How to Build a Better Squat (or Any Movement Pattern)

As trainers, coaches and rehab professionals, I hope we can all agree that we want our clients and athletes to move better.

But how often does somebody just kill it on Day 1?

You’re coaching them up, then you just throw out that one magic cue and, BOOM!

They’re moving perfectly.

Maybe sometimes…but not nearly as often as I’d like!

Instead, I’ve found that most clients and athletes need to progress through certain steps before their movement really looks great.

Here are the four steps:

  1. Position,
  2. Pattern,
  3. Load, and
  4. Express.

So let’s dive into this progression of Position, Pattern, Load and Express to see how you can use it to build a better squat.

But before we go there, I want to start by talking about movement models first…

Start Here FIRST!

Before we start talking about building movement patterns, we need to take a step back and clearly define what we want our movements to look like.

For instance if someone is squatting, I want them to have a “Squatty Squat” – where the torso is upright/tall and they can simultaneously flex the ankles, knees and hips.

If someone is hinging, I want them to be able to push straight back through the hips while keeping a long spine position.

Or if we’re talking about a split-squat, I want the ability to keep the torso tall/upright while hitting a 90-90 position.

So  before we go any further, I think it needs to be stated that I hate the term “Movement Quality.”

Now I know what trainers and coaches mean when they use that term.

And in the interest of transparency, I’ve used it numerous times myself!

But here’s thing:

We need context. If you can’t clearly define how a movement should look or feel, then it’s hard for us to have a great discussion because we could be looking at things from opposite ends of the spectrum

Above, I roughly defined my model for a squat, hinge or split-squat.

But what if you have a totally different idea or interpretation as to what these movements should look like?

What if you have totally different goals for your clients and athletes then I do?

If we don’t hash out what we want a movement pattern to look like first, it’s really hard to have a rational discussion about what “quality movement” is.

So before I go any further, here are some bigger picture questions you should think about:

What is YOUR ideal?

Whether we’re talking about a squat, a lunge, a hinge, or a push-up, it doesn’t matter.

What do YOU want those given activities to look like?

What is YOUR ideal?

Define this first and your life will be infinitely easier.

What standards are you coaching to?

What level of “error” are you willing to accept when it comes to someone’s movement?

This will obviously range depending on a lot of different factors, but the big one for me is allowing a client or athlete the space to learn a movement while staying safe.

And perhaps most importantly, I like to focus my energy not on where someone is starting, but helping them level up incrementally from session-to-session.

Technique vs. Style.

Keep in mind that just because you have a movement model in place doesn’t mean everyone will meet those exact standards.

For example, based on my body shape and structure (Wide ISA, powerlifting background, etc.), my squat will never look as good as someone who is long/thin and has a narrow ISA.

So my goal is to make my squat look as “squatty” as possible, while respecting the fact that it will never look or feel quite like someone who may have more optimal leverages for squatting.

When you start to understand that someone can have good technique while still having their own unique “style,” I think everything in coaching gets a lot easier.

Now that we’ve got all that covered, let’s dive in!

1. Position

Obtaining the correct position is the starting point for building any movement pattern.

Now some of you may not like the word “position” and that’s just fine.

My good friend and biz partner Bill Hartman uses the word “shape,” which is fantastic.

You’ll also hear coaches use the term “lines” – they need someone to achieve the appropriate lines to make the movement fit their technical ideal.

But regardless of which term you want to use, when it comes to your clients and athletes, consider this…

  • If they can’t get their hips and pelvis underneath them, their squat will never look like a squat.
  • If they can’t have one hip flexed while the other hip is extending, they’ll never be able to split-squat or lunge effectively.
  • Or if their head is carried really far forward relative to their torso, they’ll never be able to achieve 3-points of contact in a push-up!

(And wow – that video looks REALLY old!)

So the goal here is simple:

If a client or athlete doesn’t have the range of motion necessary to perform an activity, their only option to perform said activity will be via a compensatory strategy.

If someone doesn’t have the necessary hip internal rotation (IR) to squat deep, it doesn’t mean they physically can’t get low in a squat.

However, instead of doing this via hip IR, they’ll find alternative strategies to help them do this, such as this:

  • Taking a wider stance,
  • Turning the feet out more (increasing toe flare),
  • Pushing the knees out hard,
  • Arching the spine excessively,
  • Etc.

So our goal is to develop the position(s) we want to achieve in a non-contextual way first – which is where your breathing, resets and soft-tissue work come into play.

Let’s come back to our squat example…

If someone can’t get their hips underneath them when they squat, we need to teach them how to do that FIRST, before teaching them the actual squat pattern.

Here are two activities that might help someone do that:

Both of these activities work to open the chest/upper back, engage the hamstrings and abdominals, and start to build the shapes/lines/positions necessary to squat more effectively.

