Life in the urban jungle is full of opportunities to rest. We have furniture to sit on in our homes, where we work, in our transportation, and most places we visit. The urban jungle in Western society has so many places to sit that culturally we have forgotten the squat as a resting position.

Look at small children playing and it doesn’t take long to find one in a perfect squat. No one had to coach the child on what the squat was supposed to look like. No one has to tell the child to keep its weight on its heels, where its feet go, or how to protect its knees. Why? Because they have not yet spent years in chairs altering its habits and deconditioning its muscles.

Our lifetime of sitting takes its toll. Most of the clients we meet have some sort of pelvis issues that contribute to knee and low back pain. Lack of squatting isn’t the only culprit here, but it is a significant contributor. We find everyone moves better when they are able to do a deep squat and hold it comfortably.

But if you are like most people we meet, you first have to be able to get into a squat before you can work on holding the squat for any length of time.

When we say a “full range-of-motion squat” we mean being able to squat as deep as a baby with no pain. A nerve glide you can perform to help with this may be practiced by laying on the back, raising the leg as high as possible without bending the knee, moving the leg across your body until the knee is at or past the midline of the body, internal rotating the hip, flexing the toes toward the face and “waving” the toes toward the little toe.

The active hamstring stretch is performed by bending as far forward as possible with a slight bend in the knees, then holding the forward bend (a weight may help with this) and locking out and relaxing the knees several times while holding the bent knee position.

The lateral ankle tilt is performed by rolling out on the heel of the foot to mobilize the ankle. Additionally, the medial tilt is performed the same way but by rolling toward the inside of the heel.

If you still cannot get all the way down, use a prop to support your heels so you can get used to placing your weight on them and not pitched forward on the balls of the feet.

Once you can comfortably get to the full range-of-motion squat, you can work on spending more time their daily. Our goal is 30 minutes a day. A few minutes here or there is fine, do not try to do it all at once until you are a really comfortable with this position.

Taiso Fitness and Nutrition

If you are looking for a shared personal training experience try Taiso Fitness and Nutrition. We are Tacoma’s fitness and nutrition gym for people who want to get out of pain or improve performance, who need immediate, measurable results, and want to make educated decisions to take control of their health.

Shared personal training provides the coaching of a personal trainer with the social support of a bootcamp style class.

Set up a complimentary consultation, or start a 21 Day Risk Free Trial. Stay up to date on the latest information through our website at www.taisofitness.com

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