Latest / Project StrengthCast / How to Squat: The Only Video You’ll Ever Need | Ep. 11
Transcript
- jay: Hello everyone. welcome to episode 11 of Project Strengthcast. our objective in this episode is very simple. we want to kind of go over the fundamental understandings required when looking at SPD technique. a lot of times people try to individualize all cues for like a certain like cues that are applicable to a certain group of individuals to all individuals, and this usually creates problems because there are Clear anatomical differences between people, technical expression difference between people. So we want to create the larger frameworks that you need to adhere to when it comes to technique. And then we want to talk about the more specific nuances when it comes to an individualized situation and how you can almost program even accessories to get around issues that you have, what kind of warm-up drills that you are you can create to get out of these issues. Largely this ha this episode is about a library of understanding when it comes to SPD technique and tweaking the stuff. I think a good place for us to start off from is like when you look at SPD technique, let's just go through the list when it comes from squat bench and deadlift. Let's start off with the squat Tapas: Hmm. jay: right? so if if you guys were to say the biggest foundational requirements when it comes to squatting, what would you say they are? how should if you were to say these are the three important things when it comes to squatting, what would you would they be for you? Kaushal Sumedh: For pretty much any lift, I would say it's not just for the squat bench or deadlift, jay: Mm. Kaushal Sumedh: honestly. I would say that the pretty much any single lift that you talk about, you have jay: Mm. Mm. Kaushal Sumedh: to make sure that your setup and your is the most important thing 'cause the way you set up determines everything. if you're jay: Yeah. Yeah. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: somebody who just doesn't know how to place the bar or how to get like the right amount of tension or like brace properly or get the right things moving, then you're gonna struggle with jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: the whole setup the whole s set after that rep to rep and that's basically jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: your how you have high quality work right jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: if you have good acceptable technique which which is like good for you jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: And you're able to keep that technique moving forward with the right amount of training stimulus, then that means that you're having very meaningful training sessions. it's basically like if you're talking about the squat, it's the way you jay: Mm. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you're you're able to handle like you're able to grip the bar and then like after you grip the bar, how do you create your shelf? How do you maintain jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: that shelf and get under the bar? Then you sit the bar up on the shelf. jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: then after that, how are you able to maintain that? And walk walk out while you're able to maintain, that position and then you're able jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: to brace the way you're walking out, the way you're allowing jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: the na the right amount of torsalline, things like that, right? Because we're talking about competition squat here. of course. jay: Yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: I if we talk about something like high bar, then you're gonna have a slightly different thing because you're trying to limit torsulin there. You're not looking to create that natural amount of torsaline. That depends again on your leverages. If you're pretty long jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: limbed, you're gonna have some amount of torsalin even on something like front squat or even high bar. But yeah, you you you will eventually have to change based off of the kind of variation that you're doing. that that's essentially what for every any single lift you you have to look at like what are the building like the main blocks jay: Yeah. So The largest thing that I I would just add to that surface, the larger pictures anyone should focus from technique, especially if you're a power lifter, is is your technique largest thing is it does it adhere to competition standards and requirement, right? Is the depth on the squat there? Is the elbow rule applicable on the bench or in terms of the deadlift? Is your shoulder where it needs to be? Like the whole nine yards, is that that is gonna be the largest picture. the second thing is like, is it consistently repeatable? Because as you kind of progress through a block, you are trying to repeat the same technical extra. Expression under heavier and heavier loads. So we want to be an understanding of the fact that this stuff has to be repeatable in nature. like Kowson's made a post on technique drift, right? It's a very important concept to kind of keep Tapas: Yeah. jay: in mind as fatigue starts to build up, as like the localized fatigue and localized stress starts to build up, technique may start to drift. This can also drift simply because of like a lack of care in terms of like the first few weeks of training where you're just like almost running on autopilot. And I Tapas: Hmm. jay: I I would say like these are the larger blocks. That we would want to think about. anything we missed at your mind when you think about this. Tapas: No, that's what if I were to like I just want to add to what you said regarding a technical drift only so when we the movement quality itself is a very important part right that's what we're talking about here. I just wanted to say like that by itself I saw a post about this recently as well I think like it needs to be it yeah you can earn movement quality like it takes time and you earn that technique but you need to keep doing work proficiently to keep that like you can't it's not jay: Yeah. Tapas: just gonna stay. Right, so yeah, I just wanted to add that like with technical drift, you need to understand jay: Yeah. Tapas: that if you have good form now, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to stay. Joy B is like a great example of this. Like he had really bad movement quality recently. He like deteriorated quite a bit. And then Evan jay: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tapas: Hawk fixed it a lot now. Yeah. jay: Yeah, and and you just hit that squawk be or that kinda Tapas: back to back competitions. Yeah. jay: Yeah. And and and I think that's where an understanding of larger things like chronic just how does acute fatigue build up, how does chronic fatigue kinda build up? How do these things interact with an individual? Tapas: Hmm. jay: But the larger standards we've how so talked about is that there will be individual elements, you have to accept individualized elements. Technique just doesn't stick to S P D when it comes to kind of executing a program, accessory technique becomes all the more important because I I think like as we get more and more guests, like for example, in the future when you get guys like Josh to kinda come on and Talk about how important accessories can be to offset certain things. I think this is an important position for us to say. when a coach asks you for accessory videos, they're not just asking it for no reason. we wanna kind of s ensure that standardized technique is there. Like I'm sure like all of us see kind of situations where people just don't know how to I think Kowsholz mentioned something out of like a one of his athletes who had like an issue regarding his upper back, but it was just the way he they were curling the bicep curl, right? They're almost kind of swinging into that situation. Situation. So, it may seem like I, for example, I'm a big fan of like having newer clients sent over their accessories for the first two weeks just to kind of make sure that everything's kind of ironed out. And then I may still ask for larger movement patterns still to be sent because they may be driving a significant amount of load through those movements. