Movement Screen - Deep Squat

[JasonJones]

So researchers at Clinimex-Exercise Medicine Clinic in Rio de Janeiro put a number of senior citizens through a very simple movement screen that assessed their ability to sit down and stand up with as little assistance as possible. They found that their simple screen was "remarkably predictive of physical strength, flexibility and co-ordination" and that a lower score was strongly linked to an increased risk of dying early. I think this underscores the importance of looking at strength and mobility not as a component of exercise but essential to fundamental human movement and health. I thought it would be interesting to have a series of discussions about the different movement screens, what they tell us, how we can improve an individuals score, and how much knowledge we can get out of KPj until science learns how to miniaturize him and implant him in our brains.

Deep Squat:


What I'm looking for:

Mobility
When putting an individual through this screen I'm looking for a number of things, which I might pull out and examine individually. How well does the shoulder joint organize with the elbow joint to maintain full extension of the elbow, can the individual fully close their hips and knees, are they making up mobility by closing out the ankles.

Organization
The reason the deep squat is my favourite movement screen is because in addition to testing a wide range of mobility, it also demonstrates an individuals ability to stay organized during complex movements. How well does the individual tolerate corrective cues, what are they able to understand and communicate about their own body as it moves? Some people may fail out of the deep squat while having the joint mobility to get into position simply because they can't keep themselves organized. I find this tends to be more true of women than men.

Corrections
This is where my affinity for Kelly Starrett comes in. “If you’re missing a bunch of hip range of motion, you kind of have fewer options mechanically,” Starrett says. “You’re forced into certain mechanical compromises.” I'll try and use distraction with a jump stretch band to get my client to externally rotate their femur with a fixed foot position. Kelly talks about this as a "frog position" and the goal is to improve my clients ability to generate hip torque without compromising anything downstream. Any position I can get my client into while maintaining stability on the ground and "moving the femur out of the way" to allow them to close down that hip and knee joint. I'm looking at trying to free up a lot of groin musculature to move better, so adductors, illiopsoas, maybe quadriceps. If the client can stay relatively organized to perform squats I'll have them squat with a more toes out position until they're mobile enough to squat deep with a stronger foot position.

Simple approach
Find the position that the client sucks in and make them hang out there. Add a band to get some joint distraction. In this video Kelly does a far better job of explaining it. Or to make things even simpler, he has a corrective video just for the overhead squat.

My own score:

3. Even though my shoulder is — to use the medical term — dodgy as f***, I've worked hard at opening up my hip and t-spine mobility.

[KenDowns]

Jason,

Wish I could contribute, except to say this is my big new topic for 2013.

For a guy like me, late 40s, I got into weight training as a proxy for general health. It works well that way, because the demands of weight training: diet, sleep, knowing how to push limits but stay safe, all of these coincide with general good health.

But then it turns out there is more to the story. Aches and pains develop. My own theory is that if you stick with it long enough to get the weights heavy enough then sooner or later every pre-existing orthopedic imbalance or problem you have will show up as pain somewhere. You can then go fanatical, telling yourself you're "manning it up" and make everything worse, or you can find out if maybe you can fix the underlying issue.

Another thing I love about it is that recovery does not come into it. I can do mobility drills every day.

My overall sense is you cannot go wrong learning more about movement. No doubt a lot more will be learned in years to come, but it seems researchers have hit a critical mass of knowledge that is now very useful to those of us who are going to learn it in books and on the internet.

EDIT: One more note. Its amazing how simple and incredibly obvious truths are shrouded in mystery until somebody points them out (or maybe I'm just not that observant). The entire subject of mobility opened up for me reading an article where they guy said basically that your hip is supposed to be very mobile, but sometimes it is not. If you are not consciously aware of this (and sometimes even if you are) your body attempts to make up the lost flexibility elsewhere, in parts of the body that aren't meant to provide it, like the knee. Then your knee starts hurting, so in the worst case you end up with knee surgery. Knee surgery for a hip problem! Not surprisingly, it turns out the problems tend to develop where the limbs attach: hips and shoulders. All very fascinating and eye opening.

[Oscar_Actuary]

deja vue?

[JasonJones]

deja vue?

My hope is to look at several different screens individually, get people to score themselves, and look at how each screen can be approached.

Jason,

Wish I could contribute, except to say this is my big new topic for 2013.

