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Uh, please advise Reynolds So knees out we will often cue Someone in the squat If they have knee slide or they're Banging off of their knees right in their squat We like to see their knees travel both forward and apart track out over their toes For the first maybe third to half of the descent And then the knees should be immobilized in space And then everything else from there is going to butt back lean over Yep So if the knee continues to travel forward all as the the squatter goes all the way down to below parallel That's what we would call knee slide and we can get patellar tendonitis and it kills the hip drive There's a there's a lot wrong with that And then we'll also see people they kind of you can see it. It's hard to describe But once you see it you you'll never miss it again When somebody is kind of banging off of the tendons in their knees they're getting a rebound Off of their knee to come up out of the hole. Sure. We'll often cue knees out To fix those things. Yeah What when you tell somebody knees out, what are you expecting them to do when you say that? From an actual not just a practical perspective, but what is actually happening? Is that what you're asking? When I tell somebody knees out, I find that I actually have to clarify this I mean act like there's a two before between your knees holding them apart. Yeah So they're going to go out over your toes and they're going to hold them apart You're going to increase the distance between your knees sides a lot of times like if if I say out Out usually works and then for some reason sometimes out Knees out they don't really understand what that means And so I go push your knees out to the sides push them apart apart away from each other All right, like those things all you'll you it's not just you have to use those cues And so yeah, we're actually wanting you to actively drive your knees out to the sides And maintain that and when you do that it keeps them from sliding forward in the bottom And so that that knee slide that occurs the reason that's so bad when the knees slide forward in the bottom third Of the of the squat like that last Bit of depth by the way that happens a lot of times because it's actually far more comfortable To squat to get the bar to move down lower if I let my knees slide Right, so it's way tighter on the muscles of the posterior chain and we'll get there from a physiological sort of standpoint If I it's it's far tighter if I don't let them slide forward So it's the same thing that occurs when somebody squeezes their chest up in a deadlift step four And they drop their hips if you drop your hips when you squeeze your chest up. It's way more comfortable It's like less blood pressure in your face Right, and this is the same thing that's occurring in the bottom of the squat If they let their knees slide forward they're like well that was it was easier to get down there, right? That's not what I want. I want to compress the spring And what they're doing is they're making it so that they're not pushing in to that circle of tightness to that bubble of tightness And so when the knees slide the circle of tightness, that's right When the knees slide forward the knees also go down They have to right right because the the The is the pivot point the fulcrum that they're on is that the ankle So as the knee slides forward the knee also goes down And that means in order to break parallel You have to squat deeper. That's right. The more my shin is vertical The less deep my hip crease has to be to break parallel right the closer my shin is to vertical The less deep my hip crease has to go to break parallel The more angle on the shin the deeper have to go to actually break parallel So I end up doing more work often To break parallel, but there's lots more problems with that. The other issues are It closes the angle of the knee While leaving open the angle of the hip When the knee slides forward, which means more moment force on the knee right more rotational force on the knee More moment forced overcome by the quads and less moment to overcome By the glutes and hamstrings Yep, because the glutes and hamstrings are closer to the gravity vector when the knee slides forward And the knee is further away from the gravity vector when the knee slides forward So now I've taken a lot of that moment now shifted it from posterior to anterior And that's a problem because what we're trying to do is use the most muscle mass And if I'm going to use muscle mass, I want to be able to use the glutes and hamstrings and adductors Adductors are a big part of this we'll talk about in a minute and to do that. I have to freeze those knees We could say freeze you said immobilize you immobilize freeze the knees in space One third to one half of the way down in the squat. They do not move They bend But they don't move around in space. They're at their stopping point Yeah, your shin will travel forward your knee gets kind of out over your toe and then it stops That's right Then the hip ain't then the knee angle closes as your hips go below parallel And then you try back out of the hole and the knee Is immobile mostly as it comes up until you get to about a third of the way up and then yeah, sometimes It's exactly right and some people do this tremendously well, and it's like Really frozen. It's just beautiful. Like the knee just does not move Yeah, the whole last 50% of the descent and the first 50% of the ascent the knees do not move. That's that's perfection That's what we're chasing So that's certainly a big piece of it and by the way as a side note the back angle is set at that point too Right, so the knees are immobilized and the back angle is completely set at its level of amount of horizontal So I'm bending over a lot depending on your anthropometry, you know long-legged short torso people are going