Background

A lot of ladies have issues with their hip flexors that cause them to bend significantly at the waist during any kind of squat: air, back, front, etc. Here’s what it looks like:

You’ll notice that we’ve hit all the necessary points of performance for this to be considered a technically sufficient squat:

-Lumbar curve
-Weight on heels
-Knees tracking over toes
-Hips back and down until the hip crease is below the knee

However, we know that in this position Nicole wouldn’t be able to handle a significant load on her back or in the front rack.

The Fix

A super quick and easy fix for this issue is just a modified goblet squat. Grab a 10-15 lbs weight and hold it away from the body. Then just go down into the bottom of a squat and hold for 2-3 seconds. It looks like this:

By moving the center of mass forward, we force Nicole’s torso up and her hips down. By making her go down slowly into this position and holding it, we activate the muscles that she’ll want to recruit when she goes into the front squat and/or improve her air squat and back squat by spreading the love between her anterior and posterior chain.

I recommend 2-3 sets, 3-5 reps, 10-15 lbs before a squat WOD. Stay at the bottom for 2-3 seconds and stay tight.

Gravy

For post-WOD work, we need to address that hip flexor tightness, and nothing does it better than the wall stretch:

-Back knee as close to the wall as possible.
-Torso as upright as possible.
-Flex the quad/hip flexor of the down leg for 5 seconds, relax for 10 seconds.
-Repeat for six rounds on either leg.
-In between switching legs, go down into the bottom of a squat and see if you can notice a difference.

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