Squat Therapy: 5 Minute Quick Guide

Look at how you spend most of your day. Do you sit at your table for breakfast? Do you drive to work? Do you sit at a desk? Do you spend one hour at the gym? Do you then go home and sit for dinner? Then sit on the couch and catch up on your favorite show? 

If this isn’t you, congratulations. If this sounds eerily close, then you should reconsider how you go about your day. Our hips, knees, and ankles, and thoracic spine have a lot of function and what we tend to encounter is a lifestyle that doesn’t stimulate our body’s capacity. The harm here is that the old adage, “Use it or lose it”, carries some truth in this regard. If you don’t spend time passing through your body’s movement ability, it will calcify. It will become glued. Your body will glue itself down, for lack of a better expression. The body is good at adapting at what you throw at it, and what you expose it consistently. Don’t expose it to its safe end range, it will eliminate it from its vocabulary. If you don’t give it movement, it will fail to accept it in the future. 

A good way to combat some of this, is to add 5 minutes of squat therapy. I use ‘squat therapy’ to represent a dedicated time, about 5 minutes to start, (increase this time as you become better) to spend in a squat and go through a list of movement patterns to promote a better squat. Below is a list of a few:

KNEE PUSH AWAYS – In a full foot squat, place one hand on the inside of one knee and extend your arm driving your knee out to end range. Alternate knees.

BUDDHA’S PRAYER – In a full foot squat, bring palms together with elbows on the inside of the knees. Lower your hands, driving both knees out simultaneously.

SKY REACHES – Place one arm on the inside of the knee and rotate and reach upward with your elbow. As you reach up, extend your hand upwards as well.

***Perform 10 reps of each and rotate through for 5 minutes. Limit your rest to a quick shake out.

Although 5 minutes might not seem like much, it is a an accumulation effect. If you can do 5 minutes, every day, and gradually increase that time, over time, you will find yourself unlocking depths, ranges, and positions, long thought to be lost. Special shoes will be a choice, not a necessity.