 Ladies and gentlemen, it's all the mic today. I want to talk about the squat. I want to talk about tipping over in the squat, maybe forward lean, how much torso angle you should have when you're squatting throughout your squat. I think it is a semi-controversial topic because many people squat different ways. My man Alan Thrall, we are at Untamed Strength, his gym. He talks about the low bar squat where you do have some torso lean, but then other people are arguing, well, what about these weightlifters? They're the best squatters in the world. They say so upright, they squat so deep and they're very strong. First thing, whenever you're making an argument for one training style, method, or form, or the other, you can't pick the few outliers that there are. We have to talk about general. So all the tips I give on here is what I believe works best for most. When we're talking about these weightlifters, people only point out the best in the world, like the best 100 weightlifters that ever were or that are currently. And when you're talking about those people, they have a certain body type. Obviously they have work ethic and they have all these other things, but they have a certain body type that allowed them to get to the top of their sport and that typically allows very small femurs. So for those people, they put the bar very high because they don't care. They're sport, you don't put the bar on your back. They have small femurs so they can hit depth very easily or more efficiently than some of us may can. And so they stay very upright. As well as a front squat, they stay very upright. As well as a snatch, they stay fairly upright. So besides kind of these outliers, a lot of people will tend to use a low bar position, a slow bar position in the squat. Basically what it does is it cuts your lever kind of in half. If you guys have used a shovel and we just used the tip of the shovel when we're shoveling, it's gonna feel very heavy with any kind of amount of dirt or rocks on the end. Rather than if I move that lever and I use my other hand, now it becomes lighter because we're shortening that lever. And that's basically what we're doing. If the bar is up here and I squat, now the weight from my movers is very far away, then I shorten it by moving it a little bit further down my back, closer to my hips, closer to my legs, which are the main movers pushing away from the ground. So now that we're in the low bar position, which works best for most, not all, and people are gonna say, Mike, but you kind of squat with the high bar. I do, I put the bar a little bit higher because I wanna stay a little bit more upright to save my back for now and build my quads for the sumo and for longevity. Once I compete in powerlifting, which I hopefully will do this fall, I'll start to move that bar back down a little bit to lift maximal weight. So now that the majority of us use that low bar position, what's gonna happen is you can't put the bar low on your back and stand straight. It'll obviously roll down or it'll be jammed in our shoulders, in our hands, causing shoulder and elbow pain. So what you'll have to do is tend to lean forward a little bit. The other thing that people will kind of ignore is if you do have longer femurs or a wider stance or a narrower stance, whatever it might be, you're gonna have to hinge at your hips a little bit, almost like a deadlift. So that's gonna not only load up our posterior chain, our glutes, our hands, our low back, which in turn will allow us to be stronger. Because if you can use your quads, glutes, hamstrings, and low back, you're gonna be stronger than if you just use your quads or stronger than if you just do low back, like a stiff like deadlift, something like that. So using more muscle will help. So if we hinge at our hips and push into our knees simultaneously, we'll use all those muscles. But what will happen is there will be a slight torso angle. How much is too much? I wouldn't say there is too much at all because there's been very, very big weight squatted with a lot of torso lean, depending on how the athlete is built. What we really wanna focus on is the change of torso angle. So if you start at whatever degrees, this might be 30, 45, I don't really care, I'm not a mathematician. And then you go into the hole and that changes, or if you come out of that hole and your hips shoot up and that torso changes, now our squat has become a little bit weaker, it's a little bit less efficient because we're moving that barbell more and the barbell's moving from the midpoint of our foot to the front or the back, depending on if our hips shoot forward or if our knees shoot forward. So what we wanna do is focus on a couple of things. One, maybe your quad strength. If your quad strength isn't up to par, then the legs will fire and it'll put all the weight in your low back and you'll try to muscle it through. Hence that extra forward lean coming out of the hole, hips shooting up, very common. How do