How We Screen Functional Movement (Series): The Deep Squat
Welcome Back!
Thank you for your patience as we took a week off from the blog. For those who are not aware yet, we moved offices! Not only did we change locations, but we have changed our name!! We want to welcome everyone to ChiroFitt (Fitt= Functional Integrative Therapy & Training)!
We have expanded our training area and will be starting to offer group training classes as well as continuing to offer semi-private training. Of course, we will be continuing to provide our chiropractic and therapeutic massage services. The move was made in alignment with
Our Mission:
“ChiroFitt strives to be a leader in the health and wellness industry…focusing on a paradigm shift; rather than treating symptoms, we correct causative factors of physical pain, limitations and dysfunction with an integrative approach combining innovative techniques in therapy, training, and conditioning to get the best outcomes for our community.”
Our Vision:
“Leading our community to a better quality of life by eliminating pain, improving function, and promoting well-being with innovative evidence-based therapeutic and training strategies.”
We hope that you will take the opportunity to come visit us at our new facility:
419 Village Drive, Suite 3
Carlisle, PA 17015
Now onto this week’s topic…
This week we take a closer look at our last screen of the FMS (Functional Movement Screen), the Deep Squat. This is the also the last of our 3 functional screens, two of which we covered in our last two blog posts, the hurdle step and inline lunge. The hurdle step was our screen to assess the step over and single leg stance, the inline lunge was our screen to assess the asymmetrical or split stance (one foot in front of the other) and the deep squat will look at the symmetrical or bilateral stance (one foot next to the other).
This Week We Will Discuss:
- How we Screen the Deep Squat
- The Impact of Mobility & Stability on the Deep Squat
- How Squatting affects our Daily Activities
How Mobility & Stability Impact the Deep Squat
Let’s take a closer look at the screen:
The screen as shown above looks just like an overhead squat exercise. The deep squat requires full symmetrical range of motion of the ankles, knees and hips while maintaining good shoulder mobility (to hold the dowel overhead) and good core stability and control. In other words, the deep squat requires good mobility of the upper and lower extremities with good postural control and core and pelvic stability. The deep squat requires a high level of mobility and control to accomplish, which is the reason that it is the last of our screens to be corrected. Typically, by the time we get to considering correcting the deep squat it has corrected itself as we have already corrected the required mobility and stability requirements to complete the deep squat with our hierarchy of correcting mobility followed by stability, which were previously discovered in our mobility (Active Straight Leg Raise, Shoulder Mobility) and stability screens (Rotary Stability, Trunk Stability Push Up). Though, occasionally we need to further teach our clients how to control this mobility and stability to achieve a full deep squat. In essence, we need to reprogram the software (motor programs controlled by the brain) to control their hardware (muscles, joints, etc.).
The one big mistake we often make with trying to correct the deep squat is that we think to correct a pattern we just need to do more of the pattern that we need to correct. In other words, we try to correct the deep squat by doing more deep squats, which not only is the definition of insanity (doing the same exact thing and expecting a different result), it reinforces the poor movement pattern and significantly increases one’s risk to an injury. Rather we need to understand where one’s inability to successfully complete a deep squat lies and then apply correctives to those areas. If we just screened a deep squat without any other screens this may be difficult to have a clear understanding of where those inabilities lie. However, when we take the data previously collected by our other seven screens along with the data from the deep squat, we have a much better opportunity to know where to apply corrective exercises to correct the ability to successfully perform a deep squat. This is the beauty of the FMS, it provides checks and balances within the full screen.
How Squatting Affects our Daily Activities:
Squatting is very important to our ability to perform many necessary daily tasks. Getting up and down from a seated position requires our ability to be able to squat. In some cultures, and areas of the world people live without toilets, the people of these cultures rarely have difficulty with squatting late into life. In fact, it has been shown that chairs and toilets have some responsibility in limiting our ability to deep squat as we age. Many of us are rarely forced to deep squat throughout life, only having to get to the depth of a chair or toilet. However, when we learned to squat, we did it from the bottom up as toddlers when learning to get to our feet, so we certainly had the ability at one point in life.
Again, it is vital to have an understanding of how well we are able to perform the deep squat pattern prior to designing an exercise program. Activities such as squatting and jumping should be limited, prior to correcting this pattern. Activities that we need to be cautious with include split squats, lunges, rowing, and running.
What Is Next…
We hope that our continued discussion of the FMS and the Deep Squat screen has demonstrated the continued strong need for a proper fitness screen prior to initiating a training program. For more information on corrective strategies that we utilize in our training programs to help improve the Deep Squat, continue to follow us on social media (Instagram, Facebook) where we will be posting videos of how to improve this pattern.
We will be back next week to discuss a review of the FMS and a discussion of how we put it all together prior to training our clients. Until then, we hope you all have a great and active week!