Score yourself, and lets see what we can learn!

[KenDowns]

Wish I could contribute, except to say this is my big new topic for 2013.

Score yourself, and lets see what we can learn!

I did score myself, I think I reported it in the "Athletic Body In Balance" Thread. I failed across the board. Mostly on balance issue, and my right leg came out considerably weaker (I kind of already knew most of that). I knew "I'm not as young as I used to be" but I was stunned, and have joined the ranks of those who believe that by honest concerted effort I can delay and eventually defeat death itself.

[KenDowns]

Well well well, imagine that.

Today I did squats for the first time in 2 weeks, and went heavy for the first time in 4.

In the meantime I failed that deep squat self-screen, and have been doing various drills every day, including the deep squat progression.

Today one of the trainers at the gym was watching me squat and commented without prompting that my form had improved considerably since the last time he saw me squat. He said I tilted forward less and sat back more and was overall tighter. Maybe there's something to this whole mobility thing.

I did bomb on the heavy attempt, reverting to bad form and only making one at 295, but what the heck, I was getting bck into it :)

[Jungledoc]

deja vue?

Yeah, that was my first reaction, too, and I was going to merge this with one of the other threads. But I think it's a different theme than any of the others, so I'll leave it as is, and read with eager interest.

[robt-aus]

4 if i'm to follow the criteria, but I think 'parallel feet', if it's what I think it could mean (toes forward) during a full overhead squat is a a touch dangerous, so I'm actually a 5.

I, for one, welcome our minature KPj implants. nearly as useful as the dixie flatline.

[KPj]

So researchers at Clinimex-Exercise Medicine Clinic in Rio de Janeiro put a number of senior citizens through a very simple movement screen that assessed their ability to sit down and stand up with as little assistance as possible. They found that their simple screen was "remarkably predictive of physical strength, flexibility and co-ordination" and that a lower score was strongly linked to an increased risk of dying early. I think this underscores the importance of looking at strength and mobility not as a component of exercise but essential to fundamental human movement and health. I thought it would be interesting to have a series of discussions about the different movement screens, what they tell us, how we can improve an individuals score, and how much knowledge we can get out of KPj until science learns how to miniaturize him and implant him in our brains.

ha, this is flattering but, honestly i'm still very much a student in the movement thing. My favourite source for this is probably Charlie Weingroff. His "Training = Rehab" seminar is just phenomenal, too, although knowledge of the FMS prior to viewing it is recommended rather than picking this up to learn about it.

Worth saying that, although "one day I will", i've not done any FMS certification. I'm so far self taught. Also, I, like many others, were coming to the same conclusion before really knowing about the FMS stuff. The FMS people just summarised what I think I was already starting to think, organised it much better and took it - and continue to take it - to a whole new level. For example I know the first time Mike Boyle screened his athletes they all had high scores, before ever implementing any FMS techniques. Although, really he was, and I think most trainers who are successful at making people perform better probably are, too, they just don't realise it, and maybe they don't ever have to.

It's just a screen to see how road worthy you are and, if you're not road worthy, what direction you need to go in to become road worthy and, more importantly, what you shouldn't be doing due to the "faults" we've found and what you should be doing.

You can see the same philosophy in almost everything. For example, take boxing - if someone looks messy shadow boxing, how will they look on the pads? What if you put them in a sparring session? What do almost all, if not all boxing coaches preach constantly? Shadow boxing!

Or Olympic lifting. New lifters are commonly subjected to loads of squat drills, and drills to train the "rack position" (clean grip), and things like dislocations to groove the upper body mobility required to throw hold and catch things over head. These are just screens, and coaches use them because they know without this, a new lifter will either not perform very well or just get hurt. More so, a new lifter who can nail an OH squat, comfortably get into the racked position, and easily perform dislocations, will be much easier to coach.

I remember doing Karate when I was younger and I really hated and never understood "katas". There's various reasons these are done but, if you think about it, you are asked to move through the ranges of motion that you strike and move through, only slower and more controlled. If you can't do this, how are you ever going to move through these motions with optimal power and accuracy?

Anyway, i'm rambling.

KPj

[Oscar_Actuary]

I fail.
Arms fall forward when squat

I can do alright without overhead bar

[KPj]

4 if i'm to follow the criteria, but I think 'parallel feet', if it's what I think it could mean (toes forward) during a full overhead squat is a a touch dangerous, so I'm actually a 5.

