Mobility and the Overhead Squat

Posted by lando on Dec 20, 2013 in Workout Of The Day | 0 comments

The overhead squat is all about bar position related to the body. We want the bar to be “overhead” actually meaning slightly behind the crown of the skull stacked directly over the center of mass of the body. Imagine if you drew a line that split your body perfectly proportionally. The bar would ideally track right on that line all the way top to bottom of the squat.

Like many of you know the biggest limit to overhead squatting is flexibility. Shoulder, lumbar spine (lower back), and hips are the main problem areas, with wrist, calves/ankles also contributing to our OHS hatred. We could spend an entire day on mobility to help these trouble areas but not many of us have that time. Much like working on skills and lifts where I would say pick one or two things and focus on making them great, the same can be done with mobility. While yes we want to take a total body approach to our mobility you should focus on greatly improving one or two areas each week. Determine what area affects you the most with the overhead squat and hammer it tomorrow morning before class. Go at this area every day for a week and I think you will be pleased with your progress. Ask any of your coaches for help with how to mobilize certain areas.

Something we do as a staff when we overhead squat, snatch, and/or jerk, and we have many of you do it for warmup in class, is overhead squatting with whatever weight possible with a close hand grip. We normally overhead squat with a wide-ish grip. Try doing some overhead squats with your hands in the same position you would jerk or press with. Try 10 reps with a PVC. If you can do that try with a weighted bar. If you can do 10 reps with 45# try getting your hands even closer. Maybe you can do 95# with your hands touching??

This is a great warmup for overhead movements because it puts the muscles needed for keeping the bar overhead (thoracic spine area, shoulders, and pecs) under extreme tension and forcing them to stretch under this tension. Similar to how stretching against resistance helps a muscle expand and stay in that lengthened shape, this will help push these muscles that tend to not want to cooperate when doing overhead squats into a longer, better shape for the movement.

Start with a PVC and work carefully to something harder. Again think of it as a stretch. You shouldn’t ever really do an overhead squat with significant weight closer than shoulders width with the hands.

Early Morning Advanced Crew: Meet at 8:30, start at 9:00

We will be doing all strength work. Squats, stones, axels, yokes. Stay for the 10am class if you want some metcon in, but its going to be a lot of work, a lot of fun.

SATURDAY

Strength: Overhead Squat

5×3

WOD: “Nancy”
5 Rounds
Run 400m
15 Overhead Squat 95/65