to bend over more and And Short-legged long torso people are going to bend over less but that backing will set halfway down and from that point forward It's just your ass going back and down To break parallel your ass going back and down into the circle of tightness into the bubble of tightness So so will cue knees out To keep that knee from traveling forward and it seems to when they get If their stance is wide enough if their stance is correct and their toes are out In the at the proper angle and you'd cue knees out When they get to the point where their knees were sliding forward The adductors get really tight because their knees are out Yeah, and then and then that prevents them from sliding forward Yeah, so I think if we look at this from let's start from the side plane that sagittal Look at look at it directly from the side and talk about the hamstrings and glutes and then look at it from the front and figure out What's going on? When we when we push our knees out, which is to abduct ab duct your knees Um and with and it also externally rotates We got your ad adductors and your ab ductors correct, right when you abduct someone you take them away Yeah, so the abductors take your leg away from the midline. Yeah, that's good. I've never heard that. That's a hambrick original Turn in a little song and sing it in homeschool And so uh, so from let's start with the side plane well when the the knees stay Back right when they go forward and out for the first half of the descent and then they push out but do not travel forward The thing that keeps one of the things that keeps your Your tibia from sliding forward away from the femur really two things One is the acl Which is not exactly the thing we want to stress the other thing is the hamstring the hamstring grabs at tibia The shin bone and pulls keeps it from sliding forward. So when the When the knees stay back and out The hamstrings are stretched more When they slide forward they shorten certainly they shorten Uh distally at the knee Right now on the on the proximal side the side that's up underneath your butt cheek The hamstrings originate at the ischial Tuberosity there at the ischium at that little at your seat bones those two Your butt bones underneath not your tailbone But on on you can feel the pressure if you're sitting in a chair right now in your car driving You actually feel the pressure of your of your butt bones on your sit bones or your eschial tuberosity there And the more I bend over the more I point that ischium those that that the tuberosity the actual bony Structure that points out the more I bend over the more that actually points back at the wall behind me So if I hold my knee back and shove it out And I'm able because of that to bend over more It's just going to stretch my hamstring a little more, which means Then my hamstring can then more powerfully contract In order to help with hip extension, which is really what we're trying to do in the squat So it allows me to better use my hamstrings when my knees go out and not Forward after the first 50% of the descent right want to be clear right the knees have to go forward a little bit Right well any any person with a hey, man. I've got a I've got a client, uh, Todd Yeah, not uh, not not Todd my father-in-law, but an online coaching client Man, that guy has got the shortest femurs I have ever seen. Yeah, how about Will Morris? Oh, yeah, I haven't I haven't watched him squat, bro His torso to femur ratio is two to one Wow, his torso is twice as long as his femur whereas your femur is twice as long as your torso I'm actually not that long femurred. No, you're actually really long shinned Yeah, your shins are like grotesque. They're so long Yeah, a wolf watched me squat the first time and then he went and sat down and like rubbed his chin And he's like, oh, I finally figured out you've got like giraffe shins. Yeah. Yeah, it's really bizarre Yeah, so so when those knees go out so they slide they come forward just a little bit, uh, and then get pushed out When I do that and do it well It allows me to sit back with my hips and bend over and be more horizontal on my back And that stretches the hamstring more unless the hamstring contribute better to the squat So that's the first thing that happens Because I'm bent over more I'm better able to utilize my glutes Right, that's right because the glutes originate at the iliac crest And cross the hip joint And attach or insert or as I used to say insert with it with a z and all the staff would make fun of me Uh at the greater trochanter of the femur the bony knob that sticks out on the femoral head neck area So the glutes are really The glute max especially the big giant one that your grandma used to spank with the ping pong paddle No, no, you didn't you never got spankings with ping pong paddles No, no I'm gonna have to do some deep rooted Maybe I maybe I'm the one that needs counseling The glutes are really massive the glute max is a massive powerful hip extender Which means again The more the hip closes the more opportunity the glute has to contract forcefully And and extend the hip and this all still comes from Not letting the knee slide forward keeping the knees out, right So the hamstrings are better able to be utilized and and certainly the big glute And then there are two smaller glutes the glute medius The medium size glute and the glute minimus the small size glute And those are hip extenders and also external rotators So we haven't talked about external rotation at this point if we think about the squat from the side and we rotate and we go Okay, well now what is happening if we look at the same guy from the front When I abduct my knees and my knees get further apart If my stance is at shoulder width hip width stance ballpark area As the knees go out the femurs also externally rotate a little bit. So I get external rotation They