you build your quads? A lot of different things, lunges, step ups, Bulgarians, a higher bar squat, a front bar squat, even a leg press, leg extension, something like a belt squat I think is best but not everybody has access to it. Another issue that's very common is controlling that midline. So because we move that bar further down, basically what we're trying to do is control our shoulders to our hips. Breathing and bracing is gonna be number one. So using a belt helps often and what you're gonna try to do is inflate your middle of your body. Breathing through your nose is a drill or a cue that helps a lot of people. Breathing through your nose rather than your mouth and breathing into your stomach. Now the comments will say, Mike, you can't breathe into your stomach, you can only breathe in your lungs. This is 100% true but we're trying to create intra-abdominal pressure. Push out 360 so we're gonna breathe into our stomach. I think about breathing into my belly button, my hips and my low back pushing into that belt and then hankering down, kind of squeezing it all together and bracing really hard. Holding your breath through the whole thing is called the valve salva. Basically what that's gonna allow us to do is like I said, the stronger this midline is, the stronger that staff is, shaft even if you'd like, of the shovel, the more weight it can carry on the other end. So the tighter we can get in this midline, the more weight we can transfer if our quads, low back glutes and hams are strong into the bar. If your midline is soft or you breathe out or something isn't right, a lot of people we talk about, if you breathe up here, you're not flexing your abs, you're not valsalva- Valsalva. Valsalva-ing, I don't even know if that's a word correctly, then you won't be able to transfer that weight into the bar and what will happen is you'll collapse in the hole, hips will shoot up, same result. Again, different problems, different result. Get a lot of questions on the internet and people just tell me their problem but if we don't go through these steps, all programming and technique is troubleshooting. Okay, I'm doing this good, I gotta fix this, I'm doing this wrong, I gotta fix this. And you figure out which one you have wrong and then we hopefully get a better squat. My last tip to not fold over, I have too much torso lean, is just a cue of pushing your traps into the bar. So whether the bar is kind of a high bar, mid bar, low bar position, when we talk about bar position, I think it's more to do with the position of the bar, obviously, than actually the style of squat. Because a lot of people, John Hack, I know we're talking about outliers, but he has the bar very low and he squats very upright and quad dominant. There's other people that have the bar very high and they still kind of lean forward. So you can have the bar in a certain position and your lower extremities could be doing a different style of squat. That's why I don't like the term high bar or low bar. It's more position of squat and then the style of squat. So the cue for everyone, I think is good once you're coming out of the hole, you stay controlled, you go as fast as you can under control, be quick but don't hurry, controlled chaos, all these fucking awesome phrases, going into the hole and then from there, if I'm breathed correctly, if my quads are strong, then I'm just gonna think about pushing my back into that bar as hard as I can. And that's gonna allow me to lead with my torso if I'm flexing my legs and then my hips and my knees will lock out nearly simultaneous in the squat, which I think is most efficient for the majority of people. So if you're leaning a little bit in your squat, it is okay, just keep that torso angle the same through the entire squat. Make sure your knees travel forward a little bit. It's not a bad thing. If your knees end up over your toes or your mid foot, depending on how you're built, often will be your strongest. Hinging at the hips, simultaneous is okay for the majority of people, I say start your squat, hinging at your hips and knees out, knees forward at the same time. Pick a bar position that works best for you, obviously most comfortable, but also that allows you to lift the most amount of weight, which for the majority of people will be the low bar. Focus really hard on breathing into your stomach and bracing into that belt, not breathing up here. Breathing through your nose is a cue that helps for many. And then drive hard with your back. Think about locking out your hips and your knees simultaneous, driving your traps into the bar hard. Be explosive but under control. Ladies and gentlemen, improve your fucking squat. Appreciate it, subscribe, like if that helped out, share with your friends. Let's all squat a little bit more. Let's move a little bit more efficiently. Let's look at this as a skill. Let's be better athletes, move better, lift better, get stronger over time. Appreciate it, Salamac, I'm out of here.