You’ve seen it. You’ve probably done it. And if you’ve trained
long enough, someone’s definitely told you the Starting Strength
Squat is going to kill you with all the “shear” force it places
on the spine. Done and coached properly, this is quite obviously not
the case, but occasionally things can go south. Enter: the Good
Morning Squat (or Squat Morning if you’re nasty), that awkward,
back-dominant grind where the hips and knees shoot back, the chest
folds forward, and your squat turns into an RDL with a bar on your
back.
It usually rears its
ugly head when the weights start getting heavy. You’re in the hole,
you hear Rip in your head yelling “Drahve your hips!” and boom,
your ass shoots straight up to the ceiling, your shoulders barely
move, and your back angle becomes noticeably more horizontal.
Congratulations friend, your squat is now visually ugly, mechanically
inefficient, and fucked.
But here’s the good
news: it’s fixable and far more often than not, the problem is not
weak quads, a muscle imbalance or a fragile spine (sorry physios).
It’s just poor balance, bad timing, or a botched cue.
Let’s walk through
what’s going wrong and how to unfuck it for you, one piece at a
time.
1.
You’re not mid-foot and everything falls apart
At the bottom of a
properly executed squat, the bar needs to stay over the middle of the
foot. This should seem obvious to everyone reading this article. If a
240lb man has 440lb on his back, it stands to reason that the best
place for him to be at the bottom of the squat is balanced over the
middle of his foot. If, however, the bar starts to drift forward (as
it can when things gets heavy), your hips are going to shoot back to
keep you from faceplanting. Although this isn’t ideal, it’s certainly
better than the alternative of falling forward with a loaded bar
glued to your back. To compensate, your knees shoot back, your back
angle becomes more horizontal, your quads are damn near out of the
picture. You are now muscling the bar up with your low back like a
moron.
The Fix: Stay mid-foot.
Period.
Most of the time, the lifter doesn’t even realize the bar is
drifting forward until the hips are bailing out the lift. So what do
we do? Keep the whole system balanced over mid-foot and this likely
cleans up right away. Often the simplest solution is the best one and
this is no exception. You do that, and the hips will lead and chest
will rise, together, like they’re supposed to with simultaneous hip
and knee extension. Simple cues like “Mid-foot!,” “Pressure
mid-foot!,” or “Stay mid-foot!” get the job done. When in
doubt, think that if the bar stays on rails over mid-foot throughout,
your squat won’t look like trash. The master cue works well here.
2. You misunderstood “Hip
drive” and now you’re dry-humping the ceiling
This one’s
potentially on us coaches a little bit. During the teaching
progression, we try to hammer home the point that the hips are what
you drive with out the hole in the squat but some folks take it a bit
too far when the bar is on their backs. When we shout “HIPS!”
from across the room, you end up treating it like a launch command
from NASA and you jack your ass, and only your ass, straight up
toward the ceiling. Your shoulders stay in place, occasionally ending
up lower than the level of the hips, the quads sit this rep out and
your torso basically folds in half. Now you’re yanking on the bar
with your low back trying to complete this god-awful looking rep.
Sound familiar?
Fix: Hips and chest
together and maintain the back angle
Real “hip
drive” is defined as the simultaneous extension of the knees and
hips while maintaining the back angle. We cue it as “Hips,”
because it works better at getting folks to understand that you don’t
really squat with your knees, but what we really want is for your ass
and shoulders to leave the bottom in sync. Sure, there will be a
slight change in back angle – maybe 5-7 degrees – on the initial
bounce out of the hole, but it shouldn’t change much and that’s
the whole point. Cues that work well include: “Chest and hips
together,” “Stay in your hips,” or my personal favorite from
Rip: “Stand up earlier.”
3.
You’re loose and the bar is folding you in half
You might have the bar
in the right spot on you back and you might even be balanced over
mid-foot. If, however, your upper back is loose or worse, your
bracing/valsalva is shit, at heavy weights, the bar will start
folding you over the second you hit the hole. Add in some fatigue, a
heavy set, or just a bad day, and the “squat morning” is back
with a vengeance. Remember that our backs act as force transmitters
in the squat – the rigid segment that transfers the force produced
by the hips and knees to the bar on your back – and if any part of
this segment is not rigid, you’re in trouble and you will start to
miss reps.
The Fix: Get tight.
Everywhere.
First, fix your
grip and make sure the bar is place correctly below the spine of the
scapula. Now, narrow it as much as your shoulders will allow and
think about contracting your upper back while raising your sternum.
This will enhance the “meat shelf” the bar sits on and will keep
your thoracic spine in rigid extension. Second, take a huge breath of
air and brace like you’re about to get punched in the gut, hard, and don’t lose it on the way up. Third, fix your eye gaze. If
you’re staring at the floor, your chest is going to follow and you’ll
be in a much stronger position. Focus on a point 4-6 feet away, lock
in and look at nothing else until after the 5th rep.
4. You’re breaking at the hips before the knees
Another way lifters
screw this up is by pushing their hips straight back at the start of
the descent while keeping their knees in place, instead of them both
breaking at the same time. This, my friends, is a mistake, and a
pretty big one at that.
When this occurs, the
knees don’t get to do their job early enough, are late to the party
and end up slamming forward in the hole in an attempt to play
catch-up. That’s called “knee slide,” and not only does it
contribute to the squat morning but it can also piss off your knees
something fierce. Now that your back angle is too vertical at the
bottom, guess what happens on the way up? The knees blast backward,
the back gets horizontal as hell, and there you have it: you’ve
found a 4th way to have a terrible looking squat.
The Fix: Break the hips
and knees together.
You want to clean up a
squat with this problem, so start by unlocking the hips and knees at
the same time, not the hips back and then knees afterwards. Thinking
about “knees and hips together” or “unlock both” tend to work
well. Stubborn cases may require an overcorrection where you have
them think about breaking at the knees first. Remember, you’re not
bowing to royalty on the descent, my friends, you’re squatting.
The goal is to get into
the bottom of the squat with the bar still directly over mid-foot,
the knees having been set about 1/3-1/2 of the way down and your back
angle firmly established, not still figuring itself out on the way
up. Done correctly, the rebound out of the hole will feel smooth, the
knees won’t shoot back, and the hips and shoulders will rise
together just like they are supposed to.
Bonus:
It’s not your quads
Now, I get it, it’s
tempting to blame this issue on weak quads. And sure, it’s possible
that this is a contributing factor to the problem eventually, but for
novices and most intermediates the issue isn’t strength, it’s
shitty mechanics. If your squat is falling apart under heavy weight,
fix your balance, timing, and bracing first and you’ll very likely
quit good-morning-ing your squats.
The good morning squat
isn’t just ugly, it’s your body screaming that something’s out
of whack. But please, don’t overcomplicate the problem. Stay over
mid-foot, chest comes up with your hips, stay tight from top to
bottom and set your knees early. Do that, and your squat gets better
instantly. You don’t need a new program, more accessories or a trip
down the Reddit rabbit hole. Your training log, your squat and spine
will thank you.
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