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, I just I just kind of like tell people that We as coaches don't ask you for videos because we want to watch and masturbate. It's not for our jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: enjoyment. It's for it's to help you out. Genuinely, I you have to talk like that sometimes to get through to people. Because jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: I have a guy who's been struggling for six months with the same problem, and the guy refuses to send anything, and I'm just like, that's okay, I'll get paid for six months, no problem. So you jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you have to talk like that, otherwise they don't get it. jay: Yeah, and and and th there's for one group of exercise that we may prescribe that I find most people just don't have a understanding and that's anything that requires a single leg or a B stands situation where I I I think when we prescribe it for someone, most of the time the things I see that are missing is f first thing I realize the podcast episode we did with Ashley is like most people just don't know how to hinge. they just don't know Tapas: Hmm, yeah. jay: things like knee discipline, they don't know how to maintain pressure on a hinge. I I would be hard pressed to say how many guys do you see, like when you ask them to do an RDL, they have that proper foot pressure. Most of them will just shift their knees back and get onto their heels and the whole system will orient backwards, right? Kaushal Sumedh: Either they do that or they start squatting the load. They don't really like hinge and they don't understand jay: Exactly. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: that they're actually not getting any kind of length through length through the hamstring and the glutes. And there's really no point in RDLing like that. jay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: You can just keep pumping load like that and I mean you can jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: pump load like that, you can keep posting up on Instagram on how you're doing really well, but you're not really doing much. jay: I was just saying, we We wanna kind of monitor athletes in every sense of the word. just to get onto like a little nerdier stuff is like When we look at something like the hinge, what are we trying to think about? I tell people the center of mass of the human system is in the pelvis. We are trying to see the pelvis move in a horizontal manner. Right. I tell people when we want to hinge, we want to see the pelvis track, like Housewell said, most people will start to when they overload the thing, the pelvis stops moving back and forth and Tapas: Hmm. jay: starts to move up and down. So you're no longer hinging, you're more dependent upon knee flexion. That means this person really doesn't get much length through the glute, they're not getting much length through the hamstrings, right? And even when you come to things like knee discipline, if you if we give someone something like a B stands RDL or like let's go to the B stands RDL kind of a situation. Why are we getting someone to do that? Well, we're trying to get someone to place their center of mass over the working leg, right? We are then trying to get them to see if they can maintain that knee position while their pelvis moves back and forth in place. Now, I kind of tell people when someone deadlifts really well, what do you see at the lockout? You see a situation where the knees and the hips simultaneously lock out, right? We don't see a situation Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, more or less. jay: where the yeah, like we don't see a situation where the knees just shoot back and like that guy is just. Well, at maximum loads you'll see techniques like start to deteriorate because the person is fighting for situation. Yeah. Tapas: That's natural, a little bit, yeah. jay: Yeah, right. But what are we trying to kind of recreate? It's like Sam Buttersworth had like a great post on this thing. Like his success in like recent history on his deadlifts and things like that was simply because he tried treated 60% as like life and death, 65% intensity as life and death. And those things reinforce great position, right? When we give something like a B stance RDL, we are trying to tell people you need to have great foot pressure while your pelvis is moving horizontal and back and forth because people forget this thing. That barbell coming up on a deadlift or on like the dumbbell coming up on a B stance or something like that, is because you are driving into the ground straight, right? If someone stands there and starts pushing through the heels, they start to shift backwards, Tapas: backwards. jay: right? And then this defeats the purpose for us actually applying these exercises to people. Because then they are just reinforcing the garbage they were already doing, So again, like i what I'm trying to get here is that these accessories. Our program largely so that we are looking for certain outcomes. I'd say, like, all of us will, for example, give certain arm work right to a client. Why do we give certain arm work to a client? Because we want to kind of improve range of like range of motion and like access and like capacity in different like levels of ER and IR kind of situations, right? So That is why things are given in a program. And a lot of times, I think Kaushul, you mentioned it recently, a guy was doing your program but never voiced the fact that they were doing other external physical activities and adjacent to that, right? I'm I'm being respectful here, I'm trying to like Kaushal Sumedh: And a guy basically he was doing five days of training a week of the program that I was sending and then he asked me like why exactly am I not progressing? And I was like, I'm pretty confused because I don't think it's a program. And the guy sent me his additional workout, which is like a bunch of other things that he was doing, like a full-fledged like workout every after after after the workout. Like after a workout he was doing a full full workout on its own. And he was like, Yeah, see, I've been doing this and I feel weaker on this. And I was like, You're telling me that you're doing squat, bench, deadlift, axaries, everything, and then you're telling me that you're doing other things after that, and then you're asking me why it feels bad. Like you're feeling tired. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Like, okay. At that point, there's not much like you can do, because you know, like jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: these people are like that that's just extreme self-sabotage. There's not much you jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: can do. jay: What what what if if anyone watching this is confused in terms of why that is a large red flag, it's simply because we want to understand that if if Tapas or I write out a program or Kaushul writes out a program, we are applying stress onto your system. Right? Kaushal Sumedh: it's jay: exactly. Kaushal Sumedh: important for you to just follow stuff as given. And there are this the extra stuff that you could probably do is just go for a walk to relax or something like that. Those kind of things are totally fine. jay: Yeah. See I I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna just clarify. When you say go for a walk, there's gonna be a guy yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, yeah. I'm not saying 30k steps. Because I had the same thing again, recently. So I had a guy who was like, my deadly session didn't feel so good. My lower body was feeling very taxed. And I was like, I can't understand why, because you were doing fine. And then he was like, maybe it's because I went 30k steps the other day. And I was like, Well, there you go. That's not good. jay: Yeah. Tapas: Yeah, Kaushal Sumedh: The reason why we say that externals matter so much is because if the externals are taken care of really well, your technique is very stable. there is no okay, so simple Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: example of that is like how many times have you had a situation where your knees are feeling very sore and as a result of that you can't push them forward, so your squat starts to suffer or your deadlift feels horrible, right? Or jay: Hingey, yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you can't in in some cases if the situation is really bad, you can't even create and maintain leg drive on bench press, which which doesn't even Require crazy amounts of work from the leg, right? So, even like how many times have you