היי. חבר הפנה אותי לספר, בו קלי מציין שההנחיה לסובב את קצות האצבעות החוצה בסקוואט היא שגויה, ושמספיק לבצע רוטציה חזקה בירך כדי להוציא ברכיים למרות שכפות הרגליים מופנות קדימה (מקבילות אחת לשניה). אני מצטט לכאן את הפסקאות הרלוונטיות ואשמח אם מישהו יוכל להגיב לעניין ברצינות:
Like the pushup, the squat has a broad range of applications. If you understand how to create torque while squatting, you have a global hipstability model that is germane to the vast majority of movements. In addition, the squat really illustrates that your setup—specifically your foot position, or stance—dictates your ability to generate torque upstream: in your ankles, knees, hips, spine, and shoulders. Remember, your joints need to be in a position to facilitate rotational force before you start moving. As the squat torque tests will prove, a straight foot or neutral foot position is ideal for generating maximum torque. The trouble is that there has been a historical disconnection between foot position and stabilization through torque. For years coaches have taught athletes to turn their feet out—like a duck’s—when they squat, which opens up some room in the hip joint and allows athletes to drive their knees out farther and lower more easily into the bottom of the squat. What coaches and athletes have failed to realize is that you can create room in the hip joint through external rotation torque: by positioning your feet straight (parallel), screwing your feet into the ground, and shoving your knees out. Although this requires more mobility, it allows you to maximize torque and still free the head of your femur. However, most people don’t have the range-of-motion required to perform a full-range, butt-to-ankle squat. Turning the feet out allows them to get the job done. But that quick fix comes at a cost. In addition to reducing the ability to generate torque, it instills dysfunctional movement patterns that carry over to other activities. Squat with a duck-footed stance and you will stand, walk, jump, land, and pull with a duck-footed stance. And what do you think will happen when you go for a one-rep max back squat? Or spontaneously receive weight in the bottom of the squat during an Olympic lift? Or plant to change directions in a basketball 133 game? This is what will happen: You’re going to express the same movement pattern that has been ingrained in your motor program and you’re going to dramatically increase your potential for injury. This is the same as rounding your back when you deadlift. Or even better, smoking a pack of cigarettes. It’s not a problem until it becomes a problem. And once it is a problem, correcting it is that much harder. Let’s take a closer look at what happens when the feet are turned out. Most importantly, it makes it difficult to generate torque and stabilize your body. What often happens as a result is that your ankles collapse and your knees spiral inward, creating a valgus—twisting and shearing —force across your joints. This is how athletes dump torque and lose force through their hips, and it is the primary culprit in ACL tears. When I teach neutral foot position as it relates to the squat, I say that you can squat in any position as long as you can create arches in both 134 feet. If your foot sustains an arch, you will be able to generate sufficient torque. It just so happens that straight, neutral feet is the best position for achieving this ideal arch. The more you turn out your feet, the more likely that your arches will collapse. Simple. For example, if an athlete lowers into a squat but reaches the end of his ankle range-of-motion before he completes the exercise—meaning that he can’t flex any deeper as he moves into the bottom position—he has to start tension-hunting by collapsing inward. Although this will make his ankle structurally stable, it compromises the integrity of his joints. He is in effect, just depending on his ligaments and tissues to support him. To ensure optimal positioning of the ankle joint, you need to create an arch in your foot, which is expressed through external rotation torque. Here’s the deal: While athletes can get away with squatting with their feet turned out when working with body-weight and low volume, the moment they increase weight, speed, or volume, the house of cards collapses. As with the shoulder-torque tests, the goal of the subsequent demonstrations is to drive home the relationship between torque and midline stability, as well as to illustrate why a neutral foot position is ideal for maximizing torque.