Once you’ve started to address position, now we need to make things a bit more contextual…

2. Pattern

Once we’ve started to build the necessary positions to perform a movement, now we need to actually train that movement.

But unless you’re training elite athletes who pick up on movement skills and nuance very quickly, jumping right into highly dynamic and/or complex movements early-on is a big mistake.

If you take Grandma Betty and have her perform reverse lunges with an overhead press her first day in the gym, she’s probably not going to be very successful!

Instead, most of our athletes and gen pop clients need time to feel a movement pattern first, before moving into more complex variations.

That’s why when I’m building movement patterns, I like to follow a couple rules early-on:

  • Decrease the load,
  • Reduce the impact of gravity, and
  • Use static/isometric (ISO) holds instead of dynamic activities.

Coming back to our squat model, you need the ability to simultaneously flex the ankles, knees and hips while keeping the torso upright.

Once you’ve developed those constituent parts via the “position” section above, it’s time to put them into an activity that looks and feels more like a squat.

In this case, one of my go-to activities is the PVC reaching squat:

Or if you need an option that’s going to help you get long/tall through the spine, you could choose a suspension trainer breathing squat instead:

Either way, the goal is to start building context into the pattern, without overwhelming your clients and athletes with complexity.

3. Load

Now that we’ve started to build a more ideal movement according to our movement model, it’s time to load or stress the system and see how it responds.

Now when I say “stress,” we’re not talking Navy Seal BUDS week levels of stress here.

Instead, we’re simply trying to see how the movement pattern holds up when it’s put in a more challenging environment.

Here are a handful of ways you can do that:

  • Moving from a static to a dynamic activity,
  • Increasing range of motion,
  • Increasing load, and/or
  • Increasing speed of movement.

(And if you want a complete guide on how to progress and regress activities quickly, I cover this in-depth in my Complete Coach Certification and Complete Coach Seminars.)

At the end of the day, here’s the question we’re trying to answer:

Can your client or athlete maintain those optimal lines/shapes/positions while under stress?

Building on our squat theme, once we’ve unlocked the necessary positions and grooved the squat pattern, our next goal is to load or stress the system.

This is where reaching and anterior-loaded squat variations come into play – they help you stay upright and tall, which makes your squat look and feel like an actual squat.

Once we’ve stressed the system and built the movement pattern, now it’s time to bring things full circle!

4. Express

The great thing about the weight room is it’s a closed environment, which is ideal for learning and optimizing movement.

But there’s a huge divide between being able to execute a movement flawlessly in the weight room, and being able to do it in a dynamic and chaotic environment like sport!

Do we still want our athletes to perform movements optimally? Sure!

But you also have constraints like how quickly you perform a movement, or having to react to a defender, that are unpredictable.

That’s why when it comes to expressing a movement pattern in sport, we’re not looking for “perfect movement.”

I’m going to paraphrase Lee Taft here, because this thought process really shifted my thoughts on movement in sport:

There isn’t necessarily bad movement strategy in sport. The athlete does what they have to do to perform a movement within a given context. But that doesn’t mean we don’t work to optimize or refine their strategy going forward so it’s more fluid and efficient. – Lee Taft

So our goal as coaches is to build a well-rounded and robust athlete throughout this process so that they’re beginning from a more optimal starting point.

If someone can only squat via pushing their butt back and dumping their torso forward, according to our squat movement model that’s not ideal from a loading.

And to take it a step further, I’d also argue that’s not ideal from a sport-performance perspective, either.

If we teach an athlete how to perform a squat more effectively via proper body positions, patterning, and loading, now they can distribute load across multiple joints – versus putting focal stress on one or two.

Doing so creates a “Buffer Zone” that not only diversifies movement strategy but also decreases the focal loading that produces injuries.

Plus, let’s be honest here – once you get to the expression part of the program, this is where things get fun!

If someone has been building their squat pattern, now it’s time to get in the gym and jump or perform activities that focus on vertical displacement with speed and power.

Again, the movement strategy may not look and feel exactly like it did when you were PVC squatting or goblet squatting, and that’s okay because that’s not the goal at this point.

Instead, by laying that foundation and creating a more ideal movement strategy, our clients should ultimately end up more resilient and robust when they use variations of our movement model within their given sporting activities.

Summary

I hope this article has given you some insights as to how you can build more optimal movement patterns with your clients and athletes.

And while I provided you with one example, I’d challenge you to take some time on your own and work through this with some of the other “big-bang” movement patterns.

How would you build a split-squat or lunge?

Or a hinge?

Going through this process yourself will be invaluable, and help you truly understand how to help your clients and athletes move more effectively.

Good luck my friend!

All the best,
MR

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