How do you physically prepare for retirement? Part 7: How I begin building my clients Lower Body Strength. Part A. SQUATS

Bret Contreras know that a set of goblet squats per day keeps the doctor away. 

Bret knows squat, do you?

 Previous two post:

Part 5: How I begin working on my clients Dynamic and Stable Balance.

Part 6: How I begin building my clients Upper Body/Middle Back Strength.

____________________________________________________________

What you will find is we will use some of the same exercises for improving posture, mobility and strength. The difference is how the exercises are performed. 

Why do I begin with posture and mobility before strength? I want my clients to maximize the gains, while minimizing the risks they will make from the complex movements I use to make them stronger. The results will be much better if they can stabilize what I want stable and move with control what I want mobile.

______________________________________________________________

WHEN WORKING ON ANY OF THESE EXERCISES, NEVER FORCE YOUR BODY INTO A POSITION. The focus should always be on how you are controlling the muscles and joints and the movements they are making. The pace of each movement should be slow. Perform from 5 to 10 reps of each. The goal is to get the muscles turned on as opposed to tiring them out. If you feel fatigue in the muscle when you are done, you have done too many.

______________________________________________________________

What exercises you perform are important. How you perform them is more important.

_____________________________________________________________

Before attempting any of the following exercises, be sure to get the approval of your Physician. Especially if you have ever had ANY JOINT OR BACK PAIN or INJURY.  If you aren’t sure how to perform any of these exercises, have someone show you that knows how to teach you.

___________________________________________________________

After my clients have learned their posture, mobility and balance exercises we begin focusing more on strength.  They still use the posture, mobility and balance exercises as their warm up.

___________________________________________________________

Lower Body Strength: Part A:
 

Lower body strengthening exercises should only be done once or twice per week since it is harder for legs to recover than upper bodies since the legs are used every day for weight bearing.

_________________________________________________________________

SQUATS: (aka, the King of all exercises) 

Why do I like teaching my clients how to squat? I believe learning how to squat properly give my clients more bang for their buck than any other exercise. You can develop posture, strength, mobility and balance from this great exercise. There are many ways to squat. 

Three things I have my clients focus on are:

1. Controlling their descents.
2. Starting from the bottom position.
3. Holding the bottom position with the glutes just above the chair. 

Each of these 3 focus points develops different types of strength.

One to the biggest reasons people fear squatting is it can become a very tough exercise. I love to teach clients how to adapt squatting to their current ability. Of course the goal is to increase this ability through training.

Another reason people don’t want to squat is they think squatting is bad for their knees. To quote my mentor Dan John, “Squats don’t hurt your knees, how you squat hurts your knees.”  

A few of the things I have them focus on: 

Pushing through their heels.

Keeping their knees apart.

Keeping a tall torso.

__________________________________________________________

How do I teach clients how to squat if getting out of a chair or couch is a challenge? They use their arms to help until they don’t need their arms to help.

__________________________________________________________

Squats with assistance from the arms:

I have the client stand with the backs of their legs in front of a chair with sturdy armrests. I have them sit down using their legs to control as much of the movement as possible. They are allowed to use their hands as much as necessary until enough leg strength is built. I have them take from 3 – 10 seconds to descend into the chair. If they plop into the chair before their bottom hits the seat, I will add a pillow in the chair until they gain enough strength to descend into the seat without it. If they need to they can rest between each repetition before getting out of the chair. 

The goal is to build up to 12 – 15 repetitions. They get up using the hands to help as little as necessary. 

Once they can perform 12 – 15 reps during 2 consecutive workouts, it is time to begin relying less on the hands and more on the legs.

_____________________________________________________________

Squats without assistance from the arms:

I have the client stand with the backs of their legs in front of a sturdy chair. They slowly lower their hips into the chair. They pause for a couple of seconds and then stand up while focusing on keeping the shoulders up and lifting from the hips. They repeat this for 5 – 15 reps. 

Once they have mastered this we move onto holding the bottom position.

They lower their hips like they have been except this time they don’t sit down between reps. Think about the glutes hovering just above the chair. They start by holding this position for a couple of seconds. 

As they get stronger I have them work on holding this bottom position for longer periods of time. (5 – 10 seconds each) They might have to rest between each rep, but the goal is to build their strength so they can perform from 10 – 15 reps continuously.

_____________________________________________________________

Other forms of squatting I might add:

Goblet Squats, Lateral Squats, Jumping Squats.  

_____________________________________________________________

Once the client has mastered squatting we move onto various types of lunges, split squats and other unilateral exercises. I will post more about them next time.