noticed something like that, right? You would have noticed something like this. So when you have that's the reason why, if you have overall lesser soreness, you have lesser cranky joints, you can move freely, and as a result jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: of being able to move freely, you're going to be able to have better movement quality, you're gonna have better technique. Because you have access to a range of motion that you previously lost. I think a lot of people don't understand how much of a difference sleep makes. That's the reason why we keep saying you need to make sure that your sleep is on point. Yeah, plus the brain function is so much better on better sleep. So everything that jay: Yeah. And you go. Tapas: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you're doing is basically it basically has a neural component to it because Tapas: You'll Kaushal Sumedh: it's skill learning. Tapas: And you literally jay: Mm-hmm. Tapas: are less coordinated when you don't sleep well. that's an actual thing. When you don't feel good after jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah yeah. That that that's Tapas: not sleeping, that's like, it's physical. Mental. jay: Yeah yeah, absolutely. Yo y your nervous system just happens. Kaushal Sumedh: Everything, yeah, yeah. Physical, mental, yeah, that that's the that's the neural adaptation part that we're talking about. i it matters in multiple different ways. jay: Absolutely doesn't like I think people need to kind of understand the fact is that the human system is recovering from stress and we it's not just like isolatedly recovering from stress in the gym, right? I had a guy I yeah, Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, yeah, that is outside. jay: I had cause I had a guy recently where like everything was going well. we j we found the a a four-week structure that at the end of every week, every block s we were progressing on all all three lifts. And then it just stopped. Like it usually to me, from my understanding, from my experience, nothing stops. Dead like that, right? That's usually a gradual tapering of the benefits of a certain structure, and Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, yeah. jay: then you reorganize, right? So I asked him, what's up? And he Yeah, I started going swimming, right? And when he's like, I never swam before, I want to learn how to swim. And when you swim, there's a lot of lower body fluttering at that point of time, right? You do that stuff, you start to feel your adductor magnus or tongue, right? And then when you get to the bottom of the squat, you'll feel like, there's something especially because he's a very hingy squatter. So the bottom, you start to feel this weird flutter. The second the swimming thing stopped, everything just started going up again. Right? I was told very importantly by Eric Miles Hogan recently about before you jump into changing a program, it's very important to just understand the fact that it is seldom the program. It is very rarely Tapas: Hmm. jay: the like that a situation when it's all of a sudden there something stops working, right? You want to talk to the athlete and be like, hey, did you lose body weight? did you lose is there work rate of stress? Are you doing something new physical? Because one of the weirdest things I Tapas: Did you start a new sport? Yeah. jay: Yeah, exactly, right? And and and I'd say to both of you guys, there's this mentality I notice in some athletes I coach where they will use that first week's like lower reduction in stress, right? To go into other physical activities, new things. Tapas: and go into other things, yeah. jay: Yeah, and and and and they just go apeshit when it comes to that stuff. Right? I had a guy recently tell the 30,000 step cowshul this guy said, my squad doesn't feel well. And and the previous day I tracked steps on the sheet. And he was like, I walked twenty-three thousand steps. And I was like, well, that kind of tells me something very important there, right? So these are the kind of things we wanna kinda keep in mind, largely, because before we I I would say before any coach jumps on and hammers their program out, the new structure, this stuff is really helpful, I I I would I would argue. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, I think this just reminds me of multiple people that I've coached in the past who like that that's very true, where you know, the deload week is meant for you to rest up and deload from the training stress. And if you're adding more stress, you're compensating for that lack of rest. Right? Like I I I had a guy who was who would just keep complaining about how he wasn't recovering, but I found out that he was just going and playing cricket every single day, apart from the gym, a full-fledged jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: game, and he would be like, I'm feeling so tired, I'm feeling so tired. And I was like, that's when I made that post where I was like, Paul Luftus will do anything other than rest on rest day and then keep complaining. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: and then he was like, Okay, I understood. And then he stopped playing and then he felt better. So we're not saying you shouldn't have hobbies. have hobbies that are relaxing. Just do something else that's relaxing. go, go, yeah, go. jay: Yeah. Good go go for a go for a jog, like go for something, but but like just dose the stress in a very reasonable way, I would say. Yeah. Tapas: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, don't do that for hours together or something like that. Just go for a half an hour walk or something like that. Half an hour, thirty th forty-five minutes walk. That's that's a that that should usually go to a good five, six K steps on itself. And then remaining throughout the day, if you just get a few other jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: three, four K steps, you're fine. You're close to ten K already. You're good. You're good to go. jay: Yeah. 'Cause 'cause novelty of stress is also very important when you randomly just add something new you've never done before. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, yeah, yeah. jay: Yeah, 'cause your system's just gonna be like, I do not know what this is. And we all know, you start a new accessory on week one, week two you start to get stronger and it's not because you build a ton of muscle mass, because you just have that neural coordination, right? But you know that Tapas: improve yeah improve the movement quality quite a bit jay: Exactly. And Tapas, we both we all know the fact of that repeated bout effect being a thing, right? your body so when someone just starts to Tapas: Yeah, yeah, Significant. jay: do an entirely new thing, their body's gonna get hammered by that stuff. And then that bleeds into this this thing. so when we come into things from a technique standpoint, right? I I I I wanted to just go over stuff you start with the squat as an example, right? just main things that we want to clarify. I would say when someone says midfoot as a concept, right? Because when squatting, everyone just says midfoot pressure, midfoot pressure situation, right? how do you guys describe midfoot when it comes to like a client just joins and it's like, this you say midfoot pressure. What do you mean by that? Tapas: Mid foot you generally describe it you would feel it flat You don't want the force to be moving backwards or forwards on squats for example I you see a lot of people a few people with their toes coming off during the squat you jay: Yeah. Tapas: explain to them why that happens how that happens I also like I just show them like I make a video myself I show them I'm like this is how it's done and this is kind of where you're jay: Mm. Yeah. Tapas: supposed to be feeling it so they can like Have like a live example see it in that way that makes sense jay: Yeah. Yeah, like Castle, you wanna go? Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, it's just a it's just the middle of the foot. I don't know how else Tapas: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: to why it got so complicated. I think it's because people jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: don't have the the right amount of proprioception to understand how other pieces in the puzzle fit. Cause jay: Yeah. Yeah. Tapas: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: yeah, if you hinge too far back, you'll start sitting back into the heels. So like if you want Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: to compensate if you need to hinge more in the squat, then you need to compensate by allowing more forward lean and that's why you'll jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: find midfoot. So it's kind of just like, you know, stacking things around so that you feel jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: more stable at the feet, at the middle of the foot. That's essentially what it actually means. Tapas: That's yeah. Yeah, that's jay: Yeah. Yeah. Tapas: kind of why I like to make the videos as well because that's exactly like what you said. It gets a little confusing for, especially for people who are You know, able to show them directly. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, I understand I understand people who are new and they're not into this field, but I don't understand people who are into this field who don't understand it. jay: 'Cause I I I try to tell people just from I recently I just try to tell people is like s e everything that we do in a lift is a reaction to force application. Right? If that bar has to go up in space, you kinda have to make sure you are pushing straight down into the ground, right? Tapas: Hmm. jay: Like that's what we're trying to apply force. Something has to go up. Always think of a rocket ship. Rocket ships, the thruster pushes straight down, so the thing goes straight up, right? I tell people well, if you imagine a rocket and like it has thrusters on both sides. If it just fires from one side like the heel, it'll shoot one way. If it fires on the other side, it'll shoot through the other way. So, most of us will cue a situation in which someone is very heel heavy and we'll cue more like big toe, big toe pressure, push through the big toe ball of the big toe situation. What I just tell people is you need to understand this is the foot. You in order to go straight down, straight down, you need to push through the heels, but you also need to push through the front of the foot. Think of it as like jumping, right? As you're about to jump, you are driving the whole foot into the ground. Right? And and I I I think. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah. If if you want to maximally jump, if you just wanted Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: yeah, you're not you're not toe jumping for maximal jumps, you're not like heel jumping for maximal jumps. You jay: Yeah. Heel jumping for maximal jump. Kaushal Sumedh: use the whole foot to push through the ground to, get maximal height, right? So that's basically what you're trying to do even in s like squat deadlift. In squat and deadlift. jay: Yeah. Maximum. See it. Exactly. Yeah, because if 'cause if you just continue a squat all the way up, you'll just end up jumping off the floor. you can just kinda Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah. jay: have the bar and just pop off the floor. The reason I wanna kinda spend a bit of time on this thing is like Yeah, I I think a lot of guys times when I talk to people, they don't understand what we are trying to achieve with foot pressure and they think there's this one size fits all cue for everyone. Right? there'll be a guy, for example, most of the times what do we see? Someone that's very heel heavy, right? So if they're biasing a bit more on the sensory perception here, like the tapas mentioned, the fact that you want someone to rock back and forth. most of the time people can't hit depth not because they are incapable of it, but because they are unaware of how to apply the skill in itself, right? They have a sensation of weight being on the heel. They have no sensation of weight being on the front of the foot, right? So when Tapas gives that kind of situation and asks them to rock forward, their brain starts to give a perception. I one of the tools I like to use is like use something as an elevation. Like wherever I want someone Tapas: Hmm. jay: to feel some sensation, I elevate that part. So like sometimes I know this may be a bit goofy, but I like kind of ask people to kind of keep some amount of plates under the front of their foot and then squat that way. So they that kind of tells them they need to have that attachment point there. Right, then they Tapas: Yeah. jay: need to have that sensation. Because I I feel like when we get to things like we we I recently spoke to someone about spinal positioning and stuff like that. I want to talk about stuff like that simply because there's a larger thing we're trying to achieve, right? With foot pressure, all coaches are trying to say push down. Right? Right, push straight down into the ground. Sometimes a guy's heel heavy, and when you see that like that happen. I know if I'm going on a rant, my bad guys, but I just want to Tapas: No, no, jay: say this other caveat is like the body is always trying to maintain this element of balance on both extremes, right? Tapas: Yeah. jay: If you start heel heavy at the bottom, you will be shifted onto your toes, right? Because that mass will shift. See, you are pushing straight down, you get that opposite reaction like this. But if you start heavy here and there's load on top of you, you're not gonna come down, you'll come in a diagonal angle. And how many times do we have see guys who join us where they're like complaining about knee pain and they think it's some complex biomechanic Tapas: Yeah. jay: stuff? But in reality, the person just doesn't know how to have that weight on their foot. Right? that is something I want to tell people. It's like very rare. go on, Tabas. Tapas: Even something like a toe elevated beast dance RDL. was really yeah Just replicate that a little bit with the accessory movements as well. It can jay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tapas: teach teach you can teach that pretty well jay: Yeah. And and what I want to tell people is why does that work? Right? Why does that work? To me is the fact that if you elevate something, Your body will have more proprioceptive feedback on that aspect, right? if you're like I'll, for example, tell people when they do a split squat and they always go on the lateral side, the outer side of their foot. But that's not how we push into the ground. We don't push through the small toe side, right? We push that into the ground. Tapas: Yeah. jay: If you make someone do a split squat and you put a ramp here and elevate their medial side, the inner side, they'll just push harder and harder into that side. So I will just tell anyone watching this is what Whatever you elevate, you feed more sensation into that. It's like you're telling that person that's what you need to feel. Right? Those are the training wheels. Exactly, Tapas: body gives it a bit more attention. jay: right? Like it's like none of us, like when when how many times have we like met a guy who just can't squat like normally? And then you just give him proper foot pressure or torso positioning, and the guy just does it like tuck, just does it instantly. So, with food Tapas: Yeah. jay: with with with foot pressure, I just want to tell anyone listening here is the fact is that we are thinking about at the end of the day, the larger picture is push straight down. If someone starts heel heavy, they will end up very toe-y the bottom. And what is the most common mistake we see it like athletes who do that and when they're coached poorly, they're like, dude, I'm head ending up too heavy on my toe at the bottom. So what do they make them do at the top? They're like, push yourself backwards more. Right? So, what does that create? Right? It just worsens the problem. Tapas: It gives them less space as well. jay: Exactly. Right? So, so what is the kind of thing that a lot of times squatting has this like Norman said this to me once very importantly. He's like, when you're squatting, ask your client what do you think it is? And a lot of them will say, you have to be straight. Right? Do you mean straight as in straight as in movement pattern? Yeah. Exactly. Kaushal Sumedh: Bar pathwise or yeah, are you talking about bar path or are you talking about the foot jay: How the system is balanced Kaushal Sumedh: torso? jay: out, right? Yeah. Right. So we want to think about that when it comes to an athlete that we're coaching around. how it's very rare you see very toe-heavy people when they're squatting, right? It's it's it's very, very rare, if at all ever. I I I've me I've only ever seen one lady that I do something for in person that kind of had that situation happen. But most of the time, especially since power lifters low bar, the tendency is to what? Kind of shift their center of mass backwards. Tapas: The heel, yeah, the heel is very common. jay: Right. And and top first, like if I were to ask you, like, why does someone wear like heel shoes? Right? What are we trying to kind of do with heel shoes? Right? If we talk about the fundamental topic, whatever we elevate, that thing gets more perception. So you elevate the heels, it's like someone walking downhills. They'll just shift backwards. Yeah. Tapas: It's going to make them a bit more heavy there. I was gonna say that. a lot of people, have this perception that it's gonna add depth to their squat. That's not jay: No. Tapas: necessarily true. It's something that I've seen, but that's not necessarily true that heel shoes are going to give you more depth. But it could very much just make your squat worse overall, like for your body and just overall movement quality wise. jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: I think also a lot of people don't understand. Heel shoes don't allow you to dorsiflex more. They just cut down the lack of the requirement Tapas: Hmm. Hmm. