5 Counter-Intuitive Secrets to Unlocking Your True Power in the Gym

The Toddler Who Can't Be Lifted

If you've ever felt unstable under a heavy squat or felt your power "leak" during a strict bench press, you're not alone. It’s a familiar feeling that signals a disconnect between your body and the ground. The solution is a concept called "rooting" or "grounding," and it's a skill you were born with but may have forgotten.

Think about a small child who doesn't want to be picked up. That same child, when they don't want to be moved, suddenly becomes impossibly heavy. They haven't gained weight or bent the laws of gravity. They've just stood there, looked at you, and gone "Nuh-uh." Whatever that is—that instinctive decision to drop their center of mass and connect to the floor—is the essence of rooting.

This article will break down the five most surprising and impactful principles of rooting. Mastering them will make you more stable, more powerful, and fundamentally change how you interact with the weights you lift.Z

1. You're Pushing When You Should Be Pulling

The most fundamental shift in rooting is mental: stop actively pushing up against a weight and start pulling the weight down into your body's structure.

Consider the bench press. Most lifters unrack the bar and hold it at arm's length by pushing into it, fatiguing the pecs, front delts, and triceps before the rep even begins. The correct approach is to pull the bar into your back and lats, allowing you to "sink that weight into my structure." Your back now supports the load, not your pressing muscles.

This same principle applies to the squat. Many lifters get under the bar and immediately push up into it. This prematurely fatigues the quadriceps and gluteal muscles, raising their center of gravity and making them less stable. Instead, you should yield to the weight and pull it down into your structure. This lowers your center of mass, stabilizes your entire body, and saves your primary moving muscles for the actual work of lifting.

Why It Matters

This technique is a game-changer because it allows you to use your body's skeletal structure to bear the load. This frees up your "moving" muscles—the quads, glutes, and pecs—to perform the concentric (lifting) phase of the movement without being pre-fatigued from just holding the weight in place.

"...what we want to be doing instead is going from this position where I'm pushing up and trying to stop the weight pushing down on me I want to almost yield to the weight and pull the weight into my structure. So now the weight is going down through my structure straight into the floor and absorbed by the floor."

2. Your Stability Problem Starts in Your Pelvis, Not Your Feet

Many lifters with unstable feet attempt to address the issue by twisting their feet outward or "spreading the floor." However, the problem often originates higher up, in the position of the pelvis.

An anterior pelvic tilt—an arched lower back, often called "duck butt"—has a direct, immediate downstream effect on the feet. When you arch your back hard, your feet will naturally want to cave in and pronate. Trying to correct this at the foot level is fighting a losing battle against your own anatomy.

The solution is to achieve a neutral or slightly posterior pelvic tilt by "tucking the tailbone down and under." The effect is instantaneous. Without even thinking about your feet, you will feel the pressure shift to the outside of your foot and a more pronounced arch will appear. It's a direct mechanical consequence: fix the pelvis, and the feet will follow.

Why It Matters

This reframes the entire problem of stability. Instead of fighting a symptom at your feet, you can address the root cause at the pelvis. This simplifies your setup and creates a solid, stable foundation from the top down, automatically putting your feet in a much stronger position.

A Quick Drill: The Tiptoe Squat

This drill helps you feel the correct pelvic position by removing ankle mobility as a limiting factor.

Stand with your feet together, then point them out to a 90-degree angle.
Tuck your tailbone under to initiate a posterior pelvic tilt.
Rise onto your tiptoes.
Squat down slowly, focusing on keeping your tailbone pointed directly at the floor.
The real test is the ascent: push up slowly without your tailbone kicking out behind you. Most people will fail here, arching their back to stand up. The goal is to maintain that tucked position all the way up.

3. To Stay Grounded, You Need to 'Flex', Not 'Extend'

In athletics, we constantly hear about "triple extension"—the simultaneous extension of the ankle, knee, and hip. This is the body's mechanism for leaving the ground when sprinting or jumping.

Rooting is the polar opposite. The goal isn't to leave the ground, but to pull yourself down into the ground as hard as humanly possible. To achieve this, we need to focus on "triple flexion." This means the ankle, knee, and hip must all flex to some degree to pull the lifter down and create unshakeable stability.

Why It Matters

This is the biomechanical "why" behind the previous secrets. A tucked, neutral pelvis is the non-negotiable prerequisite for effective triple flexion. If you're stuck in an anterior tilt, your hamstrings and hip flexors are put into a lengthened position where they can't contract properly to pull you down. By setting your pelvis first (Secret #2), you mechanically enable the very muscles responsible for pulling you into the floor, turning an abstract concept into a concrete physical action.

4. Stop 'Gripping' the Floor and Start 'Spreading' It

The cue "grip the floor" is often misunderstood. People associate "gripping" with how a hand grips—by making a fist and shrinking. When they apply this to their feet, they curl their toes, which reduces the foot's surface area and makes it less stable.

The correct technique is to create the "largest possible footprint." To do this, follow a simple three-step process:

Pick your toes up off the floor.
Spread your toes as wide as you possibly can.
Place your toes back down while maintaining that wide spread.

Why It Matters

This is an immediate, actionable fix that can instantly improve your stability. Modern footwear often crams our feet together. As a coach, I'll usually point out to clients: "If your hand were stuck like this, you probably assumed that was a problem. We tend to ignore it in our feet." To improve your toe spread over time, perform "foot love drills," like wedging your fingers between your toes while watching TV, to help lengthen the tissues and restore your foot's natural function.

5. You Can "Cheat" Your Way to Feeling Proper Tension

Learning to generate the tension required for rooting can be difficult. Fortunately, there are specific isometric drills you can use to "cheat the system" and force your body to experience the proper sensation.

The Wide Horse Stance Isometric: This drill forces you into a good pelvic position.
1. Setup: Start with feet together. Turn your feet out 90 degrees, then turn them out 90 degrees again to get into a super-wide stance. Finally, point your feet straight forward.
2. Action: Drop down. In this position, it's almost impossible to be in an anterior tilt. Tuck your tailbone, spread your feet, and push into the floor as hard as you can. You should feel your adductors (inner thigh muscles) light up. If your feet and knees collapse inward, you've lost the position and reverted to an anterior tilt.
The "Pulling Down" Isometric Drill: This exercise teaches you to absorb force with the correct muscles.
1. Setup: Stand with feet just outside shoulder width, pointing forward. Get into a mini-squat with your tailbone tucked and feet spread.
2. Action with Partner: Have a partner stand behind you and push down on your shoulders. Your goal is to resist them not by pushing up with your quads, but by pulling down with your adductors, hamstrings, and hip flexors.
3. Action without Partner: Hold a heavy kettlebell in a goblet position. The goal is the same: hold the position for a minute or more by actively pulling yourself down into the floor, not by pushing up against the kettlebell.

Why It Matters

These drills are powerful teaching tools. They put your body in a position that makes it easier to find and activate the correct muscles, building the crucial mind-muscle connection for rooting. The ultimate test is that your quads and glutes should not be burning during these isometric holds. This proves that you are successfully using your rooting muscles to absorb force, saving your primary movers for the lift itself.

From the Ground Up

Proper stability and power in the gym don't come from brute force. They come from a smarter, more intentional connection to the ground—a connection that starts with your pelvis and is driven by a "pulling down" mindset, not a "pushing up" one. When you get this right, you'll feel like your legs are directly stacked on top of your hips and feet, ready to push straight up into the bar.

The next time you're under the bar, don't just think about lifting the weight—think about how you're connecting to the floor. What would happen if you stopped pushing against the world and started pulling it into you?

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