The Almighty Squat

The Almighty Squat

Squats are one of the seven foundational human movement patterns. As you can see here in our photos, we start to do it as children and continue on into adulthood and so on. Here at Clash, we firmly believe everyone from babies to grandmas and grandpas should be learning and implementing the squat. Movement shouldn't cease because we get older!! Next time you are around a baby that has just started walking, we want you to watch them squat down to pick something up off of the floor. It's pretty impressive that it comes so naturally to them when they have had no training for this! It's because some of these patterns are just encoded in our brains, so we don't have to think of things like weight in heels, knees out, chest up, etc.

So the question you may be asking is "Why is it so hard for me to squat?" or "Why does it hurt *insert joint here* when I squat?" In this day and age there has been a change in lifestyle. We spend more time sitting and being sedentary. We will let you in on a little secret- our bodies conform to what we continuously do. If you spend most of your time throughout the day being sedentary- the body may perceive some movement as a threat and produce pain in certain areas simply because it is not used to it. For children, they are constantly moving and playing! So all day long they are exposing their body to a variety of movements. Not surprisingly, you don't hear children complain about things like aching backs or stiff knees and hips.

When we look at any movement with our patients, such as the squat, we always aim to build the most efficient movement possible. For the squat specifically, that means aiming to produce great ankle, knee, and hip mobility. When we can teach people how to move these joints better and in the proper sequence, it can aid in injury prevention, improve stability, and increase strength. This can also lead to improved movement quality when performing other functional patterns. Pretty cool, huh?