You're right and wrong at the same time.

It's important to differentiate between a movement and an exercise. Deep Squat the movement and Squat the exercise are different animals. In the case of FMS, toes forward is purposely specified so we can see more information on the hips, particularly in the case of hip internal rotation. Toes out can cover up potential limitations in the hips which toes forward can expose. So you might nail a toes out deep squat but fail a toes forward deep squat. This, for example, may be due to a hip internal rotation deficit which can cause big problems as you train the squat and especially as you get stronger at it.

However, you want to squat-the-exercise with the toes out, and this is what the FMS folks say, too.

KPj

[KPj]

I fail.
Arms fall forward when squat

I can do alright without overhead bar

This is one of the things i'll do. If it fails then why? If I take the OH component away does this make a difference? In your case it does.

If the upper body limitations are bad enough to fail the Deep Squat screen, then you will probably have major issues holding a bar on your back and keeping your chest out at the same time - this does require some thoracic and shoulder mobility. It would probably be really uncomfortable unless you took a very wide grip on the bar and, low bar position is probably a no go, too.

I would imagine the shoulder mobility screen would tell us more, too, and correctives for this would most likely be one of the first places you should start.

I would give you a boat load of t-spine extension and rotation drills. I would ask you to do some twice a day every day. There's a whole bunch of other things you could do but, it's best to attack one at a time, hit it as frequently as possible, then move on. I would also assess your breathing, btw - you're probably a chest breather and don't use your diaphragm like you should. You may go into more anterior tilt and forward head posture every time you take a big breath of air.

If my assumptions are correct I wouldn't have you do any OH work until you cleaned up T-spine, and I would ask you about posture at work and home and try and make you more aware of staying out of that forward head posture.

Then I would re test your Shoulder Mobility. If it improved I would re test your Deep Squat and it would most likely be significantly better.

Also, I decide on correctives through trial and error. I'll run through some drills and re-test instantly. There should be an instant improvement, if not i'll try something else, and so on. When I get that instant improvement, then i've got my corrective. The trick is making the change stick, and that's where home work comes, plus taking some stuff away that enforces the problem (you can never remove all of it, but you can always remove some of it).

That's another point, if you need to add something for "corrective" reasons, you will also need to remove something, for the same reasons. Not all the time but in the case of correcting a failed screen, it's pretty much always the case.

KPj

[KenDowns]

4 if i'm to follow the criteria, but I think 'parallel feet', if it's what I think it could mean (toes forward) during a full overhead squat is a a touch dangerous, so I'm actually a 5.

You're right and wrong at the same time.

It's important to differentiate between a movement and an exercise. Deep Squat the movement and Squat the exercise are different animals.

Yup. Doing the screen and the mobility drills they have you with toes forward. These are all unweighted activities.

But when I do overhead squats ATG, even with the small 50# I'm doing now, toes go out. But stance is not as wide as when doing powerlifter squats.

[Oscar_Actuary]

kpj,

if I belived in all this movement voo-doo, I'd be concerned

As is I'll keep my kyphosis and let my lower back sort it out during the heavy sets.


sincerely,
Dumb Guy


ps. I have been meaning to look into T-spine mobility. (r)used by permission of JasonJones

[robt-aus]

4 if i'm to follow the criteria, but I think 'parallel feet', if it's what I think it could mean (toes forward) during a full overhead squat is a a touch dangerous, so I'm actually a 5.

You're right and wrong at the same time.

It's important to differentiate between a movement and an exercise. Deep Squat the movement and Squat the exercise are different animals. In the case of FMS, toes forward is purposely specified so we can see more information on the hips, particularly in the case of hip internal rotation. Toes out can cover up potential limitations in the hips which toes forward can expose. So you might nail a toes out deep squat but fail a toes forward deep squat. This, for example, may be due to a hip internal rotation deficit which can cause big problems as you train the squat and especially as you get stronger at it.

However, you want to squat-the-exercise with the toes out, and this is what the FMS folks say, too.

KPj

Ah, in that case, it's a four - i do fail toes forward full squats, as without warmup my ankles are not flexible enough to allow a barefoot deep squat movement. I can perform the full squat without a hitch, it's just that my heels lift from the floor. lucky me.

would a bit of salsa dancing help fix the old internal rotation deficit?