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: for dorsiflexion. So it's not jay: Yeah. And and it's essentially moving you backwards, right? So it's allowing you to come into that space. No, because I think Tapas' there, for for me, is very important because you talked about something that I think that a lot of people should go back and listen to. You talk about creating space. What's the Tapas: Yeah. jay: most important thing about space? You can only move into a room that has space. You can only move to an environment that has space. So a lot of the times, dude, I know a guy, for example, he was like, man, my my Achilles is like really painful. I can't like really squat anymore. And I'm like, yeah, is there a reason? Like, is there something? I just went through his warm-ups. The guy puts like 50 kilo dumbbells on his like knee and sits at the bottom of a squat and like pushes his like like pushes it onto his knee. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, yeah, to make the to do that dorsiflexion thing. Yeah. jay: And the thing is, like, he's trying to think improve ankle mobility, right? So, like, is that a mobility issue? Tapas: He's forcing himself into that. Yeah. jay: Yeah, and he has no space there. So, this guy has no space there. So, like, I want to tell people this thing: when you walk down a hill, when you're walking down a hill, what do you naturally do? Right? You will start to shift backwards like this thing. When you shift backwards, Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, to balance yourself. jay: exactly. Right, so think of that as Tapas: Resist. jay: a yeah, like a heel on a shoe. Right, that heel is gonna elevate you so you can shift yourself backwards so you can come into that. Right? Ankle mobility requires you to kind of close the space between the foot and the front of the shin. Right, a lot of the times people don't have space because they're already having their center of mass forward by elevating Tapas: Hmm. jay: something, you can help them shift it backwards, so then they can kind of close that space into it, right? So, like from a foot standpoint. It's always foot pressure simply because we're trying to create space and trying to create space and apply force through that space. Right? And and I think the next thing I want to like let me know if I'm just going off on a tangent, guys, because the next thing I want to Tapas: No. jay: kind of talk about was like I think two things like okay, spinal shapes, right? The spinal shape, in my opinion, is very important because. There are two shapes we can maximize to create two different outcomes. And for me, that thing is extension and flexion. Right? When someone is extended, when you chest up and do that thing, you are feeding rigidity. Right? You are making something stiff in nature. if I if if something was rigid, tapas, what is that better at? It'll be better Tapas: but yeah. jay: at handling load, right? It's something that you can just like. if it's stiff, you can just ha apply more load onto that thing. But the problem is too much. Tapas: That's the reason with bench and all a lot of power lifters most power lifters are very rigid, jay: Yeah. Tapas: right? Yeah jay: Right? Yeah. Yeah. And and what I tell people is so flexion will therefore be the opposite of that. It's not the best at handling load, but it's very good for pliability. It'll kind of help us kind of sink into a certain position. Right? It'll kind of help us kind of go down into a certain place, right? It'll kind of fold us into that position. But it's not the best at handling rigidity, right? It's not the best at handling load. You kind of get folded almost. A lot of the times when we see guys like both of you guys would have seen this a thousand times with guys you coach, like when you'd ask them to brace and they start like descending on a low bar, what do they kind of do? They'll start to kind of keep their chest up and they'll kind of unstack themselves and like feel a lot of like extension, right? Like there'll be stuff like that you guys see. Right? And and and by virtue of that, they just can't hit depth, right? Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, yeah, because you're running out of space at the hips. Tapas: crumble that... Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what. jay: Yeah. And and what do you guys think about the simple fact that I I sometimes s tell people like the shape you create at the bottom of the squat, the very bottom of the squat, if you can replicate it at the top, it's telling you this is the shape I need you to be throughout the whole thing. Do you guys use that kind of logic? Kaushal Sumedh: yeah. jay: right? So you need to kind of replicate that at the top when you're kind of bracing. You can't brace it to a ton of extension and then hope to get down there. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, similar to what you said earlier where we were talking about if you're very heel heavy and you go to the bottom, you're going to be forced onto the toes. This is very similar to jay: Exactly. Kaushal Sumedh: that. If you start a very extended squat, you're going to be forced into flexion at the bottom because you just don't have the space at the hips to actually sit down jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: to depth. So when you start going down on depth, and it it's basically you think about it like this, right? this is your spine. You're very extended like that, and this is your pelvis. So when you're very jay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: extended, what happens is this is pushing into the pelvis more. So you don't have jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: the space to go down because the pelvis, jay: Yeah. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: your femur, is also coming up like that, right? You're going into flexion at the femur, you are extended, and as that angle closes down, there is not space. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Right. Whereas if you're more stacked like that and you're able to do that, then you have more space for the femur to come into position as you're going into depth. as you're going down, jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you have this thing come up, and then you have more space around here for you to go down to depth. So you don't have jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: to compensate at the torso much. That's essentially what he's trying jay: Yeah. And and I Kaushal Sumedh: to say. jay: and and and I'd say this is where something like relative motion and orientation from a biomechanic standpoint is important to understand, right? a good position squat, you will see things move in relation to each other, right? But when you're like overtly extended situation, that's why you'll see that buttwink happen at the bottom, right? The Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, yeah. jay: systems run out of space, so this whole system will have to then orient like that and then come out of that stuff, right? Kaushal Sumedh: that's essentially what movement compensations are also. