I do a similar thing with my athletes who say that cant hold their breath for long enough when they do their underwaters. On Wednesday, Grant kept coming up early for air when he would flip turn. So I prescribed a new drill for him that is intended to greatly improved his lung capacity: much in the same way that you are doing for people's bottom position. Before each workout I tie a strong bungee to the bottom of the 15ft diving pool (how strong? well strong enough that he is barely capable of getting to the surface for small amounts of air). I knot it around his waste, and a few other objects in the pool, and the goal is to stay underwater for as long as it takes until he can untie it. The two days I forced him to do this he failed, and needed to be cut out of the bungee, but don't worry i punished him for that. Gonna have a talk with the club owner, and inform him that Grant just isn't cut out for the sport. I can't waste my time cutting kids out of bungees because they aren't capable of developing quick enough, when I have other elite 12 year olds to coach to the legendary status I have reached. On the bright side however, got the waterbed touched up, the letterman steam pressed, and gonna be hitting up Rocco's tonight to meet a woman, who can handle a nice piping on the new silk touch that was just installed on the bed.
I've been spending hours a day in this position as teenager working in agriculture (small greenhouses, you literally have to be down so your head doesn't hit ceiling) in my village. It's actually very natural position once you get used to it, it takes small amount of effort later. You can also try to walk in this position as we had to in order to move inside greenhouse. I mean, you don't have to, you can crawl but I found it easier and less dirty to use this.
It's also quite normal walking in the deep squat position in the Asian culture Chinese and South Asian, Im South Asian and many people sweep the floors with straw brushes and do it by staying in the deep squat whilst walking around sweeping.
Squatting is a very natural position, it's quite literally how we are intended to rest (and also how we are supposed to go to the bathroom haha) but still remain able to move quickly if necessary (you can far more easily stand than a fully seated position). You see it around the world in every human culture, throughout history, and it makes biomechanical sense given how our hips and legs work. Honestly the only reason we don't see it in much of Western culture and don't often see good mobility in the squat is due to both how sedentary that culture has become and the fact that we usually sit in various pieces of furniture rather squat on the floor, even outside, we prefer to sit rather than squat (unlike many other culture's, such as those in South East Asia where squatting is often common). It's one of those situations where we evolved to do things a certain way but modern advancements and culture mean this behaviour isn't often seen.
After 6 months I can definitely say that this drill with some general mobility and flexibility training really improved my snatch ( my butt is almost near the ground) and I got rid of any kind of pain and stiffness in the hip.
My dorsiflexion: dont worry lad we'll let you almost touch the top of your foot with your shin My hip internal rotation: if your feet are any less than 45 degrees out imma detonate your hip cartilage
This tip was super effective! I went from holding a minute to 3 minutes and change in two days. Will continue until I can go for five minutes. That said, I continued my back squat progression after the second day and hit new depth and could really feel the stretch in my quads down to near my knees. I did however make the mistake of not stepping down my weight (in fact I continued to increase by ten lbs) and tweaked my low back a bit (nothing 2-3 days of rest won't fix). I'd recommend stepping weight down a bit after increasing squat depth mobility to let new range of motion catch up a bit.
I can squat 225 20 times at 150, and doing this for 30 seconds while holding on to a table was excruciating. Definitely gonna have to start incorporating this as well some pause squats into my training. Recently I felt like the weight my program has been prescribing has started to get too heavy for what my form can allow. Stuff like this will help me take a step back and improve my underlying strength so I can get back to progressing.
Just seeing this. I have been doing something similar and agree that its very effective! In addition to this I try to sit in a deep squat periodically throughout the day and have seen improvements in depth and hip flexor mobility as well. Thanks for this!
