 Let's talk about using the squat to progress into your deadlift. So if you're having trouble finding and feeling some hamstrings, you feel like your back is getting really tight or overloaded during your deadlift. Some of that is okay, but I still want you to feel those hamstrings while you're lifting. I want you to be able to set up with a little bit of abs, not anything that's super tiring. And if you can't find those, maybe you'll find it more effective to use a squat as your primary exercise. And now you can use a loaded squat with, you know, a barbell and a lot of leg fatigue, and that's fine. You can use that to exercise. I might even focus on your cardio. I've noticed a lot of these people who can't maintain these good positions give up really quickly on cardio machines. So make sure your endurance is up there, both your muscular endurance and your cardiovascular endurance. But outside of that, we can even use some weirder squat variations to teach you how to position your hips, how to control what they're doing, and that will unlock some of your mobility for your deadlift. Specifically, so let's get into some of the anatomy. The pelvis is like a bowl and I might shape it with two little horns here. So the back is a little bit higher than the front here, and they kind of point this way. If I close the back, I get extra tightness here in my low back. If I close the backside of that pelvis, I am tightening up the back. I'm pulling up the hips, and I'm shutting off hamstring, right? I'm making it more eccentrically oriented. I'm making it longer, and I don't necessarily want that. I want it to be able to be active. I want it to be able to push with my legs and with my hamstrings. And so what I can do then is I can use the squat to take this closed back position and open it up. This closed back position and open it up. Okay, and so I'm going to squat a very particular way there. I'm not going to do this wide stance sumo squat where I lean back at the top. That's going to just reinforce my poor patterns. What I might do instead is grab my stool, because that's the closest weight that I have, and I might bring my feet in more. I might have maybe a hip-width stance. Maybe slightly further out. My toes might be pointed more forward than I would normally do if I were loading everything. And maybe I can balance the stool on my head. That's probably a bad idea. I can take a weight in front of me and teach myself how to sit back. And I can try not to pause at the top, so I can teach me how to build that endurance that we were talking about. Teach my legs how to drive movements. This stool says safety first, which I think is funny, because we're kind of talking about that, right? Keep your back safe while you're deadlifting and while you're holding stools. So I can use this, and as we go, as we squat down, what we see is that the pelvis starts to open up in the back, because it needs to if my stance is that far in, and if my toes are that far forward. Okay. So I go right here. My feet are out back up for you. My feet are kind of inward. Turn to inward. And I'm squatting down here, and you'll notice I'm going to turn again. You'll notice I'm not doing this. Okay, I'm not trying to stretch my back or stretch my hamstrings this way and turn my back on. I'm not worried about straightening my back. I actually want it to be a little bit more rounded than it's used to. And that's what helps unlock these pelvic bones. And so I can use the squat, thanks, stool. I can use this squat as a tool for progressing me into the deadlift. I can use it as an accessory exercise for the deadlift. And now I wouldn't traditionally think of a squat as something that is, you know, strengthening my hamstrings for my max effort deadlift. But if we're getting away from a powerlifting mindset of things, or maybe even we still are in and we just need to be able to drive with our legs, this stuff can still be very useful to you. Okay. And so I would challenge you to maybe rethink how you can squat and use that to progress into your deadlift.