Barbell Shrugged - Squat Injuries, Fixes & Myths w/ Dr. Aaron Horschig of Squat University

Episode Date: November 2, 2016

Squat Injuries, Fixes & Myths w/ Dr. Aaron Horschig of Squat University

This week on Barbell Shrug, we interview Dr. Aaron Horschig from Squat University, and we teach you how to poop again. Wow. That's a squatty potty, man. A squatty potty, I've seen that, yeah. CTP's eyes are like, are you fucking kidding me? No, man, that was really good. This week on Barbell Shrug, we interview Dr. Aaron Horschig with Squat University, and we debunk all kinds of squat myths. Such as?

Squatting too deep. Butt wink. Knees forward. Knees popping. Knees. In W-O. Shit, actually only one of those is a myth. Like squatting too deep is bad for you is a myth.

The others are just problems. Those are just problems, yeah. Problems. Knee forward problems. 99 problems. And knees are all of them. problems. Knee forward problems. 99 problems. And knees are all of them. And hip wink ain't one. Hey, this is Rich Froning.

You're listening to Barbell Shrugged. For the video version, go to barbellshrugged.com. Right now? With Carl Sagan. Oh, there you are. I need to get a loophole. Loophole. Yeah.

No, Cosmos, that's like you're just chilling. Yeah. Sunday, you don't really have anything to do. That's what it's all about, man. Turn on that Netflix and watch Cosmos. Dude, the amount of Netflix we watch is crazy. Can you see him on the shirt, Alex? Yeah, I see him.

Neil? Carl Sagan? I always put it on when I'm trying to go to sleep. Brandy's like, what are you watching? I'm like, it's space. And I'm tired now. What's your favorite Cosmos episode? The black holes.

I like the one where they figure it out with the infrared. Oh, yeah. That was a cool one. I forget the dude's name that they were talking about, but where he figured out. No, it was a woman. It was a woman that figured it out. Okay.

Yeah. It was a guy. No, it was a spectrum. They were looking at spectrum of stars. The light spectrum? Yeah. That was a woman. I thought it was a dude. No, no was spectrum. They were looking at spectrum of stars. The light spectrum? That was a woman. I thought it was a dude.

No, no, no. I thought you were talking about the colors that come out of the prism. Yeah. Infrared is invisible. I didn't mean to say infrared. I meant to say the prism. The temperature was higher. Well, yeah, because they were looking at, see, like. This is why we let them talk about it.

I need to catch up on the show now. This is why we let them talk about it. I need to catch up on the show now. This is why we need to watch the show. To be fair, me and this guy were probably intoxicated when we were watching it. This guy is Barbell Buddha. So this episode today is brought to you by Barbell Buddha, the collective writings of Chris Moore. Let's see it. If you want to grab a copy of this book.

I can't wait. It just came out here. Hold it up. It just came out fresh off the press. Go to barbellbuddha.com and get your own copy. It's got all three of his published books in there. And then some extra stuff as well. And it's got big print from people like me.

I'm excited. I've got to go pick mine up from the house. I'm definitely getting a copy. Yeah. I pre-ordered mine, but it's on the back. Very cool. Oh, yeah. There you go.

Boom. Ta-da. So go support them. That'll go and help Chris and his kids. Chris and his kids. His wife and his kids. Max and May and Janie. That's awesome.

Yeah, man. So we were talking about how bad we were butchering the stories of Cosmos. And, yeah, Chris actually turned me on to that show. But I've always said we need to do drunk history fitness versions. I want to do, like, a drunk history of CrossFit where I'm, like, trying to tell a story. And I'll dress up as Glassman on the camera or something. Oh, my gosh.

Have you ever watched drunk history? Yeah, it's hilarious. They're amazing. How funny would one of those be? Let's just keep doing other people's shows but making them with CrossFit. We already did Between Two Barbells. Yeah, Between Two Barbells was a huge hit. With Rich Froning.

Somewhere on our Facebook. I need to post that to YouTube. After we did that, I had so many ideas of other guests that I would want to do that with and questions I was going to ask them. Who's your number one guest you'd want to have on Between Two? Dave Castro. Dave Castro, of course. He wants to come on the show.

He would be great in that. I wonder if he'd play along. I think he would. We'll see. We'll see. It was a great time. Well, who the heck is this guy? Who is this guy?

Right. So let's talk about our special guest for today. Sorry, Aaron. What's up, guys? Welcome to Barbell Struggle. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with Alex Macklin. Hey. CTP behind the camera. What's up, guys? Welcome to Barbell Struggle. I'm your host, Mike McGoldrick, here with Alex Macklin. Hey. CTP behind the camera.

What up? And our very special guest today, Dr. Aaron Horschig. Yep. Oh, got it right. From Squat University. You said it right. Not Squat Therapy. Yes.

I know. Squat University. Man, we discovered you online. You put out a lot of amazing content. Thank you. Thank you. And have a really big following, and we were very intrigued. So we reached out and did a phone call and a little consultation

and thought, man, we've got to interview this guy. I've been following you for a little while. Dude, I've been following you guys forever. For real. I thought I was – What a waste of your time. Whenever – Go ahead.

So when I was younger, right, when me and my wife were doing long distance for a little bit of time, I used to drive back and forth from Kansas City to Columbia, right, because she was still going to Mizzou to finish her doctorate. And the whole time I'd be listening to barbell shrug shows. Oh, word. Yeah, for real. I'm glad to have you on, man. It's an honor to be on the show.

Oh, so go ahead. Nope, nope. You guys. This is our first time. So we just filmed a really cool um technique video you basically running alex and i through a bunch of hip mobility and ankle screens and kind of uh picking apart the squat which i guess you would say is kind of your area specialties for sure company's called squat university yes give us the background on what brought you to this point that's the big thing

so a lot of people at first when they hear squat university are like why the heck would you create a brand based on just one movement right i think that's a great idea so the biggest thing i tell people is i believe the squat is sort of the building block to finding your body's true strength right now when we think true strength right what do we think of now the uh the ancient greek philosopher socrates right he's known for saying this he, no man should have the right, or what is he saying? I just messed it up. No man should go through life without finding the true strength that they're capable of. Right. I can edit that. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We'll have to edit that out. So the big thing is, you know, when we think of true strength, right today in our society,

we automatically think to like, you know, someone huge, right. Lifting a ton of weight, right. When I was younger, right. Me and my buddies would sit around and watch YouTube videos of Ronnie Coleman. Oh, yeah. Right? He's throwing 800 pounds around. Yeah, screaming, yeah, buddy. Exactly, right? Oh, you know that video of him doing, what was it, the 700 pound?

He's doing it for reps. Oh, yeah. I read something that, because he recently had some issues, some health issues. Yeah. Yeah, he had a hip issue. Yeah, yeah. Well, he was like man if i died tomorrow the the biggest thing i would be bummed about is the fact that i didn't go for more reps

on that 700 pounds yeah i mean he's nuts he's throwing around like 200 pound dumbbells like they're toys yeah right and then you even got uh right ray williams oh yeah what is a thousand five pounds that's nuts he did a raw right so no knee wraps sleeves exactly no squat suit that's nuts right so you know those guys there's no denying they're strong right that they're very That's nuts. He did a raw, right? So no knee wraps. Knee sleeves. Exactly. No squat suit. That's nuts, right? So, you know, those guys, there's no denying, they're strong, right? They're very, very strong. And by every means, you know, they are American society, like, definition of true strength, right? So that's the big thing is, and today we live in a society that's so performance-based, right,

that instantly whenever we think of true strength, we think of lifting big weight. We think of how much we can accomplish, right, and how much we can lift and stuff like that. But what I found is that because we've sort of rearranged our athletic priorities to such an extent to where we think that it's more important how much we lift rather than how well we do it, bad things happen. It's not sexy. Exactly. Now, the big thing is that, you know that we've definitely become bigger, stronger, faster.

That's not a bad mantra to live by to a point. But when you get to the point where you're valuing how much you lift over how well you do it to such a great extent, injuries occur. You do two things. First, you capsize your potential of what you're possible of doing, and you also invite injuries into the potential picture, right? Gotcha. I mean, every single year, there's so many injuries that we see occur in athletes. Now, if we're looking at, right, your basic field athletes, like football, baseball, soccer, basketball, right? A lot of those athletes

are tearing their ACL at a rate that's nuts, right? A hundred thousand torn ACLs are happening every single year in the US, right? And the crazy thing about that is 70% of it is non-contact. So no one's even touching those athletes, and they're doing something. They're landing weird. Change the direction or something. Exactly, like change the direction or they're landing wrong. Gotcha. And the crazy thing about that, too, is sort of the scary fact is that girls

who compete in a lot of sports like basketball and soccer, they're like three times more likely to tear their ACL than boys. Your wife? Yeah. I've read that – well, she never tore hers in soccer. She was pretty lucky. But I've read like the percentage of soccer players, female soccer players that tear their ACL.

It was like – it's crazy. It was crazy high. It was like almost 90% or something. Yeah. I've heard – I don't know the exact number. Basically, the stat that I read was if you compete in soccer or basketball year-round, so that's already talking about early sports specialization,

you already have a 5% chance of tearing your ACL at some time in your career. That's nuts. 5% of athletes are already set up to already have this humongous season ending. Well, that's way different than 90 that I could throw out there. That's still pretty high. But it's still a lot, right? Well, people think that weightlifting is dangerous when you have this kind of statistic. Now, obviously, you're not going to think that weightlifting is dangerous when you have this kind of statistics.

