#quad dominance

[superabundance-of-secretion-blog]

[samtalksfunny]

Hey friend! New to lifting here, I recently joined a new gym and they threw in a free personal training consult. During an observation of my squat technique, I was told I'm quad dominant and it's effecting my form, any suggestions to correct this?

First of all, welcome to the quad dominant club. Most of us are. We are biased toward forward motion, imagine that. (Women, especially, tend to be quad dominant, and I think it has to do with how our hips are shaped).

How to fix it:

1. Work on your squat form directly. This means you should cue yourself to put weight in your HEELS and the outsides of your feet, sit BACK into your butt, and ‘spread the floor’ with your feet.

Something that helps more than anything tbh is squatting in either lifting shoes or bare feet (well, with socks). I squat in my sock feet. If you’re in shoes with a heel and cushion you’re forced forward onto your toes. So if you were wearing running shoes for your consult you probably seemed even more quad dominant than you are.

2. Do some specific exercises to strengthen your posterior chain (the muscles on the back of your legs and your butt) and to emphasize the HIP HINGE movement pattern (arguably the most powerful and important movement we can make). Some movements that help:

deadlifts (all kinds!)band pullthroughs sideways band walks (sitting WAY back and down)kettlebell swings (ask for some help with form on these to start)glute-ham raise (assisted if need be to start)box squats (squatting backwards onto a box. Getting up from the box really forces you to shift your weight back and engage hamstrings and glutes).

You can google all of these to see what the form looks like. Does that help?