Ahahhah I've been an exchange student in Beijing for a month now and majority of the toilets are still essentially a hole in a ground. I've been struggling sometimes when going number 2 but I bet this is really gonna make the rest of my exchange a lot easier 😂😂 Thank you
I've worked up to nearly 25 mins in one long hold. At the end of that your feet feel as though they've went to sleep and you pretty much have to gently fall back on your butt because everything is numb and standing up feels too hard! That's the longest i've ever done it for so far. I do it every day usually for around 5 to 15 mins at a time depending on how i feel. If i feel bored i just do a minimum if i feel good i do it longer. No rules really regarding time in it as long as i do something every day.
my squat is inhumanly bad, less than half my body weight. been working on grinding time in a deep squat with goals of ankle mobility & comfort (just feels good on the ankles and knees) first attempt at a timed challenge today after watching this video. i thought i shouldn't rest my arms on my knees. burn in the lower back was SO GOOD but so insane. only got 1 minute. my squat and ankle mobility are allready deep as hell second attempt I got 5 minutes barely. i was screaming the last minute. felt like my body learned something intuitively after some lower back / hip failure forcing me to sink in even more and adjust my leg angle im very proud of myself
Good stuff man, any update after a few months? I’m in a similar position where I can squat maybe like 85% of my body weight for a few reps and not to great depth, but will try doing at least 5 minutes per day of this.
I usually have to travel long distances to college. While I am on the subway I do deep squats and it has been quite beneficial for my strength and mobility through all the squat movement. Thanks a lot for all the valuable information! :)
Ahaha I love how I literally sit like this every single day on the toilet. I always wondered why I had such good mobility but never knew why... so I have to thank Snakes on a Plane for my aversion to sitting on toilets in case of my penis being eaten off.
When do you recommend to do this? Before your squat sessions? After them? Just during the day in your free time? And how often? Just squat days? Every day?
If you like the idea of added squat mobility, Ido Portal's channel, right at the very bottom of the video list, has a video on a basic squat mobility routine I used to use quite often (I use my own now) that massively improved my mobility in the squat. It basically is just holding the squat like this, but you also move through various ROM as you do so. He actually has a bunch of pretty solid mobility information on his channel if you go past all the recent oddness and culty transformation he went through. Tom Merrick has some good hip/squat mobility stuff too. You can never really be too mobile if you are training properly (doing too much passive flexibility work without training strength through that ROM is bad, for example), so it's always worth adding new things to your routine and seeing how they work out.
I'm doing goblet squat stretch from Squat University. I think this methods are similar, but goblet squat is more specific movement :D You can hold this goblet at the bottom for 5min like in this film :D
I'm 37 year old asian dude. I've been doing the Asian squat since I was a kid. This came naturally to me lol Kidding aside, I started doing this about 2 months ago and it helped with my low back pain a lot.
wtf for the last couple weeks i have been watchin occasional vids on how to improve my squat since my mobility and flexibility is pretty shit and i never thought about doing this... seems to make a lot of sense
Thanks Zack! If I’m not able to maintain a straight lumbar spine, what can I do? I can keep it straight only if I hold something in my hands, like an 8kg kettlebell
Hi Zack thanks for all the videos and tips. What are you thought on starting with a band around your chest that is attached to a pole or whatever rather than holding with hands ? I find that the band really pull your chest close to the hips which seems to be a good thing for a better squat for what i understand.
i have high squat mobility just bc i felt like that was a comfy way of sitting since i was a kid and it kinda stuck to me and now it seems to pay off positively lol
Did that for couple hours, fixing my snow blower. Five hours later I can still feel the burn, but now my ass goes about an inch from the floor. Little scary to wake up tomorrow...
I did this a couple of times, but during the squat I don’t feel a “burn”, after 5 minutes I just feel the pain in the ilium muscle when I get up. What am I doing wrenk
"If these muscles aren't ready to be lengthened or active under load ..." So does this mobility routine activate and lengthen the glute med and adductors?
What has been the most beneficial movement to improve the ankle flexibility/mobility ? This for me is the reason why i need to hold something in a squat, because my center of gravity and mass is not in the center.
I’ve been trying this out the last couple weeks but if I stay in the stretch longer then about 30 seconds, when I stand up I feel like I’m about to faint. I’ve never fainted before so not entirely sure if that’s the feeling but my vision gets extremely blurry, white spots, light headed. Anyone have any insights?
Were you changing your breathing patterns when you did this? Were you holding your breath or breathing rapidly then standing up immediately afterwards? The only thing I can think of is a change in blood pressure or oxygen level to cause that. If that still occurs I would see a doctor.