Now, obviously, you're not going to have that huge season-ending injury. You're not going to tear your ACL usually while you're weightlifting, right? But what happens is that you have a lot of these sort of slower chronic injuries that sneak up, right? Knee pain is big with a lot of people, right? And it's all because we've put our performance on such a high level that we don't care how well we're moving, right? Everyone's seen videos of people squatting a new PR and their knees cave in like crazy and they go, I don't care how bad I squatted. I got this new PR. Yeah. Right. And whenever you do that to such an extent, exactly. You're a, you're going to limit your potential, right? Cause I look at that athlete that's knees are caving in and I said, Hey, if you moved better,

right, you can improve your potential performance, Right. And you can decrease your injury. Right. Because that's a big thing is like strength and conditioning professionals and medical professionals. Right. They they speak the common language of movement. Right. Because quality movement sets the foundation for each of those. Right. So if you have better quality movement, it gives you the potential to perform better. If you have better quality movement, you're not going to get injured as much usually, right? So when we're speaking from both of those things, right, that's where we come together. And that's what I've tried to give everyone at Squat University is to come at it from both points of view

and be like, hey, I want you to be able to move a lot of weight, but I want you to move well first. And when we come together and do that, that's where everyone – That's where the magic happens. Well, let me ask you this so um you know you've made some really good points but i want to the people listening yeah you know we've talked to you for a couple hours now people listening at home still don't know you yet so like where where have you learned the things that you've learned and what's your background so that these people can know like you know okay this guy's got some credibility to give me some advice on fixing my squat for sure sure. Why do people trust you? For sure.

So I did my undergraduate at Truman State University, graduated with an exercise science major. That was 2009. I then went to get my doctorate and graduated from the University of Missouri right in 2012. Since then, I've been out in Kansas City working at Boost Physical Therapy and Sports Performance, and I also have a background in Olympic weightlifting. So I don't just come at it from physical therapy. Yeah, I met you at the American Open. Exactly.

In person. Well, we've been following each other for a little while, but in person we met at the American Open last year. Exactly. Oh, cool. What room number? So, yeah, the big thing is I've got over 11 years of experience training and competing in Olympic weightlifting too.

I currently train with Anna Martin out in Kansas City kansas city weightlifting is our weightlifting club name so i like that because you know you have that experience coming from an athlete because a lot of times people go to physical therapists and then the physical therapist or somebody's gonna be like you need to stop doing everything yeah and but you everything everything uh but you have that athlete background you know like people don't want to do that. Exactly. That's a big thing. You know, when you get an athlete that comes to you and maybe they have an injury or they're moving, you know, poorly enough to where you need to take them back a little bit, it's all based on an individual decision, whether or not that person needs to be taken completely out of weightlifting or if they can, you know, can continue weightlifting

and maybe we just need to add a couple of things in to correct their movement, you know? So it's, I always say, you know, we need to train what we need to train and correct for what we need to correct, and for some people, they come to you with knee pain, and their movement's so bad, they need, you know, need to take a step back from weightlifting for a moment until we can correct some things, but for some athletes, they maybe have some small issues. Yeah. I want you to continue training hard. Right. You mentioned that earlier, your continuum of technique. Yeah. So, I always say. You kind of. Right. You mentioned that earlier, your continuum of technique. Yeah. So I always say. You kind of classify them how.

Yeah. So basically there's three levels, right? You've got optimal technique or perfect technique, I guess a lot of people would say. You've got acceptable technique. And then you've got poor technique. Right. Now, an easy way to sort of describe which one fits in a way, right, is sort of that knee wobble.

Right. Yeah. So ideally, right, the knees need to stay directly in line with your feet whenever you squat whenever you're doing a clean whenever you're doing a snatch right but what we see is that a lot of times these athletes don't their knees will waver in a little bit right i use kendrick ferris as an example oh my god i know right i think there was a video a couple weeks ago put up and his knees you know they waver in slightly yeah he's moving 270 kilos something stupid right yeah and his knees wavering slightly now some's moving 270 kilos, something stupid, right? Yeah. And his knees waver in slightly.

Now, some people look at that and they go valgus, right, which is a scientific way of saying it's an internal collapse of the knees, right? Now, some people, I think, say that, don't know what the fuck that is. They don't know what that is. That's what they're saying. They're saying it makes them feel good about themselves. Valgus. Exactly.

Oh, that guy's valgus. Just tell him his knees are going in. You don't have to be a dick about it. Basically, it's an internal collapse. They heard it at a seminar. Exactly. Now, the reason a lot of people first learned of that is because a valgus collapse is what creates a torn ACL. Exactly.

So those athletes are going to tear their ACL, right, when they get a valgus collapse. Now, weightlifting, that's not going to happen most of the time, right? But what happens is that you set your body into a really poor position. You're going to sustain a lot of bad forces, and you're going to get some of those chronic overuse. Sorry to stop you there. Why did Jared Fleming tear his ACL? Did they say why? His was sort of a freak movement.

I think, yeah. It was on the catch. He wasn't very deep in the hole, I don't think. I think it was on the catch coming out. Yeah, I think it was on the transition to his jerks when he did it. His knee was almost completely straight. Oh, wow. Interesting.

All right, sorry. So that's more of a freak injury. Yeah. But you were saying Kendrick's comes in a little bit. They come in a little bit, right? So I would say that that is acceptable technique, right? His knees aren't ideal, right? But here's the thing is I'm not going to say, hey, Kendrick,

you need to go back to a PVC pipe. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's acceptable technique. It's not poor. Now, if those knees collapsed in past the toes, right, that's really poor technique. And I don't care how elite you are. If you're moving that poorly, you're going to set yourself up for a big injury.

Right? So here's the deal. So you have someone with sort of acceptable technique. Then you need to know, well, is it something I need to change? Or even can I change it, right? Because Kendrick, right, he's an elite athlete. He's been in the game for many years. He sort of programmed those motor patterns into his body, right?

So I could do all the corrective exercise movement I want. I'm probably not going to change the way he squats. He's been squatting for like 20 years. Exactly. And it's acceptable, so likely he's not going to set himself up for a big, you know, long-term injury, you know? Now, if I have an athlete who's 12 years old right he's just starting learning weightlifting and he's showing that little bit of knee wobble that's

probably something it's acceptable so i'm still going to let him train but i'm probably going to have him do some more corrective exercise outside of training to sort of continue the progression of his movement quality i think it's i think it also too goes along with like what's your what's your ultimate goal like you know if you're trying, if you're trying to go to a high level and you are capable of going to that high level, let's be honest here. Like, sometimes people need to figure out and be honest with themselves. Like, look, I'm just doing this for hobby's sake, and, you know, there's not a really good chance of me getting to that high level.

You've got to think about what your goals are. Oh, for sure, yeah. And that's, you know, the big thing is we're making sure, obviously, our goal, our end goal is to make sure that every athlete can move the best as possible you know best that you can exactly because in doing so i set them up to do more weight right they can lift more weight if they're moving more efficiently and they're also going to have a decreased rate of injury so both things come into play yeah you know so we went we went through earlier we did uh so you would start people off by doing like a squat assessment.

Yes. For people who we have a video that's out or will be out by the time this episode plays. But walk us through that a little bit. Yeah. So the first thing that I'm looking for is I want to take people out of their shoes. A lot of athletes, especially weightlifters, if you've been in it for a while, you're so used to being in a raised heel weightlifting shoe that as soon as you get out of that weightlifting shoe, you don't know how to squat. Right. So as a practitioner where I'm

screening someone's body, right. I want to be able to illuminate movement problems that I can then fix. Right. So I get people out of their shoes, I get them in their socks or even barefoot like we did. Right. And I want to have their toes relatively straightforward, right. Like a five to seven degree toe out. Right. And I'm going to ask them to squat as deep as possible, right, and the big things I'm looking for is from the ground up, you know, how good is their movement quality. That's interesting, you said feet straightforward with a five to seven degree toe out, so when people say straightforward now, it might be like, for those watching the video, my feet are like literally straightforward right now, so you're

saying even turned out a little bit more. Exactly. And you would still consider that straightforward? Yeah. Now, here's the nerd side of me coming out. Now, that's actually – that's more than five degrees. Yeah, I was going to say that's a little bit more than five degrees. There you go.

That's a little bit better. Now, here's the – like I said, here's the nerd side of me coming out. Anatomically, your ankle joint is not a sort of, like, straight 90-degree angle, right? It's actually sort of turned to the side. So anatomical neutral position is like five to seven degrees turned out. Exactly. I mean, you see people do this and they're like, well, I'm, I'm practicing squatting like this, but my knees feel kind of painful. Exactly. I get a lot of stress. Exactly. So that's a big thing. Oh, and also like that, everyone's, everyone's

bodies are a little bit different. So there's no ideal setup. Yeah. Right. I mean, a lot of, as coaches, right. We have sort of that, we have sort of that ideal way of coaching, right? Everyone's shoulder width apart, toes relatively straight. Yeah, there's the basics. There's the fundamentals. There's the fundamentals, and then there's the little bit of differences for individual. Yeah, there's a thin line of people.

Exactly. Some people have hips that are turned out a little bit more. Some people have rotations in their femur. Bowlegged. Exactly. Some people are more bowlegged and stuff like that. It's not one size fits all. There's no one size fits all for the squad.

