A Tale of Two Squat Patterns — I Fixed It in About Five Minutes
Last week a client came to CORE for his initial assessment. After a short conversation about his training history, he mentioned he’d never really done strength work and had a long-standing history of chronic lower back pain at L3-L4.
Back pain is common and has many causes: tight muscles, overactivity, inactivity, and abnormal movement patterns. It’s rarely one thing, which makes it hard to say definitively why your back hurts. So during the initial session I focus on moving and watching to see what aggravates symptoms and how we can adjust.
I do several screens on a table (Thomas Test, Craig’s Test, Slump Test, active vs. passive range of motion), but I also have the client move off the table to show me how they choose to move. It provides more information.
Without any prompting, here’s what his squat looked like before:
– He fell into an aggressive anterior pelvic tilt as he descended
– He lowered with little control
– At the top he hyperextended his lower back, finishing with lumbar extension rather than hip extension
I had him review the same moment on video and explained what I suspected. Then I walked through some simple squat technique basics I like to share:
– Foot pressure and corkscrewing the feet into the ground to ramp up hip torque
– The abdominal brace
– The canister position: rib cage down and stacked over the hips
– The squat should come from breaking with the hips and knees together, so you’re moving down, not back
– Think about pulling yourself down toward the floor rather than simply falling
– Finish tall at the top and lightly squeeze the glutes instead of pushing the hips forward
Five minutes later, this happened:
After
Not a perfect squat (does that even exist?), but I was after progress, and I think we achieved it.
Here’s a quick before/after snapshot:
The biggest win was that he had zero pain while squatting after these small technique tweaks. It didn’t require a long list of corrective exercises to “fix” it.
Sure, I could have had him foam roll for 37 minutes and stretch his hip flexors, followed by a long set of glute medius exercises—and he probably would have felt better. But that wouldn’t have addressed the root issue.
In short: help people find a training menu they can actually use. Coach them. Show them what they can do, rather than telling them what they can’t do. And if you happen to be a wizard, I’ll stay quiet.
Movement should come from the ankles, knees, and hips… not the lower back.