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: when you have a certain thing not moving the way it probably should, that's when you start having compensations at the other end of the system where just like you said, if you're very extended on the squat, you're gonna have a collapse into and you're gonna flex at the bottom because you don't have the space for it. So that's how it compensates to create that positioning. And that puts a lot of torque on the joints after that. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: So you want to if you ever notice, there'll be a lot of people who will try to be very upright on the squat and then they try to push, they try to sit down without having the right amount of torsaline. And as a result of that, because they're not stacked, what will happen is that as this falls forward, they're also going to have to pop the knees ahead to just have that depth. and jay: Yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: when you pop the knees forward like that, all that load is just going onto the knees. That it's not distributed really well throughout the hips jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: and the knees. And as I and as I think in previous episodes I talked about it, like SBD or any compound lift for that matter is about you distributing load together. That's what essentially technically technique is. Good technique is like, yeah, sure, the squat is still a leg movement. You're still gonna the prime movers are are still your quads, but you're you're essentially trying to create technique where you're using the whole body and it's it's it's just stress distribution across your body. And that's jay: Yes, perfect, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: essentially what good technique is. And what allows you to for you, for your anatomy, which is like your for for your leverages, the way your body is built, the kind of like the limb lengths that you have. And the way you are built and the way your your current available active and passive mobility based off of these situations is where we figure out what technique is you what what technical changes we can make to help you achieve a better position. But there are still jay: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: there are still like pillars or like you know guidelines that we use for good technique. Like, you know, jay: Yep, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you're still like you you can't like have a good morning style of squad and be like, yeah, that's a great technical thing for This person. you're still gonna have to use your legs. You can't just remove the legs out of the equation and just squat all with your back and think like that's a good that works for me. Yeah, but for how long? Right? And that's also another thing. Tapas: Hmm. Yeah. jay: Exactly. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: And even on deadlift, like people will not wedge, they'll just kind of fold their pelvis, they'll just kind of tuck it in and jay: Yes, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: then think like they're wedging. And yeah, sure, like for a f for a sh duration of time you might feel stronger, but like for how long again? Because that's That essentially means that you are not if you can't wedge properly, you can't get the pelvis in the position in the right positioning properly. That means you can't wedge, you can't engage your hips. You're actually you can't engage your hips and legs. Then what you're doing is that you're just tucking the pelvis in. That means that you're actually just allowing the glutes to lengthen and jay: Yeah. Spine lifting it, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: then you're spine lifting it. And towards the lockout, you have no legs. All you're doing is trying to create that hip thrust motion from a very flexed position. That's a very jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: hard thing to do. And there's only so much of a beating that your lower back and pelvis will take from there. And you're eventually jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: going to feel that pinching of the pay hips at the front. You're gonna have that lower Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: back, a lot jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: of flexion at the lower back, and that's gonna take a toll. So the that's essentially what it is. It's it's very good stress management and distribution. That's a that's a thing like programming, good programming and good biomechanics and like good technique, all of these things have like it's all about stress distribution and management. jay: Perfectly put. Yeah, that's perfect. That's that's the grant. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: all of it plays together. All of it plays together. That's exactly what I'm saying. Like I posted this thing recently about what a coach's eye means. That's where a coach can actually figure these things out. jay: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Where you can actually find Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: out like what is a specific problem for this person. And you need to understand, Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: like, once we've found that out, it's your duty to fix it and not let that happen again as an athlete. jay: Yeah, I think those are the kind of things you like I I think Cousin just kind of mentioned something very important because like stress distribution through the system allows you to kind of have more quality work. Like people need to understand Tapas: Hmm. jay: that the stress experienced on a squat like dog shit squat technique, like will carry over into the deadlift because you're expect ex Tapas: Hmm. jay: experiencing a ton of like Again, I we see this in every other sport, right? when you think about cricket, when you think about boxing, right? dude, pretty technique just looks pretty and you can see they're efficient, right? Some guys just hit it over a boundary without even just having effort, but by virtue of everything working together, right? Some dudes who just throw a heavy shot by just sitting down like like tuck, there's no there's no grinding, there's no rough Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah. jay: housing, there's none of that stuff, right? So I I think it's very important to understand these foundations. And I this is where I wanna come and ask you guys about the next thing. Cause I think I wanna talk about bracing, but what are the what what is the larger picture that we are trying to achieve through a brace, right? when when you are squatting, what what are we trying to achieve Tapas: Right? jay: via the brace? Tapas: improve rigidity. Kaushal Sumedh: So rigidity. Tapas: Yeah, exactly. jay: Exactly. Exactly. Right. So look, we're trying to get like the ribcage and the pelvic that those diaphragms parallel to one another, right? Like theoretically, right? As parallel as we can to kind of so what does that kind of do? It's like if something's parallel, like something's evenly like this, force is distributed on both sides evenly, right? And I I think we should kind of talk about the fact that everyone I I noticed because guys have asked me this stuff, and sometimes the guy will be very extended. So in those Tapas: Hmm. jay: kind of people's cases, we may get them to exhale a bit to bring them into that a parallel situation, right? And then reinforce the brace there. But I've also Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah. jay: seen guys who are very flexed. If you ask that person to exhale a bit more and then brace into that thing, right? things get very exactly. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah. They're only going into even more flexion. Tapas: Alright. Yeah. jay: Right? So I think this is the kind of important is like. your breathing strategy for a brace i is dependent upon how she talks about coach's eye, right? What is the current shape this person has and how do you want to adjust their bracing strategy based off of that stuff, right? Kaushal Sumedh: it's just simple queuing at that point based off of what the jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: person is doing. Cause some people just extend under the bar, they don't really wedge themselves in under and they're not jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: really stacking themselves well. So in that case, you just might be like, Yeah, okay, once you're under the bar and you're in positioning, you're in position, you just might you might want to just exhale a little bit so that you can get jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: your hips under, just get the pelvis a little under. If you're jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: having struggle if you're struggling with like ribcage positioning positioning, then just get your pelvis a little under and then unrack. jay: Yeah, Kaushal Sumedh: Right, you jay: yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: might have you might th those are the ways like you might just simplify the queuing because like it's hard to explain that to people who don't have a background already. Yeah, so you might jay: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Kaushal Sumedh: want to like simplify the cues as much as you possibly can. If you're somebody who's like very flexed already, then you might want to say, like, I want you to like think a little bit more proud chest so that you can get jay: Yeah. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: your like and actually create more of a shelf and after that like get the bar on there. And try to stay neutral. I'm not asking you to extend, but I'm asking you to stay neutral. Same thing. if you're very like this, you want to get here. If you're very like this, then you want to get here. So that that's essentially jay: Yeah. Perfect. All right. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: what you're looking for on squat. And yeah, I mean again bench is a completely different situation. But similarly, with the deadlift, do you still want to stay stacked? You don't want to like jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you're still looking for rigidity here. And I think the big difference between squat, deadlift, and then bench is that you're looking for S the setup part, of course, you want to get into the right position and then you want to create rigidity in the torso, whereas in bench you want jay: Yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: to be as pliable as possible. And then once you're very pliable and you're in position, then you want to just brace by thinking about getting barrel chested. You're not thinking jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: about bracing into the stomach and crunching the jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: abs because that just defeats the purpose. You can't maintain neck pressure, you can't maintain like extension, you can't maintain like scapular depression. Because if I'm bracing through the stomach like that. If I'm just saying I'm just yeah, jay: That up so on step, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: I'm just gonna fall back flat again. So there's no real point. I can't Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: really maintain depression as well. Whereas if I'm like exhaling and staying loose, I can actually depress. And once I'm in position and I'm about I'm like ready to unrack and like jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: my neck pressure is really good, then I can just you see that? Like I can just do that and then unrack and hold that brace, right? Whereas in the squat and deadlift, you're kind of like here. in the bench you're doing that here. I think a lot this is why I don't see a lot of utility in using a belt for bench. Just doesn't make sense to me. Because like jay: Yeah. Yeah. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: it also because the belt is basically feedback for how you want to brace. And if you're trying to brace into the stomach, you're not really going to make a it's it's not useful. That's number one. Number two, belts, 13 mm especially, are rigid enough to not allow you to extend. So you can't really jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: get into Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: that position again. So yeah. I mean if you're somebody like a very a very muscle heavy venture, like you don't have too much of an arch, you're very flat, and that's how how you find value in it. Like, sure, go ahead. I don't usually see very technically proficient benchers do something like that. It's usually people who are like very, very muscular, like bodybuilder like level kind of powerlifters who can just use a belt and still be okay. 'Cause they'll be p c see, 'cause when we when you say s no Kod, I don't think Tapas: Why is Jonathan here? Yeah... Kaushal Sumedh: Does he use right now? I don't think he uses right now. Tapas: Yeah... He stopped, I remember. Yeah... Kaushal Sumedh: I think so. I don't think he uses a belt. But I I believe Russell O'Reill used to use it in between. jay: Yeah. Tapas: Yeah Kaushal Sumedh: I've seen like a few guys use the belt, but like I don't think most of the guys in the tested side use at all. Most of them don't jay: Yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: use. And there's a reason why you don't use that. Like just as I said, all the reasons that I just stated before, you just don't get like there's no there's no point. Like the whole point of using a belt is to create feedback on where to brace, right? jay: Absolutely. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: so for for that torso rigidity, that's for the squat and deadlift. You're not looking for that in your bench press. So when you create yeah, Tapas: Bench, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: so when you set up on the bench, you're just looking for bench press setup in a completely different manner where you're trying to be as pliable and as flexible as possible, and you're trying to create like anchor points at the right pressure points, which is usually your your neck, in your in the palm of your hands. You're not trying to jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: like grab the bar like that because then it becomes a forearm push. Rather than a jay: Yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: push from your chest and your triceps and you're also not going to be able to get your feet your leg drive really well. jay: Yeah, to push that way, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, to push like into that extension away, you know, like a floor. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: So like against the floor. So so you're gonna have difficulty in creating the kind of bench positioning that you're looking for if you actually wear a belt. That that's usually why I just don't recommend using a belt. But like jay: Bell for this one. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, there are some people who'll just swear by it. So I'm like, Okay, we'll we'll we'll try our way, no problem. But if it's not working out then we'll probably switch to what I'm saying. jay: Yeah. And and and and and I'm I just want to jump back to one thing in the squat, one more thing in the squat is largely elbow positioning, right? And what it does for people in those situations. like we know like the okay, so the axial skeleton, the appendicular skeleton, like the central skeleton, the outer skeleton. If I push my chest forward, if I push my chest forward, my arms will go behind me in that kind of a situation. Right? Yeah, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: also before you go through that, just just let people know what is axial and what is appendicular because. jay: Okay. So when when you think about when when we think about axial and appendicular skeleton, I we'll go over that it's like Axial is a central skeletal structure, right? You're gonna have your skull, your ribs, your vertebrae, you will have your pelvis, right? They're the foundations upon which the appendicular skin sits, right? So the upper arm, which will be the humerus, the femur, and the lower body, right? So everything on the outside, the arms and leg, those are your appendicular things. They sit on the axial, which is the foundation. If you move the foundation, the remaining things on the side will start to counterbalance and adjust according to that. Right. So if A equals B and A impacts B, B has a chance of impacting A as well. And Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah. jay: the reason I want to come to this is a lot of the times when people are squatting low bar, especially, I'm of the opinion the fact that if you allow a lot of flare like this to kind of happen, the risk is that by virtue of you allowing to do this, you will start to feel a lot of flexion into your spine and the bar has a tendency to kind of roll over this situation. Alright. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, and then to fight that roll, they kinda just crank it with the neck. And that's where jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you have a very high risk of bar rolling onto your neck and actually hurting yourself. Cause jay: Yeah. Yep. Kaushal Sumedh: yeah, you can't hold so much load with the back of your neck like that. You're not you can't do that. jay: Yeah. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: Your neck is not going to hold that much load. So that's that's the reason why like the right amount of like elbow positioning, that shelf creation. Because like if you jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: if you create like a really good shelf, usually a good line of a general thumb rule is you want to have like your humorous jay: You walk out. Kaushal Sumedh: somewhere around parallel to the torso, and jay: Done yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: that's usually how it is. Like if I'm leaning this much, then I'm I can allow the humerus to bend a little backwards, but if I'm like If I'm like staying very upright, then you you wanna have like the thing a little bit like that, but it depends on how much of the shelf you can actually create because the more you bring your elbow under, the more of that shelf you lose. And there's like that feeling of like, the bar is falling back, right? So jay: Yeah. Tapas: Mm. Kaushal Sumedh: if you wanna have like a on a low bar position, a good rule of thumb is just to have like the humorous somewhere, somewhere around that similar line. Parallel to the torso, the amount of torsoline that you're creating. And if you can just maintain that shelf and you're just keeping the elbows in position and you're just letting your fingers or your wrists just keeping the bar in position, that should keep you in position really well. One other mistake that a lot of people make is that they let the bar load sit entirely on the hands like that. And they try to like, yeah, they try jay: Yeah, then they'll be click claim about list, yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: to like hold it too tight and they try to pull it down too too much. you're not trying to pull the bar down. What you're trying to do is let the bar sit on the back, and then you're just trying to let the hands keep the bar in place. That's when you're not gonna have yeah, Tapas: Just stabilize it a bit. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: you're you're just then you're not gonna have pain-related issues with the at the wrists and the elbows. That's usually how people have elbow and wrist pain on low bar. jay: Yeah. 'Cause they they don't let the bar sit on the back, they just let it sit on the hand technically at that point in time. Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. jay: And and and just just correct me if I'm wrong on this thing. Like I try I also just want people to kind of understand when you're applying force on the bar, right? We are against the bar, right? We're pushing it through the ground. If force has to travel through something, it it travels best through something rigid, right? It's something that is Tapas: Hmm. jay: like solid in nature, right? that's why we brace. And one thing I say is like when you kind of pull your arms in like this on a low bar, like ever so lightly, you're not cranking it and you're trying to not try to like smash it that, but when you do kind of Create that crank like this and adduct this humorous, you'll lock the back into a very solid a position, which will hold everything in place to some degree, right? So, elbow elbow direction is very important in my eyes. and I just think as you kind of do this, you'll feel your lads kind of just want to lightly kind of be there, and everything is locked up in place. So force from the legs will hit the bar a lot easier. Like, do you guys like agree to that or like do you have a Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah. jay: Right. And and and one more thing I wanted to get both of you guys' opinion on is like when you think about when people think okay you want to retract the scaps, you have to depress the scaps, right? I think people think in binary that is only this or that kind of a situation, right? Exactly. Yeah, can you explain that to these guys? Kaushal Sumedh: Yeah, that movement also exists in spectrum. So I mean it's a it's a very simple thing, like, see, I am not retracted at all at the moment, I'm protracted, right? jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: This is a little bit of retraction compared to where I was. This is jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: even more retraction compared to where I was. And this is end range of retraction for me from where I can be. So this is jay: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: full full retraction. This is less retraction. This is less. This is less, lesser, lesser. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: And now I'm at zero retraction. Because I'm like in full protraction. So jay: Yeah. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: that's a relative term. When you say like I want you to retract more, it doesn't necessarily mean you just go like this. Yeah. jay: Absolute. Yeah. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: Or if I say I want you to allow protraction. To happen, it doesn't mean you do this. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: It's just if you're in good position like this and you want somebody to stay like that, from here, if you feel like they might require a little bit more depression, there is just this much. That's it. That's it's not like you do that because then all you're jay: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: doing is this thing, and and then you're just doing a a very JM pressed bench press. jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: That's a usual problem that you'll see with people who think they need to tuck the elbows and they need to engage the lats. you're not looking to engage jay: Hm. Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: lats. What you're actually trying to create is scapula depression, and as a jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: result of the scapula moving downward behind the ribcage, you're allowing the lats to just feel like in jay: Yeah. Kaushal Sumedh: a nice position. Like you're just going to feel the lats. Think of it like the lats are just stabilizing your humerus in place. That's kind of how like you can get that into a position where you're just like. That's it. So now all you have to think from here, once you're in a good position, well depressed, bar is out, you're in a good position. All you have to think is bend elbow, push through elbow. That's jay: Fait november. Kaushal Sumedh: it. Straighten elbow. That's it. Because like you have to use like multiple. Like I see a lot of people who do that thing where they're like hold the bar like that and then they'll do that. And you're if you if you take a look at my scapula here, if I am trying to create External rotation like that and tucking of the elbows, I am actually not creating any depression. I am actually elevating it. If you see, if I'm like this, this is where I'm neutral, jay: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Tapas: Hmm. Kaushal Sumedh: right? Hands are here, and if I do, you can see that my shoulders are just going up. I'm actually elevating. Whereas if I keep this like this and I'm allowing depression to happen, and I'm thinking about elevating my ribcage or my sternum up and my clavicle. Towards my chin. If I'm thinking about that, you can see I get depression now. And I can get neck pressure. I'm well depressed. There's no problem here. I'm in the right amount of depression. Too much depression again will mean like the bar is like going to touch around here, which you don't want. You want it somewhere in a natural position. Because once you're in a natural position, you're in good depression, you're set up like that. All you have to think, elbow bend, elbow extend. You don't have to like. Do that. You don't have to do that. You're just it's straight down and up. jay: Yeah. And and and when we kinda come to the bench as a a concept, right? anything else we'd want to kind of cover on the squat? Anything important that we'd want to kind of have there? Anything you guys think we missed out on? Kaushal Sumedh: I think we covered a lot of stuff. jay: Right.