Nothing a good personality can't fit. Exactly. Bolegged Exactly Some people are more bolegged And stuff like that It's not one size fits all There's no one size fits all Nothing a good personality Can't fit Exactly So the big thing though Is that when I'm screening the body I want to see if you can squat Toe straight forward

Right And your inability To show good movement quality With the toe straight forward thing May show me That there's some problems In mobility Right

Coordination Yeah And then we break down the body In sort of a joint by joint approach So you think that So you believe that Everybody pretty much should be able to squat most people. Most people. Now, there's definitely people that are going to have those anatomical differences,

and then that's sort of the job of the practitioner, the PT, chiro, who's ever working with you to find out if that's your issue. Now, here I'll say this. Even though a lot of people are not – I wouldn't say even a lot of people. Even though some people do have an anatomical variation, you should never hinge your inability to squat well only on anatomy. Right? I don't think a lot of us have actually reached the potential to what our mobility can be.

Yeah. Right? And a lot of people, so they're like, oh, well, my hips. Don't use it as a crutch. Exactly. That's what you're saying. Yeah. You know, they'll say, well, I have femoral anteversion,

which means that their hips are sort of more angled in. Right. Yeah. And they'll say, well, that's the reason I can't squat deep. And you look at, you know, a lot of different reasons. You look at their soft tissue pliability. Right. They're very stiff. Yeah. Right. And I'm like, hey, you haven't even tried to. That's not the main issue. Yeah, exactly. Now, it's definitely something to take into consideration, especially when you have a barbell on your back. Yeah. But let's work on your mobility first. And then obviously those anatomical variations are going to come into play. Sure. Especially when we're talking about your barbell squat.

Because that's the thing, too, is when we talk about your bodyweight squat, right, my goal is to be able to illuminate problems, right, with a foot straight forward screen, right? But whenever you have a barbell on your back, that movement just became more sport-specific, right? And I want to be able to challenge you to basically produce as best as possible. I want you to maximize your current movement capabilities, produce power, produce strength, right? So turning those toes out slightly will allow some people to sort of squat a little bit deeper,

keep a more upright chest. And even turning your knees out and your toes out slightly up to 30 degrees will actually involve your adductors a little bit more and will allow you to produce a little bit more torque at the hip. So that's a big thing, too, is there's a difference between the straight forward and the toes turned out. And it all comes down to am I looking at the squat as a movement? Yeah. And I want to fix that because I want to allow you the ability to improve your functional mobility as much as possible

because if we can improve that, you're going to set yourself up for much better barbell squat. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. I wouldn't always say that the load of your back squat is necessarily a measure of how much better your squat has gotten. Definitely your strength went up, but you may not have improved your mechanics. So there's definitely two ways to look at it.

Oh, for sure, definitely. So would you say that for a barbell squat, would you aim to have your feet forward, or would you say that? Yeah. It all comes down to an individual. There's a lot of athletes that can squat toes straight forward in a barbell squat and do very, very well with it. They're very strong.

Their mobility is great. Some athletes need to turn their toes out a little bit more. Everyone's a little bit different. And the barbell back squat or just whatever barbell squat you're doing needs to be individual. You need to be comfortable, and you need to be able to move as efficiently as possible. I feel like, yeah, I'm glad you said that because I see a lot of times

people are like, well, you should be able to squat with your feet forward. Exactly. It's almost like they're attacking people for doing something wrong. Exactly. I mean, powerlifters toe out. And if you're going for a performance base, if you can help you lift more weight, then let's do it. Now, here's the thing, too. As long as it's structurally acceptable.

Exactly. Is that your Instagram voice? What if it was like, well, you should be squatting your feet forward. Yeah, the Instagram coaches. Exactly. So, I Instagram coaches. Exactly. So, I mean, that's a big thing too, right? And when you turn your toes out, a lot of athletes will then use that as a crutch, right? Well, I can turn my toes out when I squat because I can lift more weight.

But they don't think about it, the squat, as a movement, right? So you ask them to take their shoes off and they can't even come close to squatting with their toes straight forward. That's probably the bigger thing that we see is that athletes can't go backwards. They only think about the barbell squat, right? Because our priorities are performance. with the toe straight forward. That's probably the bigger thing that we see is that athletes can't go backwards. They only think about the barbell squat, right? Because our priorities are performance, right? And whenever we've rearranged those priorities to where it's only about performance and we miss the quality movement, we capsize our potential. I like what you said earlier when we were filming the video.

We don't even think about the squat as an actual functional movement that we should be able to perform. The squat is first and foremost a movement. And then it's an exercise. And that's the biggest thing is, you know, when you look at, right, people talk about the third world squat. You know, you should be able, I think Kelly Clarkson talked about like an Asian squat. Dude, my grandmother is Chinese. She could literally sit in the bottom of a squat for I don't know how long because that's just what they did.

My buddy that I worked with. None of that transferred. Nope. I didn't get any of it. Fucking too much time sitting. You didn't get that, Gene. Yeah, I know. That was just sitting in a chair all day.

My buddy that I work with, that's my co-author on a lot of the blogs that we write, Dr. Kevin Santana, his family's from Laos. Now, when his mom and his grandma, whenever they're doing a lot of cooking and whatnot, they're sitting in a deep squat, right? You should be able to sit in a deep squat. I think Dr. Kelly Starrett came out with, right, the 10-minute squat test. That was day one of the mobility walk. Exactly.

I remember sitting, you know, in grad school, and I'm watching on YouTube, and I'm like, oh, man, this is awesome. You know, it's like, you know, that sort of transformed and sort of exposed, like, man, you should be able to sit in a deep squat. That makes me nervous just thinking about that, doing a 10-minute squat. Now, I tell people you should be able to do 10 minutes, but here's the big thing. I don't think most people should be able to do 10 minutes in a row. Yeah.

Don't jump right in. Who says you can't break it up? Exactly. Especially at the start. I say you should be able to accumulate 10 minutes throughout the day. Now, for some people, that's going to be really tough at the start. So I say, hey, you know, try 30 seconds. And even if you need to, grab, like, and send a goblet squat but eventually you should be

able to wear like two minutes is nothing for you and you can counterbalance it with like a slice of pizza or something yeah exactly i'm all about that yeah but being able to just be in a in a decent air squat or body weight squat. Exactly. And a deep squat. Whenever you, you know, fully achieve the ability to sit down in a deep squat without any problems, and you can do it for such a long time, man, it's going to change your life. I mean, think about this. 80% of people right now in the world experience back pain at some time in their life, right? Athletes, it's like up to 30% of athletes have back pain, right?

And it's crazy. But if you think about it, like when I have athletes come in and I screen them, the one movement across the board that athletes can't do movement-wise is a squat. Athletes with back pain? Any kind of pain. And that's really when I came up with the idea for Squat University, because I'd be seeing all these athletes, I'd see, you know, ankle pain, knee pain, hip pain. Torn ACL is one of the biggest things I see. I think I've calculated out with my buddy, it was like over 8,000 hours of contact time with rehabbing athletes who have had a torn ACL.

So that's like one of our main specialties at Boost Physical Therapy that we work with. But, you know, I'll have these athletes come in and I'll screen their squats. And the first thing I do is I say, hey, take your shoes off. Let me see your squat. Toe straight forward, squat as deep as possible. Or a single leg squat, right? Because think about this. How many times do you see an deep as possible. Or a single leg squat, right? Because think about this. How many times do you see an athlete come in and maybe they can back squat 700 pounds, right?

And maybe their body weight squat looks okay, but then you say, hey, do a single leg squat for me, right? Do you mean like a pistol? No, I don't mean – I think most athletes, young athletes who are fairly smart, I'm not talking about your 300-pound lineman, you should be able to do a fairly good-depth single-leg squat. Like a pistol. Like a pistol squat, exactly. Now, as you get bigger, my linemen, right,

I want you to be able to do an 8-inch box single-leg squat. So your depth excursion off an 8-inch box, touch your heel down and come back up. That shows me that you have the coordination, the dynamic knee control, to be able to stabilize your body on one foot. Yeah. Because the squats also, we got to think about single leg too, right? Because how do athletes tear their ACL? They're not just landing usually on two legs, right? It's on one leg and that's when it goes. Yeah, one leg plants, goes the direction it should not go. Now, obviously we're talking more to the CrossFit weightlifting, powerlifting community

here, right? Those injuries aren't all at once, right? But the thing I see is we have a lot of this sort of long-term pain. Hey, I've been dealing with some achy knee pain for a while. I got IT band syndrome, right? All those sort of slower things. The first thing I do is say, hey, send me a video or I want to see your single leg squat. And most, like 90% of the time, that athlete, A, their knee moves forward first, right? They're off balance. Their knee maybe, you know, caves in. They don't have the control, you know, for single leg squat. And therein lies your problem, right? The reason we develop pain is because we have a movement problem most of the time.

Yeah. Right? So by, you know, teaching athletes, right, how to move better on a double and single leg, you change their life, right? Now, here's sort of the analogy I always use, right? When Steve Jobs came out with the Apple I computer back in, like, I don't know, 1970s, 80s, right, he did so to empower every single person, right, with the ability to do something they never could, right?

They had a personal computer in their lives for the first time, right? So it changed the world. Well, my goal with Squat University, obviously, it's a totally different type of thing, right? Hold on, Kanye. Are you saying that you're the Steve Jobs of squats? I like that idea, right? I'm just kidding.

But my goal is to empower everyone to understand what's possible whenever you learn to move well before you move big weight, right? If you can take control of your body and learn to move better, double and single leg, in so many other avenues, the squat sets the foundation for what you're doing. If you're a football player, right, you need to be able to squat to get down in your defensive ready position. Yeah. Right? If you're a baseball player, third baseman, pitcher's getting ready to warm up, what position are they in? A small squat. Yeah.

