everything for their “15 seconds of fame” — and then merely reliving those memories for the next 50 years because one no longer can. The squat is not so much an exercise or movement as it is a position one can attain in articulating all the joints of the lower body and rest (remain) comfortably and do whatever they have to in that position. It most definitely is not simply rebounding out of that position as quickly as possible — so one is never comfortable maintaining that position. That is what most people’s rendition of a squat is — a rebound out of the low position, rather than the maintenance of that low position that stretches all the ligaments and tendons of the legs that are the excuse for not doing a properly maintained squat position.

Contrary to common belief, maintaining the knee behind the foot is infinitely more stressful on the knee in the squat movement because one is immobilizing all the other joints that would normally come into play — to minimize that stress on that singular joint — instead of dissipating that stress among as many joints as possible. That is the danger posed in any movement in isolation — because the well known phenomenon of muscle action, is actually to recruit as many other muscles as possible to help in the task. That is to say, that the body always wants to make it easier on itself than harder — and never impossible, or to failure.

The objective of any conditioning, is not to fail, but to succeed. The categorical imperative is to find a way to win — and not condition oneself to fail time and again — as though that were a good thing, and that the opposite will happen.