rotate away from The midline So yeah, if you're sitting in a chair with your feet flat on the floor and you just let your legs fall open Like your right knee goes to the right your left knee goes to the left the femur externally rotated if you sure if you knock your knees together That your femur internally rotated that's right So when it externally rotates the inside of my thigh Points more towards the ceiling and when it internally rotates the outside of my thigh Points more towards the ceiling right if they rotate internally or excellent now number one when I push my knees out When I push my knees out it allows my femur to externally rotate Which means I'm able to better utilize Those external rotators, which are all those weird physical therapy muscles like the piriformis and the obturators and the gamelis and all of those things as well as that Glute medius and glute minimus, which will help abduct Shove my knees out and external rotators the little ones which rotate the femur The femur But when that happens What gets stretched so while the external rotators and abductors are Shortened and doing their job by abducting and externally rotating There's a big giant muscle group that gets stretched. It's the opposite It's the antagonist of those and that is what that's the adductors adductors. That's correct It's the inside of my thigh Those are big old giant muscles, right? Uh, and they're I think there's three of them there and The I'm going to screw this up the adductor Magnus is it right? I don't know these I believe it originates also at the is at the ishium, right? So the adductor part of these are your it's your growing muscles. It's what ends up attaching it to your growing Now they don't all originate at the ishium I'm sure some of you guys are I'm going to have the physical therapists come in But I'm I'm pretty sure that's where a big chunk of that originates. So remember now I've got the hamstrings that originate at the ishium And I've got the a big chunk of the adductor originates there as well And then it comes down those adductors come down the femur and attach Insert on the shaft of the femur. They do not cross the knee And what they do is they basically grab the knees and they try to pull them in Okay, stay with me If The external rotators and ab ductors that my ass and my external rotators if they're able To effectively hold my knees out If they anchor the knees out Then when the adductor shortens When the adductor starts to pull Because the ab ductors are pushing against it or they're holding trying to hold out against it They anchor the knees out and the adductor grabs and it contributes to hip extension as long as my knees don't cave in early Right and if your knees cave in early, what what do we call that women have it starts the v remember that term? Yeah, that's the valgus valgus, right? It's the knees come in and when that happens the adductors ad ductors shorten prematurely The knees come in hard And they're not able the adductors are not able to contribute to hip extension And because the knees never go back out the the hip extenders The hip external rotators are the hip external rotators and ab ductors ab ductors They're just lengthened and aren't able to fight against it So that's a problem. You know, I often see I often see a uh A double adduction Oh all the time, you know, they they yeah, they start in the bottom Their knees are out and they come in and they go back out and then they come back in to lock out the squat You know, that's exactly right. And so when they go out the second time Um That the force that drives the knees out should have been driving the hip up That's right And so when they came when the knees came in the first time They expended energy at the wrong time in the wrong plane And the that energy didn't go into moving the bar out of the hole And the back angle and you know this because every time that happens the back angle becomes more vertical, right? They're not able to stay bent over, right? And this is a typically a female problem. Although it's not always a female problem I've seen lots of guys whose knees cave in On the squat as well. And so So for those you guys are listening that got lost in the weeds and I'm sure there are plenty The point there is that it's real important and real complicated as to why the knees need to go out But primarily the idea is when the knees go out and the reason we say knees out is because it allows us to better utilize The hamstrings the glutes and the ad ductors on the inside of my thighs all to contribute to hip extension Which is really what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to straighten the hips Right. My hips are very bent in the bottom of the squat I want to get them straight at the top of the squat. So I've got to go through that And when the knees cave in And or slide forward usually both occur My ad ductors are not able to contribute to hip extension very well at all And my hamstrings are also shortened. So they're not able to contract as powerfully and then often my Torso becomes more vertical and so my glutes are not able to contract as powerfully, which means I don't get to hip drive very much Instead I stand up with my quads and chest Right not literally my chest, but it looks like chest drive and what it really is is that it's knee extension That's contributing Hey all matt here again august 2020 matt and I wanted to give a quick update on We've had a lot of discussions about the relationship between knee extension and hip extension In the squat as well as really the other lifts and so You know for a long time we would often talk about hip drive like what hip drive drive the hips And also would often equate hip drive with the hips or the muscles around the hips doing that And we recognized a while ago that the thing that really causes hip drive That makes the hips go up Is knee