Lateral Shift In Squat

You squat because you know squat’s are the best exercise to build quadricep, glute and core strength, develop speed and power for sport, and shape yourself one fine ass pair of butt cheeks!  No matter where you are on your weight training journey there will be a squat variation than you can do pain free.  There’s hundreds of squat variations!

But one thing i see that is very common in the gym is whats known as a lateral shift to the left or the right when squatting.  What does this mean?  If you look at the picture below, see how there is a line running down the centre of this guys squat set up?  Thats what you want to imagine when you squat.  Now what your looking for is a shift to one side or a favouring of one side.  If you are doing this, especially with only bodyweight, there is potentially a problem going on

Now this guy above has a ever so slight shift to his right but lets pretend he shifts waaay right.  

What does this mean?

This can mean many things but the basics are :

Your moving way from dysfunction in the ankle, knee or hip on the left side
You have a had an injury or have an injury in the ankle, knee or hip on the left side
You have a motor control stability problem
Your right leg is a lot stronger than your left
Your pelvis is jammed

Whatever the reason you shouldn’t be squatting.  Especially with loads.  Cause as you load up that bar all your going to do is feed into the dysfunction and make it worse.  And worst of all, you may possibly hurt your back / pelvis.

What should you do about it?

Get it seen to.  Ask a smart trainer in your gym to assess your squat and try and find the underlying cause.  (The reason i assess everybody before i do a single exercise is to determine wether or not this type of dysfunction exists)  Or ask your current physio or chiro to find the underlying cause.  What ever you do you are a candidate for single leg exercises only until you can control that shift

Hope that helps!

See you in the gym wit cho fine ass!

Brad

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