Right? Soccer player, side to side. Now, obviously, weightlifting, CrossFit, we've got a for sure, that's a squat. But the squat, the foundation, the movement sets the foundation for everything else yeah so if we can do that well and learn how to sort of evaluate your body on a simple term right hey here's an easy way to fix your ankle mobility how's that going to fix the rest of your movement of you know quality of movement man it's going to change your life you're going to see less athletes injured you're going to see less or more athletes reach their potential of what they're capable of doing yeah you know performance wise so it's all

you know i mean other squat university weightlifting and crossfit like you don't need to be better in any other movement than the squat exactly nothing's more important because right you can guarantee foundational you are going to squat a lot in those sports exactly yeah wasn't it you think somebody was saying that like you could basically do CrossFit in a phone booth because a lot of it is just squatting up and down. Yeah, it was a physical therapist

I spoke to a few weeks ago and he said that analogy was pretty funny. He's like, yeah, you know, everyone knows, we always joke about it at work, you know,

everyone knows you can do CrossFit in a phone booth. Basically, it's like all straight up and down. Yeah. Nothing lateral, you know, front to back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a big thing is a lot of athletes, right, in CrossFit, it's very, you know, single plane, right? So a lot of the. Nothing lateral, you know, front to back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's a big thing. There's a lot of athletes, right, in cross, it's very, you know, single plane, right? So a lot of the injuries that occur, you know, retraining that athlete and getting some lateral agility changes everything. Yeah. You know. Let's take a break.

And when we come back, I want to talk about, like, debunking some myths. Let's do it. About squat. Squat low. Squat deep. Yep. Fucking, like, I think we kind of handled the feet forward one. Yeah, the feet forward one.

Yeah, let's debunk some myths about the squats. So it's going to get a little crazy in a second. Let's do it. Let's do it. Now you didn't. That's what makes it good. It's funny. It's funny.

Yeah, that was funny. It was funny. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah, we good. That was good, man. His battery, I think. There was one, like, to Chile that came out, like, this week. It was, like like $210. That's awesome. You can get crazy deals, man, if you just look for them at the right time.

That's what I need to do. Are you ready? We're back. Are we back? We're back. Is the red light on? Can I edit it? Let's do it.

All right, guys. Sorry about that. We're back, and now we're going to talk about some of the most – Wait, wait, wait. Why are you apologizing? I'm not sorry. I want to talk about – Let's debunk. This man just g want to talk about let's debunk the deep squat. Let's do it. That's my line.

Let's do it. I stole it. I stole it. Let's talk about what is your opinion on deep squatting. Let's do it. So whenever I teach a seminar or whenever I'm teaching, right, I was teaching at the University of Missouri last year. One of the questions I always ask, I go raise the hands. Right. Who here has heard that deep squats are bad for you?

Right. I can't believe it's 2016 and we're still having this. Everyone's hands shoot up. Right. Instantly, I say you're wrong. Right. But here's the reason. Right. You have to have a why behind everything. Right. So here's the thing. Where did this all start from? Right. Well, to actually answer that, we have to go back in history, right? Way back in the time. History 101, squad history 101. 1950s, right? Down in Texas, there's a doctor by the name of Dr. Carl Klein, right? And he's working at a university where there's a lot of football

players who are injuring their knees, right? Torn ACLs, torn MCLs, right? And he's wondering, he goes, I wonder why there's such a high increase of these knee injuries in football players. And he postulated, hey, it's probably because they train with deep squats, right? Because we've been squatting deep since the later 1800s, right, when that first started coming over to America. People started squatting deep, right? You see Paul Anderson right at that time.

So we started squatting deep, and he thought that the reason behind these high rate of knee injuries was due to the deep squat. Okay. So he made this sort of self-made device and he took all these football players in and he measured the laxity in their knees. So how much motion they could have in their knees. Right. And he compared it to people who either never squatted or only squatted the parallel. okay? And he found that these athletes had more laxity in their knees, okay? So their knees were – The deep squatters. The deep squatters had more laxity in their knees, okay?

So based on that – I'm sorry. What do you mean by laxity? So basically, so in your knee, right, you have – when you're relaxed completely, your ligaments inside your knee control how much stability your knee has. So there's shear force, right, that goes forward and backwards. Yeah.

Right? So when you're testing your ACL, if you have more laxity, your knee can move forward and backwards. Yeah. That's a tibia and a femur on top of each other. Yeah. Right? So we found that they had more laxity in the MCL and the ACL, right?

So the big thing, so he published this, right, 1961. He came out with the findings. And his theory was that deep squats caused more laxity in the knees. They were more unstable and therefore setting these football players up for more of an injury. That's why they were tearing their ACL. That was 1961. 1962, Sports Illustrated picked it up and had an article on it. That just spread across the world.

Isn't that funny how that works? Just one thing and put it in the right hands. Put it in the right hands, it becomes gospel. Exactly. Well, because here's the big thing, right? At first he published in what? A medical journal, right? Now, unless you're a big nerd like myself,

you're not really reading many medical journals, right? Sports Illustrated, everyone reads it. Well, it went viral because it was a swimsuit edition, wasn't it? Oh, it definitely was.

I don't know how nice the swimsuits were back in 1961. That's how it blew up like wildfire. I heard it was a hot issue. It was the one pieces. It was a hot one piece, man. So it went viral basically, right? So then right after that, right? 1963, 1965, the AMA, American Medical Association, came out with a position statement that cautioned against the use of deep squats, right? Exactly. I did not know that. This is crazy. The military stopped using the squat jumper.

It was like a dynamic movement that you squat a deep jumped up. Right. They stopped. They stopped using that. Right. Yeah. Even a superintendent in New York. I think it was New York City or your knees out. They cautioned against they say, hey, no more physical education classes should do deep squats. Right. So already you had a bunch of people across the entire U.S. and spread against the world. Right. That said, hey, deep squatting is bad for your knees. You're going to tear your ACLs or set yourself up to tear your ACL. Now, there were some people that came out and they said, hey, this is bogus. Right. I think is Dr. John Polskamp. I think that's how you say his last name. He was a writer for strength and health, I think, or strength and muscle back at the time, a pretty popular issue.

He was like, hey, this is bogus. You shouldn't, you know, not deep squat based on this fear, right, that you may be tearing your ACL, right? But, I mean – And all the cool kids squat in parallel. People aren't going to protest it because that's like saying, hey, you don't have to eat vegetables anymore. Exactly. Everybody's like, well, if they say so.

Science is science. The damage has been done, right? The damage has been done. That's a great analogy. That is a great analogy. I mean, like, no one, like, loves going. I mean, I'm natural to it now. But when I started squatting, it was like,

I remember it being a chore to go as low as I could. It's hard. It's harder. People don't like to work hard, right? It's harder. Yeah. So, right, so that's the 1960s, right? So after that, you have decades of people that stopped squatting, right,

because of this fear, right? Did you find out, though, that of people that stopped squatting because of this fear. Did you find out, though, that these people actually were manufacturing benches for bench pressing? Exactly. That's how much you bench, man. That's where it all started. Who made this? That's where it started. Dr. Skip Legday.

Dr. Smith Machine. Exactly. That's Dr. Carl Klein's new nickname, Dr. Skip Legday. Dr. Skip Legday. I like that. All right. Let's think about it right now, anatomical-wise. What's Dr. Carl Klein's new nickname, Dr. Skip Legner. Dr. Skip Legner. I like that. All right, so let's think about it right now anatomical-wise. What's going on in deep squat? What happens when you deep squat?

So there's two different forces, big forces that we look at during the knee. You have shear force, so you've got your tibia down here, your femur up here, and the shear force is the sliding. So your PCL and your ACL are two ligaments deep inside your knee, and they oppose this force. Now, they're not the only thing because you've got a bunch of muscles around there that also pull and create that stability. But those two ligaments are the big ones that we know about that shear force affects. That's how you tear your ACL is there's a really large amount of shear force, right?

Now, that shear force only increases for the ACL. It's at its highest at about 15 to 30 degrees in deflection, right? So just the start of the squat. About a four inch squat, right? So most people don't tear their ACL in a deep squat. All that high ass squatting, you're actually counterproductive. So your ACL is put on max load at about a four inch depth squat for most people, right? It's a very shallow squat.

Now, here's the thing is there's also compression, right? Now, compression is the two forces that smash things together, right? Now, you have your meniscus right in between there, right? That's sort of your bumper plates, right? Yep. For your knee. You also have compressive forces of your patella, right? Your kneecap pressing back too. So, there's a lot of different compressive forces. Now, what we find is that there's an inverse relationship with compression and sheer force. So the deeper you squat, the more compression there is, the less sheer force there is. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So the bottom of the squat would be the easiest on the knees. Exactly. So the deeper you squat, the less force is placed on your PCL and ACL. Given you're squatting with acceptable technique. With good technique. Exactly. That's the big thing is good technique. Exactly. So that's the big thing is good technique. Exactly. So that's the big thing.

So the deeper you squat your ACL and PCL, PCL is loaded at about 90 degrees, so a little bit deeper. But even then, it's not anywhere close to the amount of force that could tear your ACL. There's been research done on this force, right, and they've actually taken measurements. And the highest force ever recorded on the ACL during a squat was only 25% of its max tensile strength, which means it's not even anywhere close to tear the ways to go.