extension and the quads do that so the quads perform the knee extension And the hips drive up so the quads are the thing that make the hips go up In the beginning or coming out of the bottom of a squat Or at the beginning of a deadlift or the beginning of a clean or the beginning of a snatch or or any big pull The knee extension is going to initiate the bar movement The very first thing that's going to happen is the knees will start extending and as they do the bar must come with it Now the muscles around the hips specifically the hamstrings and the glutes are still doing a ton of work here But it's mostly isometric. They're holding on for dear life So is to not let the back angle change and become more horizontal As the hips come up the hips have to extend a little bit the very nature Of the hips being higher than the knees or the hips rising will cause some amount of hip extension But the thing that we're primarily going to look at is did the back angle change So the back angle should stay the same in the beginning of these movements out of the bottom As the knees extend the knees extend the back angle stays the same and the bar moves as the knees extend And then once the knees get to the point where they're basically done extending not locked and not straight But where they've done the bulk of their work Then we start to see the back angle change as the hips start to open up Really from that proximal from the origination End and they'll start to open and the back angle becomes more vertical and so but it shouldn't in the beginning So as we talk about the relationship of knee Extension and hip extension. No the knees start the movement in the squat in the deadlift in the snatch in the clean and all those big movements and the hips are holding on in isometric contraction the muscles of the hips And then they open up later now again There's a little bit of hip extension from the beginning as the hips drive up But it's not very much and so just wanted to make sure that you understood What was going on when we've used the term in the past of hip drive. It's really Quads extending the knees to drive the hips up and the back Angle is set All right, let's get back to the show Those quads are big old muscles, but boy, I sure would like to use those other three giant muscle groups Yeah, we want by freezing the knee. We want to use those late in the lift not early Um, that's right. Yeah. So, uh, man, I find myself using the same Cues over and over and over again. Yep, and it's because they work, right? It's midfoot Yep, and knees out. Yep. I use those over and over and over again So if you video yourself lifting and you've already kind of solved the midfoot thing, but you see that you have knee slide Or you're more valgus saying off your knees or the valgus knee, right? Um, the knees out is the thing you need to be thinking you need to be thinking knees out You need to be thinking I've got a piece of pipe between my knees that won't let them come together I've seen I think I've seen Carl use the side tubo Right side tubo. Yeah, you got to hold it against. They've got a big contact and stay there Yeah, you put a I like put a tubo the terribly useful block of wood a foam roller You know some something that you can stand up that's a couple feet tall Yep on the outside of your foot and you have to hold that side of your knee against that As early as you can in the descent and as long as you can on the way back up Yeah, that's good. Uh, that that knees out cue is crucial and I think between Midfoot and knees out Well, you can fix a lot of problems. Uh, let me tell you where it doesn't work what I found in my experience So if you're listening and you have knee slide forward Knees out works well. Yep the combination of midfoot and knees out Fixes knee slide and if they need some sort of proprioception sort of then I'll use it I'll use a tubo and I'll usually put it in the front make them just touch it But not knock it over right or with some people depending on if they have really short femurs I'll say never even touch the tubo right if you touch the tubo they went too far forward, right? But where knees out doesn't seem to work for me Is for females who truly struggle with valgus knees They want to they know what it is. They know that they need to knees out They just cannot get them out. They're trying as hard as they can This is where you see that the double abduction or double adduction you see both you see it all the time, right? So they're pushing their knees out. They're able to drive their knees out through the entire descent And the second they bounce out of the hole the knees come in And they squat up about halfway up and then these come flying out again And then they get two thirds of the way up three quarters of the way up And the knees come back in as they finish their stand up And I have had many many clients female clients that I coach Struggle with this knee valgus and this this cue of knees out just doesn't seem to fix it because they know what they're supposed to do And they're actively trying to do it and it's just not working So then the question is if you're listening to this and you struggle with this or Your wife or somebody that you coach struggles with this. What do you do? Like what's the troubleshoot there? We've talked about this with the staff. It's actually been a struggle. So it's It's really hard to fix is one of the hardest things to fix. I think in in all of strength training I think it's a strength issue, right? I mean, it's not For some people you'll find that it is a motor skill thing and that if you can get them to focus on it Use the side tubo. Yeah You can bring it to their attention and it'll go away but I think for a lot of people and I think I'm actually one of these it's actually a abductor adductor Relative strength problem. Yeah, and I don't know and I don't know Like it's something that we can improve a whole bunch But I think that for a lot of people that's just that's just going to be their burden That's going to be the one that they struggle with for a long long time. Yeah I hope you're enjoying this episode in the technique series of the barbell logic podcast You know at barbell logic We believe that barbell based strength training is literally for everyone And that the only thing holding most people back from all the incredible benefits that come from it is good technique Inconsistency and we can help with that too. 