So in this video, we’re going to go through one of the most fundamental movements for our body, which is a squat. Now, squatting is incredibly important, but all of our bending activities, so often people find themselves just reaching down for things, picking up kids’ toys, or grabbing something out of the kitchen, cupboard or pumping something in and out of the dishwasher or the washing machine.

It’s something that we do all the time. And rather than being in the habit of using our back constantly, we want to try and help to learn, to engage and use our muscles and our body and our coordination differently. So we are more inclined to use our legs, buttom muscles, and really our whole body in order to squat. That’s what we’re going to do first is as you can see my feet position as slightly wider than hip.

So my here’s my hips, my feet are slightly wider than hip distance apart. And because of the angles of my hips, I’ve chosen to move my feet pointing out at about 45 degrees. Now, for some people feet facing forward, like this is perfectly fine. And some people outwards is going to be a little bit better. So you do there.

What’s right for you. Now we’re just going to really pay attention to popping weight evenly through both feet. Our toes through the heels. Just see if you can get a more even sprint away. We’ll wait till your pressure is moving through both feet. Now, some people might have a natural tendency of really locking out the knees, the knees to be slightly off.

True straightening. We’re going to think about really keeping those hips facing forward. Feel a little bit of a light drawing up through the front body engagement, light drawing in of the core that lifting up through the spine. And then we’re engaging back and down through the shoulders. Really think about how we can draw back and down through the back body. Now in order to do squat.

So we still think that drawing the shoulders back and down our hands further forward. Now, if you’d like to just check where your feet are, that’s absolutely fine. Now you may want to make your feet slightly further wider. If you feel like that would be better for you, that’s fine as well. This will help with your balancing a broader stance,if you do have any balance concerns, now we’re going to slowly bring the knees in line with the foot direction.

So as you can see, hopefully my knees are going outwards. My knees are not coming forward like this. If my feet were facing forward, my knees would track in line with my foot position because I’ve turned the feet out. My knees have to go out accordingly. Now thinking about squeezing the glute muscles.

Now I’m going to turn to the side and I’m going to show you something very important. So as I’m coming down, still engaging that core. So you have not slumping over at all, and I’m not letting my tummy hang out during in, but then as you can see, my hips are coming back as if I’m going to sit on a chair.

And one of the key features here is, is that you’re not going to see my knees over my toes. As soon as you’re like this, you’ve got a lot of tension and stretch going up through the calf. You’ve got a huge amount of pressure going through the quadricep muscles here at the front of the thighs. Whereas if we want to use our body more effectively, you’re going to take out bottom out behind us.

We’re really engaging the core, but using the gluts, your quads are still going to be active feet, toes down. I have a bit of a tendency to lift the toes. So just listening to my own body, my own tendencies and accounting for that. Then we’re taking the bottom really out behind us.

And hopefully you’re going to get to the place where you’re going to be able to at least get your hips down to your knee height. So at 90 degrees, we can maintain this position, do a chair pose, and then slowly what come up. So think about being lifted up. So we’re really using our whole body to engage in that process. Now it can take practice to get to the point that you can come down that far or that you’re not transferring that weight more on one side of the other.

You might find yourself twisting and rotating as you’re doing it. I do think it’s worthwhile. You have any concerns about your technique to record yourself so you can actually review what it is that you’re doing, because you might maybe be able to pick something up on camera that you might not actually be aware of at the time. The other alternative is to do it in front of the mirror, which is why gyms often have mirrors.

So people can actually correct their form. Now, not everyone is comfortable with that, which is why sometimes getting someone else to film you can be a great option. Now, if you have concerns about not being able to develop your squat, we can actually do it start from a seated position. So you could get a chair practice standing up and then sitting back down on the chairs.