Yeah. For any damage. Exactly. And it's because you have so much compression whenever you're squatting with weight. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

And what are the benefits of deep squatting? Cause let's get that out there. Why should you squat? There's so many benefits to deep squatting. A, you're going to be able to use your muscles functionally through a full range of motion. The muscles of the glutes, hams,

quads. The entire lower body. You're using your trunk muscles. That's a big thing too. Because squatting, we call it leg day, but how much you're using your core. Squat is a full body movement. It's a full body movement. Everything is going on. Back to the myth. We know what our two anatomical forces are and how it doesn't put a lot of pressure on it.

So what did the research say, right? Because all we have is Dr. Carl Klein's research, right? Yeah. Well, a couple decades later, there was a group of researchers that tried to replicate that original study, right? Because if anyone knows anything about science, you can't just base. Yeah. You've got to validate it. Exactly.

You've got to validate it. Exactly. That's what the problem is. They get one fucking study and it's like, this is the way it is. Exactly. So they actually made almost the exact same sort of crude self-made device that Klein had, right? And they did

almost the exact same study, found the exact opposite results, right? The weightlifters and people who squatted deep had almost the exact same knee stability, if not a little bit better than the athletes who squatted only to parallel. Right? Okay, skip forward, 1986, right? There's another group of researchers.

It's a great year, man. I was born in the day. There we go. There we go. 86? Oh, me too. Yeah. All right, so they took a group of researchers,

and they took weightlifters, right? They said go do heavy squats for an hour, right? They took basketball players. They said go practice for an hour. They took some runners. They said go run a 10-kilometer distance, right? And when they came back, they all tested their knee stability again, right? The weightlifters had the more stable knees after all that time

than either the basketball players or the runners, right? A year after, another group of people came out, and they tested weightlifters and powerlifters who squatted astrographs really deep, right? And they compared it to people again who squatted just a parallel. And they found that the weightlifters and powerlifters who squatted really deep actually had more stable knees, so less laxity in their knee ligaments, right? So what we find is that the deep squat actually has a protective effect on the knees right as far as the stability goes yeah so i mean you're talking about a football player right talking about a basketball player right change in direction all the time and they're

they're at such a high rate like we already talked about 70 of those 100 000 acl tears in the u.s alone are non-contact yeah right you get that athlete to know how to squat deep, right, with weight on their back. Yeah. With good technique, you're already teaching them how to be able to be more safer, right? Yeah. To be able to move with better quality movement and decrease their risk of injury. Yeah. Gotcha.

Right? So that's a big thing, right? And that was, right, 1980s, right, that we're already learning that. Yeah. So that's a huge thing right there. Yeah. Right. Should everybody squat deep?

Well, that's a big thing too, right? Because obviously this Dr. Carl Klein, right, he was coming out, he was talking about knee instability as far as laxity, right, and the ligaments. Yeah, no, this flies. It's all over the place. You showered? Probably smell right now. So here's the big thing, right?

Theoretically, can deep squats be bad for you? He's back. He's back. I got it. Okay, theoretically, deep squats be bad for you? He's back. He's back. I got it. I missed it. Okay. Theoretically deep squats could be bad to a point because of compression. Right?

Now we talked about how the deeper you squat, the more compressive forces that are placed on the knee. The more weight you're holding on your back, the more compressive forces, right? Yeah. You know, weightlifters, elite weightlifters and bodybuilders and, you know, powerlifters, they've seen, you know, where you're going to sustain forces at your knee like six,

eight times your body weight, you know? So there's a lot of compressive force. Now, if you maintain a very high intense level of squatting for such a long time, eventually that compression can start wearing away the cartilage, right? So your meniscus theoretically could start wearing away. The cartilage on the backside of your patella, right, could start wearing away the cartilage, right? So your meniscus theoretically could start wearing away. The cartilage on the backside of your patella, right, could start wearing away because you're having such high increased amounts of compressive forces.

Now, here's the deal. Research has also looked at, well, you know, do weightlifters get arthritis like Casey, right? Most of them, right? Because if you think about it, if you're squatting on such a daily basis, you're performing Olympic weightlifting movements every single day, right? Weightlifters should have horrible arthritis in their knees, right? Not so.

And the reason for that is because we have good programming, right? You can't max out every single day and keep your knees basically, right? You have to be smart. Now, if you look at good training programming, right, it's not just max out every single day. Maybe when you're younger, you can increase your weight. Depends on what training program you're doing. Exactly. But most training, right? You have a fluctuation, right? You vary the intensity in your volume, right? And what that does is it allows your body to recover from those heavy

compressive forces, right? It allows your knees to breathe, right? It's a simple way of saying it. So squatting deep is only bad for your knees if you're going heavy every single day. And it's a simple way of saying it so squatting deep is only bad for your knees if you're going heavy every single day and it's not going to be a one-time thing but it's going to be slowly over time you know you could slowly degrade your cartilage your meniscus and whatnot because you're not allowing your body to recover well yeah it's tough that's tough mentally because i mean i'll even as myself an example i'll notice like when i have some heavy squatting volume for a couple of weeks my patellar tendon starts to act up a little bit and I get some pain under the kneecap. And it's just a sign that, all right, it's probably time for me to back off on the squatting volume just a little bit.

Because my knees aren't always on the same plan that I have written out for me. The plan doesn't dictate how my knees feel. Sometimes you've got to change it and you've got to listen to that a little bit. Your plan should always be individual to you. That's the one thing that's so tough is you can't just recommend just a basic program for every single person because everyone's got different needs. Everyone requires a certain amount of intensity.

Everyone should not do small off. Yes. 100%. That is true. 100%. Exactly. That's a really tough plan. So if you're not recovering right, man, you're just asking for injury.

But going back to your point, though, of what you were talking about, movement quality, if you're trying to do all this high-volume squatting but you're not really moving all that great, well, that may be more of the culprit, the fact that your knees aren't up to it. Exactly. So you've got two things you've got to look at whenever you're squatting barbell, the quality of your movement and then your programming too, right? So if your quality of your movement's not on, right, you're going to have a lot of forces placed on your body eventually

it's going to lead to an overuse movement uh injury much quicker right yeah also you got to look at that uh you know your uh the amount of weight that you're lifting right your uh performance training program right i was just gonna say like most people when when you have questions about some kind of a knee pain or squat pain, they always assume or ask you a movement question first, which is important. But most of the time, too, I just want to be like, let me look at your volume. Because you could be not doing anything wrong. And you think you're doing something wrong because your knees hurt. That doesn't necessarily mean anything.

You're just overdoing it. Exactly. Well, and that's the thing, too, is a lot of people, when we think of training, right, we only think of the training program, right? We think of how much weight I'm lifting, the volume, the intensity, and we don't think about recovery, right? Recovery is just as important at the amount of weight that you're lifting, right? And if you're not recovering, right, you're not allowing your body to actually make that compensation to improve your strength, improve your power, right? So it's, I mean,

you got people not eating right, not sleeping right, not drinking enough water, right? And they're jumping straight to like, you know, different high-tech. More hip mobility isn't going to help. Exactly. Yeah, you've got to get your basics down first. Yeah. For sure. So we talked about, you know, the deep squatting myth.

I want to talk a little bit about that kind of leads into, like, some knee pain and some common things. So, like, first thing that comes to mind for me is, like, knees cracking. Yeah. You talked about eventually, like, weightlifters, because of the squatting volume, maybe having arthritis. Like, my knees pop. Like, is this a bad thing? People ask me all the time about cracking. Yeah. You talked about eventually like weightlifters, because of the squatting volume, maybe having arthritis, like my knees pop. Like is this a bad thing?

People ask me all the time about that. Yeah, and a lot of times. Why does this happen and what's the deal? When I see people whose knees pop, a lot of times their quads are so excessively stiff, right? So it's adding a lot of compression, right, on the back of that patella, right? Because we talked about there's more than one way

that our body sustains compression, and on the back of the patella, right, it's a big area. So when you're getting that popping, a lot of times it's actually structures rubbing on each other and creating a little bit of that popping gotcha now a big thing a reason for that for a lot of people right why did those quads become so excessively stiff and a lot of times it comes down to the quality of their movement right when they're back squatting right or when they're front squatting right so the big thing is you know that the knees over the toes yeah all right now here's the thing right originally a lot of, oh, the knee should never pass the toes.

Right. And because, you know, the person who actually developed that cue, who was it? It's probably someone who's probably well-intentioned, like PT, Cairo or, you know, medical doctor. And they had a kid come to him and, you know, they said, hey, my knees are hurting. They watched their squat and their knees move excessively forward. What's the doctor's name that did the study on not squatting below parallel? Dr. Carl Klein. I think it was his brother. It's Bob Klein. Exactly. So this athlete's got some knee pain, right? So a person, you instantly give them a cue and you say, hey, don't let your knees, you know, come forward. And instantly they move with a big hip hinge, right? And eventually their knee pain goes away go aha there you go right knee should never go forward right but actually what we find

out is that you're only treating the symptom the big problem the original problem the reason why they had that knee pain is because of a balance issue right so when an athlete moves poorly right they usually move from the knees first right their ankles their ankles which some some people teach that especially i. Some people do. Weightlifting, in the weightlifting world, the knee break squat. Yeah, I think that, and I'm not disagreeing, maybe kind of am. I think it's confused with knees and hips moving at the same time. And here's the big thing with that.

Because that's not the same as like knees first. Knees and hips simultaneously is different from hips back first. Exactly. Okay, yeah, for sure. Because here's the deal. When I say hips first, I don't mean only hip movement. Right. The knees are going to bend.

