 Now, when you're trying to fix a squat, what is the first thing that you fix? Is it the knee? Because your knee hurts. Is it the hip? Because maybe your hip hurts. Is it your head position? Is it where the bar is sitting on your body? All of those things could be really important for one person. Now, it depends on what you're getting out of there. If someone is grossly like they're doing a low bar squat and the bar is just so low that it's ripping their shoulders off their body, then I might change that. Yeah. But in general, the number one thing, the first thing that I need to change in the squat when I'm teaching it to someone is the spinal position. So what do I mean by that? There's a lot. There's a lot going on here, right? So there is the hips, the pelvis. What is it doing? There's the rib cage. Are the ribs sticking out or are they kind of centered in with the middle of the body? And then even up to the neck because if the neck, it seems like a minute detail, but if the neck is locked, then I can't unlock anything else because all of these joints, this is one of our rules of fitness, are connected. Everything is connected, right? Even your gut health is connected to your body's inflammation and it's connected to your joint pain and range of motion, right? All of this stuff is connected. So the center of everything, the thing that we can easily change is your movement and your position at your axial skeleton, at your midsection, at your core, at your pillar. There's a ton of different words for it, right? So first thing, let's go bottom up because that's usually where I'm going to start, right? Why would I start bottom up? Pause for reflection. Why would I start bottom up? Well, the only interaction that I have with the earth is right down there at the bottom. It's my foot in the ground. So I want to make sure that the foot looks okay. I got to make sure my center of balance is right. And if you watched my video about foot positioning, you kind of have a sense for how the foot can really tell me what the body is doing, what the center of mass is doing, how I'm controlling my weight and the weight that I'm supporting maybe on my back or on my shoulders. So first thing, we'll just say keep your feet flat, okay? Keep your heels down maybe, but keep your feet flat is my favorite. Now, once we have that, we know the center of balance, the center of mass is under control. Then we need to look at the hip position. So I don't want your hips way under here. This is really uncommon. It's a little bit harder to force somebody's hips like this. And I don't want them sticking way out like this. I don't want this big arch in my low back. If I arch my low back, that means I'm flattening my upper back. I'm emphasizing this curve. I flatten my neck out a little bit, okay? Again, everything is connected. So we queue this up. You want your waistband maybe a little bit tilted forward, maybe a kind of level with the ground, parallel with the ground. Don't overthink the positioning. There is no perfect position. All of you guys look different. I look different. Our positions, our optimal positions in any given scenario are different, right? So roll it around, feel it out, do a little dance, put on some Beyonce, whatever you got to do. Just find a nice restful position. I want you to be able to feel like your heels are firmly in the ground. So whatever helps you do that. For me, it's not here, right? This pulls my heels up off the ground, actually pushes my weight forward. And it's not here because now I feel like my back is collapsing. It's somewhere right about here, okay? I feel pretty relaxed here. I feel like I got some good heel contact in the ground. Then let's move up. The second thing that I want to look at is rib position. I don't want these ribs pointing out. I'm trying to inhale to show you because I'm wearing this black shirt. I don't want these ribs pointing out. It shuts my abs off, right? It brings in air to pressurize my midsection, which can help me with really heavy squats. But if I'm trying to lift for longevity and I'm not trying to do the maximum amount of weight that I can possibly do, it's probably healthier for me to set these ribs down. Probably a better idea in the long run since long-term training is always going to outweigh the short-term, intense training. So recapping. Hips here, got my heels. Ribs, not here. I'm not crunched. I don't have this huge hump in my back right here. What I'm looking for is are my ribs kind of flush with the rest of my body is my bottom of my rib cage directly over my pelvis complex, my hips here. Once I have that position, I will notice that I have more heels. If I bring this up, it's really hard not to move my hips. But if I keep my hips where they're at and I bring my ribs up like that, I lose those heels right away. Do it at home. Try it while I'm talking. I'm going to ramble for a second so you can get up and actually give this a shot because you'll remember it better. Stand up, tilt your hips forward. Heels are off the ground. Tilt your hips backward a little bit, not too much, a little bit. Okay. Heels are back on the ground. Bring your ribs up. Oh, heels are off the ground again. You can see my postural sway while I do this, right? I promise I'm not totally doing this just to re-emphasize my points. These are actually the responses that my body has to these positions. If I turn my back on, it pushes me forward. Okay. That's unavoidable. So what we're doing here is we're trying to find a way to keep this mobility, to not be biased in one direction or the other, or any of the directions that I could be biased in. Okay. Hips are set. Got my heels. Ribs are straight down, like rockets pointing into my pocket. And then let's talk about the head and neck. Okay. There are a couple of schools of thought. One, lift your head up, look straight up. Other one, pack your chin, bring it way back. Now, those work pretty well for high load squatting, but they steal some of your mobility. What I would instead suggest to you, longevity lifters, as I might start calling you, if I'm maintaining these positions and I got my ribs down, I got my hips where I need them, then I just want to make sure that I'm looking forward because I want to use my eyes as my second fixating point. I want my heels down. That's my first fixating point. And then I want my eyes to give my visual system, my other parts of my sensory system, another way to latch on to the world. And so if I stare at the camera here, I keep my heels. I got my position. I got my heels. Okay. I have this proprioceptive sensation of the world. And then I can look forward and I have this visual sensation of the world. And I don't need to necessarily crank my neck up to do this. My eyes are really flexible, right? I can just follow along as I'm going. Okay. And this helps me maintain these positions. Remember, everything is connected. If I have a flat neck, then I'm going to have a flat back. But if I have a normal neck, then I'm going to have a normal back position. Okay. So again, number one thing to fix first in most people is the spinal position. You want to set the hips in some neutral-ish alignment, not too far this way, not too far this way. You want the ribs, same thing, not too far this way, not too far this way, but somewhere in the middle hips or somewhere in the middle. And my gaze is forward. Okay. Remember, always ask yourself, am I feeling these heels? Am I reaching through my heels? Am I getting my power from where I want it? My heels, my posterior chain of musculature, even my quads, or am I shifting forward onto my ankle joint, onto my knee joint, onto my hip joint, onto my neck? Am I limiting myself in that way, or am I optimizing myself?