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There's nothing better for your training than knowing you're lifting safely Training efficiently and on the right track. All right, let's get back to the show So my experience is that if you're someone who when you get to really heavy weights Your knees start coming in that that probably is going to happen and it's truly a strength deficit That probably is going to happen for the rest of your life But the weight at which it comes in will continue to go up So I've spent a lot of time trying to troubleshoot this stuff And here's what I found right not everything works for the same person But here's what I found that works pretty well tempo squats Seem to work pretty well and the vast majority of time that I program a tempo squat I actually really only care of it about it being slow on the way down Yep But on this valgus thing it's got to be slow on the way up too Which makes it extra hard, which means you got to take more weight off, right? Because most of these people don't have any problem holding their knees out on the descent Yeah, I Correct. Hello puberty puberty Um, they have a problem holding their knees out on the way up And so we've got to actually slow down the ascent a little bit too That makes me a little bit nervous sweating really slow and and what I tell them is like four second descent And two second ascent so they're not firing up as hard as they can They're just coming up at a moderate pace where they can actively think about pushing their knees out Um, I've yep. Go ahead. Yeah, uh four second descent, you know When you're under the bar, you're not qualified to count That's right. It's so you know, you need somebody one two Nikki says one chimichanga two chimichanga food All the way down and then You do three seconds up. Is that what you did what you said? If it's a valgus issue, right for normal like if I was going to have you Do tempo squats, I would have you go four second descent fire up Right, but for a valgus issue, I would say probably two seconds on the ascent man Three gets really long three sometimes it ends up being three Anyway, I just don't want them to actively go as slow as they possibly can So that that slow ascent that slow rising up out of the whole centric phase Because I'm time to to really think about what they're doing and focus on Focus on the movement. That's right. Same reason we use the primary reason we use tempo squats on the descent Is for people who struggle with midfoot And it lets them think about midfoot if they drop too fast They just lose control and they don't know where their balance is But if they're constantly thinking about the balance when it's why we use those tempo squats The other things that I've used with some success Is the hip circle actually or bands like you double mini bands and put it around their around their Knees just up just above or just above their knees And or a hip circle and I I like them training with that and there my experience has been while I thought it was going to be really gimmicky In the beginning and wouldn't have told anybody that I was I was using these It seems to have a positive effect even at relatively heavy weights if they're wearing it So at one point I would have my my some of my trainees Do all their warm-ups with the hip circle on and then when they got to their work sets Take it off and they would send me like their last warm-up and it would look great And then they get to a heavy sets and their knees would still really come in Yeah, you know what give me one work set with the hip circle Let me see the difference and their knees clearly stay out better with the circle on like something about like They have something to actually actively push against and that tells me it's a motor pattern issue And not just a strength deficit in their a b doctors and external rotators And so I do like that hip circle. That's what I was going to ask So you don't you don't think it's that the hip circle or the you know the bands around the knees You don't think that that's strengthening strengthening them You think it's a it's providing them feedback so they know when they're pushing out In fact, I don't know Okay, I wish I did. I mean I just um It's probably some of both like I don't know how much stronger your Your a b doctors and external rotators can get with this Elastic band around your around your legs, right? Like maybe a little bit in the beginning but pretty quick because you're not able to titrate up the Tension of that thing that I don't know how much stronger it makes you other than it Maybe it helps you just sort of get a little stronger and better able to use all of those muscle groups together On a squat and that again becomes more of a motor pattern issue And then the other thing I've done with the really problem clients Here's the here's where I'm getting exercise selection wet. By the way, I've never done this with a novice I've never had a novice use a hip circle Occasionally if somebody's got really bad valgus I will take when I go to a wednesday light day That'll be the first place that I might move to like a tempo squat is on a wednesday But this is all for sort of intermediate people who are already relatively strong and advanced For my extra clients who really underneath come in I'll have them