Functional Strength UK

“Screw your feet into the ground, drive the knees out…activate the glutes”…these are the cues you may/will of heard your coach or trainer use when addressing the squat. Now I know a lot of us understand why but I also understand that a lot of us do not. Especially when you are doing your 6 am workouts or end of the workday gym sessions,  your brain may not quite be firing on all cylinders just yet or fatigued! This article is my best attempt at a quick summary of what I believe some trainers and coaches are actually trying to get you to achieve when cueing “Screw your feet into the ground, drive the knees out…activate the glutes”.

SQUAT FOR SPORT!

A very large percentage of us play a sport, walk the dog or partake in some activity outside of the gym at least once per week, having coached many football players, rugby players, skiers, netball, ice hockey, tennis and squash players one thing I quickly put together is that we like to play these sports at fairly high levels of intensity. In all these sports you are required to perform sudden changes of direction….think about it…good now you have the visualisation in your head of that sudden change of direction that you perform. The majority of the time you will perform this because you are closing down the opponent, angle on the court, correcting a path on the snow, moving past an opponent or even trying to keep up with your kids at a weekend playing their sports showing them “you still have it”.

However, there are those rare occasions when the sudden change of direction happens because you slipped/ fell or tripped whilst moving at high speed and this is when the injuries can occur; in particular stretched or torn ACL (anterior cruciate ligament). Now I’m not saying every time you will fall this will happen or it’s a dead certain or this is the only injury, this is just the injury that I am addressing! What I am saying is that this injury is a possibility and its best to ensure that when your sudden change of direction occurs (whether purposeful or not) that you have the musculature to withstand injury and the neuromuscular patterns developed so that your brain and body work together to shake it off and get up for the next tackle/jump or close down the ball.

PREVENTION BETTER THAN CURE

If you look at the image to the side you will see how it depicts an individual changing direction and the knee collapsing in and straining the tendons and musculature around the knee; in particular the ACL. You can increase your chance of injury prevention in this instance through maximising the strength in the Hip abductor and external rotator muscles and the quadriceps. Now back to the original point at the start of all this, by screwing the feet into the ground, pushing those knees out(ensuring they don’t cave in!) and creating some external rotation at the hips you are not only activating all this key musculature; you are strengthening it. By making all this musculature as strong as you can and doing it correctly every time you perform a squat, not only will this help with injury prevention because you are stronger in these areas but the neuromuscular junctions will be sending and receiving messages that much quicker to improve the reaction time that the hip abductor and external rotator muscles of the hip do their job to prevent the injury. Of course, there are far more depths to be delved into regarding the muscles used and why, however, I am just giving you a small insight as to why you may be cued to “Screw your feet into the ground, drive the knees out…activate the glutes”.