They're just not going to go forward first. Right. Because when an athlete moves poorly, right, and they break their knees forward first, right, instantly their body weight shifts towards their toes a little bit. Right. So they become off balance. They're having a lot of sheer force placed on their knee. So eventually it can lead to pain, right? So by cuing that athlete to push their

hips back, right? And blocking their knees, they're correcting for the symptom of the knee moving forward. But what you're actually teaching the athlete in the end is how to balance, right? So by engaging those hips a little bit first, you're teaching the athlete to keep their center gravity over the middle of their foot where it was going towards their toes, right? Now, here's the deal. In order to get into a deep squat position, those knees have to come forward, right? You can't. Especially with a high bar. Exactly, right? You're doing a high bar squat. You can't do any of the Olympic type of squats, right? Front squat, overhead squat, high bar squat with only keeping your knees, you know, from going past your toes. They have to go forward in order for your hips to drop to the deepest position.

That's why weightlifting shoes are so useful. Exactly. Because they allow you to get a little bit more range of motion in the ankles. Or even the only time I think I've seen where someone's knees aren't really far forward over the toes is when their hips are super mobile and their feet are actually very wide. Exactly. And they're actually able to get their hips between their feet. Exactly.

Which is very rare. Yeah. I mean, for example, Chad Vaughn has a squat where his feet are wide. His. And they're actually able to get their hips between their feet. Exactly. Which is very rare. Yeah. I mean, for example, Chad Vaughn has a squat where his feet are wide. His picture is epic. It's awesome. Not everyone's got that great mobility. No. So, I mean, he's able to snatch, I think. Yeah. I'm sure. I can't remember what year, but maybe the Olympics. I think it was at the Olympics. It probably was. Yeah.

It's one of the most common pictures you see him in. He is low. And his hips are literally, like literally next to his ankles. He's got awesome, awesome technique. Well, yeah. I mean, with the squat, though, like we were talking about earlier, the assessment, it starts at the ankle, and then you move up to the hips. Those two things have to be.

Exactly. Here's the big thing. With the squat, it's all about the knees are a hinge joint only, right? So the knees will go based on where the ankles and hips let them go, right? So a lot of times we get so hung up on the knee that we forget about the ankles and hips, right? As long as the hips engage first, don't worry about your knees. Let them go and stay balanced.

Because some athletes will need to let their knees go real far forward. Some athletes don't need to. But as long as your hips engage first, you keep your knees safe, you limit premature forward movement of the knees, all you have to do is stay balanced, your knees will be safe. And I want to clarify this too. When you mean by hips first, like we're not talking about like straight up doing like this dropping your chest thing.

Exactly. It's just a little bit. I think people take it, they hear a cue. Yeah. It always happens. I mean, like heels or whatever, they hear a cue and they take it to 11. Exactly. When in actuality

it's just a slight over correction so you can get a person actually moving the way you want 100 and here's the deal is based on the type of squat you're doing is gonna base the amount of hip hinge on that now body weight squat right everyone's center of gravity is a little bit different based on their anatomy most people it's right around the middle of their stomach right so you're gonna have a bigger hip hinge during bodyweight squat than you would a front squat, right? So the amount of hip hinge on a front squat is going to be so small, but it still has to happen. Because if not, then you're moving your knees forward first, right?

And you're going to be off balance, and you're going to put a lot of harmful forces on your knee. When you were talking about the off balance, it would be the three points of contact on your foot. Exactly. So your whole foot should be glued to the floor. Exactly. Yeah, when you did that screen on us earlier,

you had us take our shoes and socks off, and you spent a lot of time actually looking at our feet, which I've never had someone do. I've had some people kind of look at it, and maybe they haven't spent a lot of time because I don't have any collapse, but with Alex, it was a little different. Yeah.

And you spent a lot of time assessing his foot and his mechanics. People don't look. People don't think the feet have anything to do with it. People don't look at it. But that's where you're connected to the ground that's where you gotta put force into the ground i would say your foot is like the your body's base to its house of cards right if your foot stability is off you're never going to be able to produce the most amount of efficient movement

on top of it your technique is always going to be off yeah right so when we look at the foot right i like to uh use the analogy of a tripod right've got the base of your heel, the base of your first toe, the base of your fifth toe. And when it's all down in equal contact, it brings your foot into a good arch position. Now, if you have an excessively flat foot due to an anatomical sort of difference. People are born with it, right? Exactly. You're not probably going to be able to get your foot into an arch, but you can still stay balanced. The biggest thing is what happens is that whenever people's feet fall in and

they collapse over or they go to flare out or they go to knees out, knees out. Right, right. The whole inner foot just goes off the ground. We talked about that. We see that a lot. Everyone knows that knees out is really good. So you see people really overdo it. And like even right here, I kind of do it when I stand sometimes.

Like, oh, my toes are off the ground. I'm like, I'm not balanced. Exactly. That's a big thing. The cue, knees out, only works to a point. I used to do that on my pulls. I would really drive the knees out and my big toes would come off the ground and finally someone one day was like, that's not really good.

Exactly. Was that Doug? That was probably. It was probably like six people. If you drive your knees too far wide, you just become unstable in the opposite direction, right? Because your foot rolls on the outside. So the cue, drive the knees wide only works to a point. It's great at aligning and realigning your knees with your toes if your knees cave in. But if you drive them too far wide, your foot just becomes unstable in the opposite direction.

And when your foot's unstable, your potential to perform good quality movement and produce good force dramatically decreases. So it's all about being stable from the bottom up. Yeah. Gotcha. Let's back up for a second. You talked about, or I brought up the knees popping, and you said it's kind of as an imbalance. Maybe the quads are overdeveloped or too tight.

Like what would cause that, you said? Just maybe too much knee dominance squatting? Yeah. A lot of times it's because you're excessively using your quads as far as your knees are moving too far forward first, right? So what can we do, right? We recorrect movement, right? So the first thing I'm going to get you,

I'm going to screen your body from head to toe, right? We found some hip issues as far as your mobility earlier. But foam rolling the quads, stretching the quads a little bit can help decrease a lot of that tension, right? And then recorrecting movement, right? So you have to come at it from both sides. It's not just mobility work. Yeah.

It's also coordination. Yeah. And when you get those two together, man, you can see dramatic changes. Are there any corrective exercises that you would put in place that would help with that? Well, like I said, so the big things are going to be, you know, foam rolling the quads and stretching the quads. But corrective exercise, I love a touchdown squat. What's a touchdown squat? A touchdown squat.

It was just in a film video about this. We'll have to show it. So basically all you're doing is from the side. You're going to get on a small box. I'm talking like two inches for a lot of people, right? And they pick their foot up, right? And all they do is they push their butt back, right? They engage their posterior chain, and all they do is they tap and back up.

Oh, okay. So basically they're doing like the smallest single squat. It's like you're doing a dance a little bit. Exactly. I bring that to the club and it goes, people go crazy for that. Exactly. So don't throw your foot back, but just put it right by your side. Yeah.

I'm going to go open this club and do the touchdown. So it's all about, right, so you're pushing your butt back and bringing your chest forward, right? If you do 20 of those in a row right now, your butt muscles are going to be on fire. Okay, so that's what I'm trying to feel is my glutes light up. Exactly. We're recorrecting for that coordination issue, right? We're getting those glutes to turn on at first,

and it's taking pressure off the knees. So this is something, man, I'll have people one week post-op after their ACL reconstruction, they're doing this, right? I've got grandma who had a total knee. She's eventually going to get to doing that. Touchdown squat? A touchdown touchdown squat now the height of it's going to be based on a lot of things right but like i said every single person should be able to at least do one off an eight inch box or an eight inch height she said this is good for glute activation huge because i i get a lot of questions like why why yeah glutes how do i turn all my glutes how do i get my glutes to fire

movement right that's the biggest thing now because a lot of times you'll try to do it in isolation, right? Now, you can do like a bridge, right, or like a glute bridge, right, where you're laying on your back and picking your hips up. Or a hip thrust or something. And that's fine, right? But is that necessarily going to translate over to movement? Is it going to translate over to better quality movement, right? Yeah.

Because just because you can get the glutes to turn on in one movement doesn't necessarily mean you can get them to turn on in another movement. So we need to make sure that our quality of movement is very, very good in a number of different ways, right, in a lunge, in a squat. But I think the squat, like we talked about, sets the foundation for a lot of different things. If you can't squat right, you're not going to be able to jump right. You're not going to be able to clean right.

So there's so many different movements that can be extrapolated from one movement. Got it. That's why it's the king of the lifts, man. Exactly. It's the king of all lifts. It's the king of all lifts. Exactly. What others were there?

What? Myths. Myths. Well, like butt wink. Yeah. The famous hip wink. Let's talk about butt wink. I prefer the word hip.

I don't want to offend anyone. So what is butt wink? Now, butt wink specifically talks about a posterior pelvic tilt of your hips as you go into a deep squat. So someone's standing right here. As they go down and they hit a certain part of their depth, their hips are essentially pulled under their body. So that's the winking motion that a lot of people see. The booty goes. Exactly.