hip circle And pause squat About three inches above the hole On the way back up So they descend correctly sort of in a tempo And as they come up out of the hole Just as they fire up out of the hole they stop And they hold their knees out for two second count Against the hip circle or maybe not maybe not the hip circle, but either or And then they finish squatting on up because that's the point that it really comes in And I think you're really just playing a motor pattern game at that point You're just trying to develop that way. It's supposed to feel Um and hoping that you get some strength benefit from the thing So it valgus is hard man knee slide No big deal I can fix that right away now and some people are harder than others to fix knee slide Especially online coaching we're not there to sort of yell at them, you know, you know Real time, but we can always fix knee slide and online that that valgus is I don't Actually, I don't like the hip circle so much. I don't like that stuff. That's why I like that side tubo. Yeah That's basically you're doing the same thing. It's pro. Yeah, you're just using proprioception. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's these out now We also will cue knees out in the deadlift. Yeah Uh, we do that for different reasons kind of although a little bit the same too, right? So there is that there is that I would do want to better use My adductors I want to be able to use my external rotators and my ab doctors Working in conjunction with each other to help better Um Create a stronger contraction Um For hip extension like that's still there. I'm still trying to extend the hip But what's the other reason we do it that is not as important on the squat? But when you grab the bar and you lean over you you hump over grab that bar in the deadlift you put your shins at the bar Uh, and then you keep the hips high, but then go knees out We press your knees out into your elbows You get to get your hips in a little closer to the bar. Yeah We get to take a little bit of that moment off Of the back if you think about somebody that's doing a sumo deadlift Think about a sumo deadlift when they're at the top their feet are spread way out And they're making an equilateral triangle almost right You can simulate that femur angle When you're in the bottom of the conventional deadlift by pushing your knees way way out super super hard So we get some of the advantageous mechanics of the sumo deadlift off the floor So you get to get your hips in a little bit closer to the bar You get to be just slightly more upright and you get to put some adductor In the deadlift that's right if your toe if your toes are straight ahead with a narrow stance and your knees straight ahead in the deadlift Zero adductor involvement. No, correct. Yep. So if we get our knees out We can add a little bit of muscle mass to that deadlift If you want to see it become more advanced You can actually even play even more and get your stance in a little closer to itself, right? So the bring your feet in a little closer to each other and that allows you to even get more of a it gives I use the term bow legged it's not bow legged obviously, but it gives that sort of bow legged look Of heels are very close together knees or spread way far apart and then it comes back together with the groin Um, and you're able to take some of that moment off of the side plane and put it in the frontal plane Yeah, and that's important because it brings the hips closer to the bar. Therefore it shortens that Um, I'm really shortening the segment length artificially shortening the segment length Um, and I'm putting it on that on that frontal plane And it it can handle it a little better, right? Because I'm able to put it on some more muscle mass We don't tend to ever feel like we're going to fall right or left On a deadlift we feel like we're going to fall forward or backward, right? Actually, we just had a video come out probably by the time you guys listen to this It will have come out on the art of manliness channel where we talk about how we took Brett mckay From a 400 pound deadlift to an over 600 pound deadlift and it was using these Techniques that needs we take he takes a very narrow stance and pushes his knees out really hard And it's because what we're trying to do is bring that Bringing the hips closer to the barbell. Yeah, which is the name of the game in a sumo deadlift In a sumo if you do a sumo deadlift, right? Your back is damn near vertical Right and your hips from the side plane when you look at the side plane your hips are really close to the gravity vector We can play that same game with the deadlift. No again the same thing. I just said I've got to be really careful I don't do any of this with novices Ever no it's just not it's no need to complicate things, right? We're the we're the simple guys. We're the guys that want minimum effective dose But as you start to really drive your deadlift up and get very strong and or competitive We're trying to literally lift the most weight possible at the meat Then this is the way we do it And since most of our people actually utilize the the united united states strength lifting where you're not Even allowed to sumo deadlift Then we figure out how to Play with the physics a little bit of a conventional deadlift And that's one of the reasons we push our knees out Because we get to put more muscle mass in the thing It does and that's and they do teach knees out Against the elbows the difference is that they don't tend to keep walking your feet closer and closer and closer to each other So we don't necessarily teach heels two or three inches apart Which a lot of my advanced lifters will do including myself But the knees are always or are always out. That's part of that Step number three in the deadlift setup So when you deadlift with your squat shoes on you got they got that heel