Ok, so the cues we give to someone who is totally new are completely different from the cues we give to someone who has been working out a while.
Unfortunately, what I find is that pretty much everyone is still using the cues we give a total newbie. Time to fix that.
Lets take a look at the three most common cues you should have already outgrown:
1.) Stop Pulling Your Toes Up on Squats and Deadlifts
Ok, I never use this cue, even with someone who is new. But it is SO SO common, I have to address it.
Many trainers who are having a hard time cueing someone to keep their weight on their heels (whether in squats, lunges, deadlifts, kettlebell swings, ect.) tell people to pull their toes up.
Or they tell them to wiggle their toes.
While these cues are marginally effective at getting newbies to keep the weight on their heels, this isn’t something you should be doing long term.
The Squatting and Deadlifting Cues You Want To Do Long Term:
1.) Weight on your heels
2.) Toes on the ground (big toe on the ground)
3.) Knees Tracking With Your Toes
You can use those three cues forever. Repeat them every rep, with every squat. Repeat them every rep, with every deadlift.
Of course only #2 “fixes” the crappy toes up cue, but I want you to learn all three as a set.
2.) Stop Sitting Your Butt Back In The Squat
This one is great for people who are new and are squatting “all knees”. You’ve got to learn to use your hips in a squat.
In effect, we go from a “knees only” squat to a “hips only” squat. This isn’t bad. It’s actually really easy on the knees, and it’s a great way to learn to squat at first.
But, if people have healthy and strong knees, it shouldn’t end there.
I may cue someone to sit their butt back in the squat for three months, six months, or even a year, depending on how healthy (actually depending on the lack of health and strength) their knees have.
In other words, if they’ve had a lot of knee pain in the past, I may have them squat with their hips for much longer.
If someone is relatively fit, and knows how to use their hips, then it’s time to add back in the knees.
In actuality, we want the hips and the knees to start and stop at the same time:
In Z-Health they call this “bone rythm”. And so with my clients I use the same terminology.
I tell them when they are new that they are learning to “squat with their hips”.
After a few months, we teach them to do a “bone rythm squat”.
Start practicing this more balanced squat now, maybe have a friend help you by cueing your knees and hips at the same time. Here is an example of how ot do that with the lunge, but it’s the same with a squat – one hand at the knee and one at the hip:
3.) Stop Cranking Your Neck Back As Hard As You Can
In the beginning, we have people crank their necks back as hard as they can.
Most people suck so bad at arching their backs that it’s a good cue to start getting them out of a potentially dangerous back position.
If your back is rounded-forward, you are going to get hurt, period.
So we teach people to arch, and we start with their neck and eyes cranked up.
And we slowly move them into a really exaggerated arched-backwards position, because the over exaggerated arch (both neck and back) is safer than being rounded.
As people get better at that, we go back the other direction and find a more happy medium. Ultimately it’s a slightly arched back and neck, rather than a cranked back neck.
We still keep the eyes on the horizon through the whole movement (which means the eyes move into an up position at the bottom).
The New Back and Neck Cues You Need To Learn:
I did a blog post with Keira Newton, RKC Team leader, about this last year, check it out:
https://joshhillis.com/articles/2010/02/the-advanced-kettlebell-swing.html
Just Because You Heard It Before, Doesn’t Mean It’s Forever
I was talking with one of my clients today about how cues that I gave him when he started are actually in direct confict with cues I give him now.
Most magazines and even most workout programs, when they give exercise descriptions, are giving the cues that a trainer would give you on your very first day working out.
In the post above, you’ve just learned the three most common cues that you’ve probably out-grown. You’re now at the next level!
Josh Hillis, RKC, CPT, PES, ZMIS
Josh is the author of The 21 Day Kettlebell Swing Challenge
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