The booty goes. Now, a lot of people instantly look at this and they go, man, that is horrible for your back. Internet coaches. Internet coaches for sure. How do they say it online? You're lower back. You're going to bolt a disc, a herniated disc. You keep squatting like that. Exactly. Now, let's look at it from an anatomical standpoint, right? So, theoretically, what could it do? If the butt wink is to an excessive amount, right, those hips are pulled under, because of the relationship with the pelvis

and the low back, right, the back is going to flex automatically. Now, when you are doing a bodyweight squat, right, and you go all the way down, and your back is rounded a little bit, is it the biggest problem? No. Right? Unless you're doing, like, 500 bodyweight squats in a row, if you sit in a deep squat and your back is rounded a little bit, is it the biggest problem? No. Unless you're doing like 500 bodyweight squats in a row, if you sit in a deep squat and your back's all rounded, there's not a ton of force going down through your spine

that's going to cause a disc bulge. So for a healthy athlete sitting in the deep squat with a butt wink, there's no problem to it because you're already healthy and just a little bit of that movement, it's not going to have a lot of harmful forces on your back. When does it become a problem, right? Now, if I have a barbell on my back and I'm trying to squat and that butt wink is excessive to where I'm losing my spinal stability,

and my back is rounding, then you have a ton of forces coming down through your spine. It's not in its natural position, right? It's flexed. Because of those forces coming down, it can create over time, right, with a number of sets, a number of repetitions, it can create a herniated disc, right? So basically, if you look at like a jelly donut, a lot of people don't like this analogy. I think it's really simple.

Jelly donut, right? Why would they not like this? Oh, yeah. You're talking about the disc. The disc, right? Because basically, your disc isn't a jelly donut. Yeah, I understand from an anatomical standpoint. It's an analogy, right?

If you smash a jelly donut, it's going to come out the back, right? So there's this part of your disc, right, that whenever you have a herniated disc, it protrudes out the back. The nucleus, right? The nucleus, yeah. The anus. It's going to come out. The nucleus, yeah. And it's going to impinge on a nerve eventually.

So that's why people who have a disc bulge have that pain that radiates down their legs. The sciatic nerve. Exactly. So it all comes from that disc herniation. So whenever you have excessive pelvic tilt and you're lifting with a barbell on your back, theoretically you could set yourself up for a herniated disc over time.

Now here's the deal. The big thing when you're looking at an athlete who has buckwing, butt wing, is you've got to look at when does it occur and is it excessive, right? If it occurs during, like, you know, the midway part of their squat, it's probably going to be excessive. It's not a mobility issue.

Exactly. That's probably an – probably. It's more likely an anatomical issue, right? So, basically, their femurs hit their end range in the hip socket. And in order to get any deeper, basically the pelvis is turned under. Now some people get a pinching sensation or an impingement in their hips. Some people won't and their pelvis will just naturally move excessively. So if it occurs early on in the squat and it causes a lot of excessive movement in the pelvis, it's not a good thing at all. Yeah. Right?

But if it occurs at the very bottom of the squat, right, it's probably not as big of a deal as many people have made it out to be for a healthy athlete without a history of back pain. That's the big thing too, right? You have to take into an athlete's injury history. You have to take into account all the history. If I've got an athlete who's got a history of injury to their back, they've got a couple of bulging discs, and I see that their back is actually going into excessive flexion at the bottom.

I'm not going to have that athlete squat a ton because they're putting themselves in a bad position every single time. Gotcha. So it's all about when does it occur and how excessive is it? Because here's the big thing. I think a lot of people have overblown that a butt wink is automatically the worst thing in the world. For a healthy athlete, if it only occurs at the very bottom of the squat

and it only occurs to a small amount, I don't believe, in my opinion, that it's as big of a deal as many people have made it out to be. Thank you, doctor. Now, here's the big thing. If an athlete has an injury history, we've got to take that into consideration. If it's excessive, we've got to take it into consideration. But also, here's the thing, can we change it? That's, that's everyone's question, right? Can we change the amount of butt wink? Well, if it's an anatomical issue, that's creating

it, which a lot of people think that's a big reason, right? I can't necessarily change how your bones are formed at your hip, right? Not with that attitude. Exactly. I'll try maybe next year if I keep on working hard at it, but you know, like I can't, I can't change your anatomy. Sure. But to the point, I don't think many people have hit their potential of mobility. Yeah. You know, as we talked about earlier, a lot of people say, well, it's my anatomy.

Well, have you really reached your mobility end range? Yeah. Because I think a lot of people – That's just like a lazy excuse like, well, you know. Have you welcomed a Romwod for six weeks yet? Exactly. And so that's the thing is, you know, a you welcomed a romwod for six weeks yet? Exactly. And so that's the thing is, you know, a lot of times when we see stiff ankles, stiff ankles definitely can

cause some butt winks. What happens is that as you squat deeper, right, your knees need to be able to go over your toes, right, to be able to squat to the deepest position. Well, if you have a block in that ankle and your knees can't go any farther forward, you have to compensate. So that pelvis is going to be pulled under the body a little bit more.

So by improving ankle mobility and allowing that knee to go further over the toe, you're going to allow your body to keep that neutral spinal alignment, and the pelvis is going to stay in place a little bit longer to squat deeper with maintaining a more upright chest. We did a lot of ankle mobility. You showed us a few things, the ankle mobility in the video. Yeah, and the hip mobility. Yeah, exactly. Okay, so what about let's say that the hip of ankle mobility. You showed us a few things, the ankle mobility and the video. Yeah, and the hip mobility. Exactly.

Okay, so what about let's say that the hip and ankle mobility are fine. Let's say that it's not an anatomical issue, that it's a control issue, meaning like a coordination. What do you do? What are some fixes that you recommend? So definitely, I mean, you've got to look at the athlete. You've got to break it down and see is their body weight squat quality first off right because if their body weight squats not very good quality you mean like an air squat an air squat

yeah i'm not going to have them load up the bar yet right they got to be able to show me good quality movement with a body weight squat first right movement predicates your barbell movements right so we got them you know moving well body weight squat then we slowly work up from a barbell training perspective can they maintain we call it postural integrity yeah right can they maintain balance is their spine you know are they able to maintain it now i don't know how much of an extent of core stability plays in to posterior pelvic tilt right but it probably you know to some point has some control, right? Because if you lose your spinal stability, right, you're going to excessively flex at the spine, right? So breathing is a big thing. I mean, of course, yeah, of course, exactly. So here's the big thing with barbell training, right? You have to learn how to breathe, right? Because it's not

just about bracing. You have to also take into account and harness the power of your breath, right? So by breathing into your stomach and then bracing over the top, right? We talked about this earlier. You increase your body's natural intra-abdominal cavity pressure, and that stabilizes your spine like crazy, right? So it's going to allow you to maintain spinal stability and core stability throughout the entire lift a lot more if you're able to breathe and then brace well.

Yeah, people miss that boat a lot. They'll sit there and get set up on a bar or not even set up on a bar. And then with the load, try to like – then try to like breathe. And you've got to get set up before you go to the bar. Exactly. Yeah, that's a big thing. Push that air into the stomach. Exactly, because a lot of people when they take a breath, right,

and they get onto the barbell, right, and they take that big breath, their chest rises, right? They call them a chest breather, right? Now, when you're doing that, you're not effectively using your diaphragm. And when you breathe. Stick that belly out. It ain't going to look good. When you breathe into your stomach, right, you allow your diaphragm to descend,

and you're going to increase your intra-abdominal cavity pressure when you brace on top of it, right? Now, here's the thing is you can't overcompensate with your back whenever you do that, right? A lot of people, they start belly breathing, and they instantly, you know, they push their stomach out, and then they lose their spinal stability they're overextended yeah right because that's just a bad issue as well right there's a lot of issues with hyper extension of the back as well whenever we're doing a lot of our barbell movements yeah so we want to make sure that our

back's in a nice flat position when would you tell a person sorry i didn't cut you off no go ahead i was gonna when would you tell a person not to squat deep when would i tell them not to squat deep it would be be that they have an injury history or they cannot maintain good technique. That's a big thing. I always say everyone should have the ability to squat as to grass. If you can't get down there

without pain, that's not right for you. You should never push into pain. That's a big thing. In today's society, we're all about no pain, no gain. Pain is weakness leaving the body. You told me to adapt. Exactly. Adapt or die.

I saw an Advil commercial. I think it was Advil the other day. It was Shaq on it. He was like, hey, you can get the same treatment as a physical therapist by putting this patch on your back. What back pain? I'm like, well, first off, I don't put patches on people. I just tell them they're good.

You don't do the cupping? I have seen some people do some cupping, but that's not the only thing that physical therapy does, right? But you should never try to cover up your pain. Pain's a natural part of an inflammatory process. There's a reason you have pain, right? Now, Gray Cook, right, he's a pretty famous physical therapist. He wrote the book Movement. He came up with the FMS screening, right?

He always uses the analogy that pain is like a warning light in your car, right? And if you just cover up that warning light, you're eventually going to run your car into a problem, right? Because you can only drive your car, you know, pedal to the metal for so long with that warning light on, eventually something bad's going to happen. Well, athletes today, right? How many people do you go into the gym and you see them taking ibuprofen before they train? You see them using a ton of different creams. They have to wrap their body up in order to squat or, you know, do their training pain-free.

The rock tape, mommy. You said the word athletes. I don't even mean athletes. In general. Yeah, in general. Regular people going to the gym to get healthier shouldn't be popping down ibuprofen. Pain is there for a reason. You need to understand why it's there, right?