there Yeah, that knee that knee gets a little bit farther forward hips get a little bit closer Yeah, a little bit but But now you've you've lengthened the range of motion And the reason you're able to do that the reason the knees can go forward And the hips get closer to the bar is because now the bar is lower on your shin because of the extra three quarters inch of heel And so the bar can stay on your mid over your mid foot and have your knees still go more forward than normal Right. Does that make sense? Yep. So as the it's because I've lifted my heel up The bar is lower on my shin my knees can still go more forward than they would if I didn't have the shoe on So my hips come a little closer to the barbell, but I've also elongated the range of motion So there's the sort of physics trade-off there If as an advanced lifter I pull the shoes off and again All of my novices deadlifted in their deadlift shoes because I want to use the greatest effective range of motion I'd rather use more range of motion in the beginning just get them generally strong But as they start to become more competitive we pull those shoes off Bring in the stance push out the knees Bring the hips closer to the bar and shorten the range of motion And sometimes that even means rounding the upper back Right another show for another another day unless you're you and you're just kyphotic and you can't get your chest up Anyway, so But how dare you Yeah, the uh Well, here's the deal your foot's on the incline plane when it's in the shoe Yeah, right your shoe might have as much as a three-quarter inch heel on it Maybe but it's an incline plane your foot's over the midfoot So it's really about half of the distance the range of motion is really about half of the distance that would have been And then you and then once it breaks off the floor that once it breaks off the floor that Doesn't make any difference. It's gone the increased range of motion doesn't matter at that point And your knees farther forward and your hips are closer in well The incident breaks off the floor I think you're in winning you're in a you're in a better mechanical position than you were with the flats on unless I don't disagree But you can't just throw out like once it breaks off the floor like once for a lot of people That's the thing Well, you're right breaking it off the floor with the correct form is the big deal And and sometimes they get broken off the floor with the shoes But at that point their back is a hundred percent horizontal Right the hips and and shoulders at the same height The moment on the back is tremendous and so Again For somebody that's just trying to get generally strong on the deadlift I think wearing your shoes is definitely optimal. You bet general strength You bet, but i'm playing that physics game to the end for competitive lifters, right? I'm playing it's why I round the upper back. That's why I let people round That's why I've advanced lifters who are strong who deadlift 550 plus men And women who deadlift 315 350 plus We'll let them round that upper back a little bit Because it shortens the range of motion and it shortens the length of the back It brings the hips in closer So if i'm able to keep my hips high knees out hips come closer and then round the back The segment length of the back gets shorter. So the moment gets less. Yeah, this moment is angle and segment length. That's it Right and so if I can bring my hips and shoulders closer to each other I have effectively shortened the segment length So you bet if I'm with the shoes is you tend to just keep a really long backing That's why that's why we always want the shoes on a clean Right because I want to maintain the long ass moment arm On the back for a clean because i'm trying to Accelerate the bar because it's light enough to put to cause the trebuchet Well, the more powerful trebuchet it it's it's dependent on a long moment arm I can't get a big powerful whip with a short moment arm But on the but on a deadlift that's 700 800 900 pounds I know that you get down a slippery slope if you start saying like well, you know got like Constantine never pulled in deadlift shoes or never pulled in squat shoes Because a lot of times those guys are strong in spite of the way they lift not because of the way they lift But when you're pulling 900 pounds that extra half inch Five eighths of an inch actually makes a big time difference force times distance you increase d yeah two and a half percent It's a big work. It's more work. I'm trying to reduce work for competitive lifters Right. I'm actually trying to increase work for general strength lifters So if you're getting generally strong, let's increase it man. Let's let's get more work in effective range of motion Perfect. Let's do it. Well, there's knees out. Hopefully that helps you can go and Use your midfoot cue the master cue you can use knees out and hopefully that'll help clean up your your work Um We've got to do a little more of a deep dive on the anatomy stuff than I than I thought but that's that's a good thing Matt, Matt Reynolds. Yeah Go to Instagram and subscribe there or follow at barbell logic and cpr's and announcements and new pieces of content that come out and uh, you know Hit a pr because it's something that we've helped you with here Tag us in the tag us in your instagram post. We'd love to see Yeah, Barbara logic. By the way, we just passed 10,000 subscribers last night 10,000 followers last night past 15,000 subscribers on youtube And uh 10,000 on uh instagram same day That's excellent. Well, there's a show you'll follow with that at barbell logic on instagram We'll make it worth your while and of course you can go check out the youtube channel We've got a there's a little short instructional videos and stuff that you podcast listeners Uh, don't get sent to your podcast feed. So go check that on instagram. Thanks