Zoe Ruiz – @ZoRuiz_
Most people when squatting don’t realize how efficient the unrack and walk out are. A majority of people rush their squat set-up. They don’t think about trying to conserve energy or use their leverages to maximum potential. In the sport of powerlifting, it’s all about your leverages. If you have a bad setup, more than likely, your squat won’t be at it’s full potential. Here are some tips to help you along the way!
Prior to unracking the weight, you need to make sure the rack height is correct for you. Make sure it’s not too high or too low, personally I put the bar mid-chest range.
- Placing the bar too high, you’ll have to do a lot of extra movement to try and un-rack it and your walk out will not be as efficient.
- Placing the bar too low, you’ll have to squat the weight just too get it off the rack, and waste energy you could’ve conserved.
For feet placement you’ll want to make sure they are in the appropriate starting position. You’ll want to make sure your feet are directly under the bar, when unracking the weight.
- If you place your feet too above the bar, you can cause yourself to fall back.
- Setting your feet too far back, can cause you to do a mini good morning, which will put pressure on your back and you won’t be in your strongest position once your ready to squat.
When unracking the weight, you’ll want to drive your hips forward while squeezing your glutes, if the bar is placed tightly on your back then it should pop up. Make sure you aren’t locking your knees out first, it’ll put you in an less balanced position and may cause injury.
Now you’re ready to walk out, we want to make sure you aren’t wasting energy walking the bar out to your starting squat position. You don’t need to take many steps to get in the proper squat position, personally I take 2-3 steps. When you have heavy weight on your back, it takes a lot of energy just to stabilize the bar and make sure you’re staying tight. You don’t want to lose energy by walking back with too many steps.
This takes a lot of practice to get down, because you need to know what your starting squat position feels like. How wide your stance is, and how far you’ll want to step back, once you get it down you’ll find that it is very efficient.
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