And now let's talk about, if we go back to an athlete, though, right? There's going to be a time when you have to push through pain, you know? Like, I'm not the first person to say, hey, let's shy away from competition, right? If it's competition time, as an athlete, there's going to be times where you have to push through pain. But if it's through the training process every single day, things are going to go bad for you. You have to understand what pain is and address it and not just cover it up. Yeah. Right. So that's a big thing. So if someone's having pain, I'm not going to have them, you know, push their barbell. Push that limit. Is it just something small, right? Is it just like a little bit of knee pain or is it something that's like every

single time it's excruciating, right? Because that's one of those things. If it's something, you know, just it's achy, right? Well, maybe it's, you just need a little bit of knee pain or is it something that's like every single time it's excruciating right because that's one of those things if it's something's you know just it's achy right well maybe it's you just need a little bit more movement uh you know prep maybe you just did a little bit too much that you know volume and exactly and you need to foam roll a little bit but like legit real pain does not go away with good warm-up right those aches and pains that's part of being an athlete right so if you get in there and you're foam rolling and you're stretching and you're warming up well and sort of those aches and pains go away that we say, you're fine.

Train hard. Train your ass off. But if you come in, you foam roll and you stretch, and your body's still hurting, it's legit pain. It's a sharp pain. It's around a joint. It's in a muscle. It's not feeling good.

If you continue to push into pain, something bad is eventually going to happen. So that's a big thing, right? That sounds like some sissy-ass shit. I saw the 1998 King of the Ring, Hell in a Cell event, and The Undertaker. That dude fell from a cage multiple times, and he was still cool. Didn't he get, like, something through his lip, like a nail? His nose.

His tooth came through his nose. Oh, man. That's crazy. Oh, my God. His tooth came through his nose. I feel like that's a little excessive, though. Yeah. We're not talking about King of the Ring here.

The cage broke from the top. He fell down all the way. And then a chair hit him on the way down. So a chair was – you didn't watch wrestling when you were little. Dude, no. I watched wrestling. Oh, yeah. Do you remember?

Every young kid watches wrestling when they grew up, right? Sting's going to bring his bat out, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. That was so cool. Did you play the N64 game when you could to bring his bat out, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God. That was so cool. Did you play the N64 game where you could go get the bat out? World Tour. World Tour.

For sure. I played that. Then the bat would break after like X amount of years. It's like this never happened on the show. Talk about. Oh, that's awesome. For sure. Where the hell were we?

I don't know. I don't know what we're talking about. Yeah. When would I not let someone squat? When would we not let somebody squat? If you can't squat good with good technique, I'm going to take the bar. But that goes back to the technique continuum, right? You've got the optimal technique, right?

What our goal is. You've got acceptable, and then you've got poor. But how do you get people to actually listen to that shit? Because I think everyone listening right now is like, cool, yeah, I'm with you on that. Movement versus before, blah, blah. But no one follows. It's kind of like nutrition. Everyone I'm with you on that. Movement versus before, blah, blah. But, like, no one follows. It's kind of like nutrition.

Everyone knows not to eat the donut. If you want to fucking do it. If you want to do the things that you love doing. You know what? People listen when they start hurting. Yeah, that's exactly what I'm about to say. You will listen when you start hurting. So sometimes that light needs to come on for you to actually start listening.

When you're about to on the verge of quitting the shit because you're in so much fucking pain, that's when you're going to start paying attention. I mean, I've been in points in my training where I've been like. You should never get there. I'm like, I don't care about lifting weights anymore. You know what? I just want to like – I just want to not hurt.

I just want to do gymnastics and get flexible because I'm so tired of hurting. Yeah. And then it wore off and I wanted to get strong again. Yeah. I definitely think that's definitely a thing. Like, you talk about the technique continuum. Yeah. I feel like there's the athlete maturity continuum.

Oh, for sure. And the longer you've been in the game, the more that stuff, you start realizing that. That's a whole other topic on just good coaching too. You've got to know what kind of athlete you're dealing with and say the right things to them. If you've got someone who's stubborn and that's ready to just beat their head in the wall and doesn't care, you can't be like,

look, we're going to be really careful for a few months. We're going to build your technique up. They're going to be like, whatever. Especially if that athlete's been moving poorly for such a long time. Because that's a big thing, right? If you're in that poor category, you squat and your knees are touching each other. Why is it so important to have that athlete probably stop and take a step back? If they're squatting that poor, not only are they setting their body up for eventual injury, but as a weightlifter, you don't see the injury firsthand. It's not all at once. So really to talk to an a weightlifter, right, you don't see the injury firsthand, right?

It's not all at once. So really to talk to an athlete and be like, hey, you're eventually going to have an injury if you keep on squatting like that. They don't care, right? Because they're already only focused on one thing, right? What's that? Performance, right? Yeah, I squat 500 pounds. My knees touch together.

Fuck you. I don't care. Exactly. Exactly. So that's the thing, though. But the big thing is that you're reinforcing that movement pattern. The more you squat under load, you reinforce the movement pattern. Or you put an electronic collar on.

But I like what you said at the beginning when you opened up the talk. It's like your true potential. Yeah, maybe you do squat 500 pounds with your knees touching. But what if you did? That's the biggest thing. If you squat 600 pounds, fool. Exactly. The better you squat, quality rise, right?

You set yourself up to give yourself the potential to perform more, and you can reach that true strength that Socrates was talking about all those years ago. It's all about quality first, right? Ask yourself how long you want to do it, too. Do most of the people listening to this show right now, do they want to squat for 10 years, 20 years? I want to squat for the next 20 years. Hell, yeah. 100%. That's going to keep your ass out of the people listening to this show right now, do they want to squat for 10 years, 20 years? Like, I want to squat for the next 20 years. Hell, yeah. 100%.

That's going to keep your ass out of the fucking nursing home. Yeah, and, like, I want to squat heavy for 20 years. Like, I want to keep getting strong. I know I'm not going to be stronger forever, but, like, I definitely know there's been times where I'm like, I am not on a path to squat for 20 more years. I will be done in five years. I think my goal now is I just want to be the most jacked-as-old dude there is. Just one of those.

For sure. Yeah. And that's the thing is, like, the squat, we're talking about how it's a movement first and an exercise second, right? That's something for life, right? I don't want just to get you strong to compete right now. I want you to be 70 years old and being able to be functional and walk around and have the life you want, right? Because too often, and obviously as a physical therapist, I see it more often, but people that, you know, get to that point in life and they're like, well, I'm not an athlete anymore. I'm done lifting. Right. Or I'm done moving through

full ranges. You know, I don't squat anymore. Right. But then what happens, right? They get to that point in life and now they have trouble keeping up with their grandkids. Right. They can't, uh, eventually they get to the point where now their knee pain is so bad. They can't walk up and down stairs anymore. Right. And it's all about, you to the point where now their knee pain is so bad they can't walk up and down stairs anymore. Right. Yeah. And it's all about, you know, teaching people, hey, this is this is something for life. Yes, it's going to help you in your sports for sure. There's obviously that application, but the squat is so much more. It's it's the true strength isn't just from a lifting a performance standpoint.

Right. It's your ability to live the life functionally that you're capable of. You know what else is for life? What's that? NWO. Oh my god, that was perfect. Perfect timing. Perfect timing. My world order.

Has anyone ever asked you where they could sign up and join Squat University? Yeah, so Squat University right now is an online blog platform. It's not an actual university a lot of stuff man it's awesome for sure go follow this dude on instagram for sure enrollment is always open yeah there we go what's your instagram handle so it's on instagram squat university i think that's our biggest platform right now um twitter facebook uh snapchat just under my name a name Aaron Horschig and then our main platform is the blog website squaduniversity.com

random question would you ever make a sister site deadlift university the amount of people that have asked me to do deadlift or bench university I have to tell them first I haven't benched in forever you're a weightlifter we don't bench

you'd be surprised how many people ask me that's awesome in forever. Oh, you're a waylifter. That's a waylifter. I don't bench. Exactly. That's a joke. You'd be surprised how many people ask me. That's awesome. But yeah, the big thing, Instagram's our biggest one and if anyone has any questions, man, reach out to me,

direct message me on Instagram. Yeah, you reply to a lot of people. I reply to every single person that direct messaged me on Instagram, I reply to. If you direct message me on Twitter or Facebook, I will get back to you for sure.

I will talk to every single person. It doesn't matter who you are. Even the new DMs? Don't tell my wife. I know. You're with Barry, so. You don't want to get him in trouble. Don't waste your time sending those.

Alex responds to those. You can send them all to Alex. Yeah, for sure. At Alex Q. Macklin. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. This just got crazy. You're raunchy.

It was raunchy. Man, I'm so glad you came on the show, dude. It was an honor to be on the show, guys. Is there anything else you want to add? Anywhere else people can find you? Yeah. You haven't touched on a lot. Yeah, just if you have any questions, reach out to squatuniversity.com

and on Instagram, squatuniversity. Cool. Alex, what do you want to add? I just want to say, if you enjoyed this, go sign up for the newsletter at barbellshrug.com. And then also, we've got the Shrug Strength Challenge program. If you're interested in that, go sign up and do the Shrug Strength Test. We'll put together a three-day test to tell you how strong you are

and where you're weak and how you can get stronger. Boom. Then finally, don't forget, Barbell Buddha's book just came out, reprinted all his writings, collected into one. Go check it out at barbellbuddha.com to get your own copy. Got a lot of really cool stuff in here, guys. And finally, finally, you've made it this far into the damn show, so if you like it, go ahead and head over to iTunes,

give us a five-star review. Oh, yeah, give us a five-star rating. If you don't mind. That really helps. Five stars. And then also, if you're on YouTube watching it right now, just go ahead and subscribe so you can get all the content we put out. We're putting out lots of stuff, like a video with this dude.

Oh, yeah. Nuggets of Pearls after this we're going to film. So like. Do all that kind of stuff. Like, comment, subscribe. That stuff helps and we appreciate it. Yeah, we love it. I love getting these.

Thank you, Aaron, for coming on again. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, man. Thanks, Aaron.