Fixing Squat Problems-Female Quad Dominance

I’ve got lots to talk about this week and not a lot of time to write about it. Let’s get right to it. I’m going to see if I can smash out 600 words in 30 minutes. Hey, there is 37 right there.

I always say I am really busy right, well I got a bomb dropped on me and it is literally taking up all of my time the past few weeks. I’ll fill you in on the bomb next week after we make the announcement to our newsletter subscribers.

We had a huge weekend at TPS. The International Sports Science Association (ISSA) set up a free 4 hour seminar for our members with Dr. Squat-Fred Hatfield and Team EliteFTS’s Josh Bryant.

Fred is a mentor and old friend who I don’t get to see much anymore and I see Josh maybe once a year, so it was great to have them. We had over 200 people here for the seminar and they all got wicked smarter.

Fred covered training for power and explained tons of really cool scientific things with charts, graphs and pictures. He has a unique ability to make complex things very simple and easy to understand.

Josh came in at the half way point and took over. He covered adding Strongman to your program, the squat, bench and deadlift as well as some great assistance exercises too. All in all it was pretty awesome. We all went out for food and beers after.

That’s a story for another day.

The same day, I had Mia who I have been prepping for her first bikini show compete. I wish I could have been there but I sent my crew down to support her. My friend Mark went and advised her on posing and when to eat to make sure she popped on stage. The thing that sucks about these events is that they don’t tell you where you placed unless you are in the top 3. Mia made it to the final judging so she did well for her first event.

I think she needs to step up to Figure next time. We’ll see what she decides.

P.S.

She looked amazing!

Mia on the day of the show.

We’ve also just put the finishing touches on our youth program that we are re-launching.

The Total Performance Method for Athletes will drop in June.

It will be a program designed to develop the complete athlete at critical stages of development. Athletes at age 10 need to be coached differently than those at 13 and older.

We are running a new model than we used to that will cover all the bases and get them prepped for Varsity sports and beyond. I’ll throw some of our programing at you later.

Females are usually Quad Dominant

So, as you know, we train a large group of ladies in the Total Performance Method for Powerlifting and as you should know, girls are frequently quad dominant. In order to squat the big weight, we need to get their hamstrings and glutes stronger and teach them to stay on the hamstrings in the hole.

Have you ever seen someone squat and when they get to the bottom they slide off the heels and the knees cave in and all of the weight goes to the mid foot and toes?

I call this the Quad Slide.

WRONG! Knees forward and weight on the toes!

It’s pretty simple, they are sliding off the hamstrings and onto the quads.

Your body wants to take the path of least resistance like electricity, if the posterior chain is weak, or you aren’t able to activate it, you will slide onto the quads and squat less.
You’ll also greatly increase shear force on the patella which can lead to injury over time. We need to ensure this does not happen.

So how do we fix this?

First, we add volume to the programming on the posterior chain (hams, glutes, lower back, gastroc). The best exercise for this is the Glute Ham Raise done on and EliteFTS Glute Ham bench. We also do lots of Single Leg Romanian Deadlifts, Pullthroughs, Keystone Deadlifts and other assistance exercises.

These build strength as I explained in the last post.

Another way to fix it is by using special exercises and cueing.

Let’s talk about cueing first.

We want all of our lifters to start with the weight on the heels.

I like to tell them to get all of their weight on their heels and the outside edges of the feet. This is 100% impossible and if they do it right they will get about an 80/20 split with 80% of the weight on the heel and the other 20% on the mid foot. We don’t want any on the toes. We tell them to pull the big toe up.

From there, we cue them to push out from the feet, knees and hips. Spread the floor, push the knees out, it’s the same cue. I add in push the hips out.

If you stand up in your squat stance and put your hands on the side of your glutes/hips you should feel the muscle pop out as you spread the floor.

Put your hands on the high side ass and push the TFL into your hands.

The muscle we are looking to see fire is the Tensor Fascia Latae or TFL.

The TFL helps control the knee and many lifters do not activate it. Once you learn to activate it a whole new world of tension is developed and your squat will increase.
More on cueing: once they have this down, we tell them to spread everything as hard as they can and sit on the toilet. You can tell people 4000 cues and they get confused.

Everyone knows how to sit on a toilet.

This usually fixes the issues and if it doesn’t we move on to the next cues.

Have them hold a power rack in their squat stance and sit into a squat. If they are a Quad Slider, they will do it here. Have them sit in the hole and then sit back onto the heels and find the sweet spot where the weight is on the hamstrings and not the toes.

If this doesn’t work, more special exercises come into play.

Better than above. Shins less over the toes, weight on the heels.

Box squats are great for raw lifters who can’t get on the hamstrings.

I like to throw a mini band on the knees and do a goblet squat to a high box. Cue the spread everything and to force the mini band out hard the whole time. Ge them to sit back so there is a negative shin angle.

This ensures they are off the quads in the hole and almost 100% of the time, it fixes the problem. We will lower the box by using mats or a stack of 25 pound bumper plates to get them down over time.

That's all for now.

Thanks for reading.

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