The Samurai Squat : Get Your Club Now
Learn proper squat form and technique with the RMT® Club.
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Hey, David Weck here, I'm at S10 Fitness in San Diego. Check out all the cool training implements they have here. They do a lot of strongman stuff, check out the mill wheels; I think each one of those weighs like a hundred-plus pounds. Fantastic place; Chris, Dave and Kate, fantastic people. Check them out if you're in San Diego.
Today I'm going to teach you an exercise called the Samurai Squat. The purpose of this exercise is to develop better core stability, hip and shoulder mobility, stable spine, and flexible and mobile appendages through the shoulders. Its going to:
1. Improve your squatting mechanics and
2. Help you run faster.
The more stable my core is and the more mobility and power I can generate through the joints of the hips and the shoulders, the faster I will able to run. Now, the key to this exercise is the breathing. Breathing is everything, that's the basis for it all and when we naturally reach up, our body will naturally inhale. That expands the rib cage and it extends the thorastic spine and now it's easier for me to raise up and grab something on the top shelf. What we're going to do is we're going to go the opposite direction and we're going to actually be exhaling with pressure as we raise the hands up. It’s an unnatural act in terms of economy and this right here, where I breath in, a low threshold strategy. It doesn't cost me much. When I do the opposite and I create tension, its a higher threshold strategy and that's what's going to pay this dividend for high performance: squatting and running.
So here's how it works. I'm going to use the RMT® Club and the leverage point in this is really the key. Because the way this is balanced, the weight is in the club head and it is not in the handle. So this version is only four pounds, but that's an extremely heavy four pounds when I'm right [out] here. It's the heaviest four pounds on the planet, as we'd jokingly say. But that leverage, when I go overhead, is going to give me a mechanical advantage and be easier for me conjugate better movement mechanics through the shoulders while maintaining core stability.
So, the breathing mechanics on this are: we're going to inhale and inflate when we're here and now we're going to exhale with compression, so it looks "sssssss", right there. You can see I've limited or reduced any thorastic extension as opposed to when I breath in. See how there's a definitive extension happening when I breathe in.
So, here's what it looks like: the samurai squat. I'm going to bring it down with the inflate, so I inhale to bring it down. The club head gives me that counter balance that keeps the back perfect. Now, from here with full air, I'm going to exhale with compression. So its here and I "sssssssss" and now I come up. The overhead squat is one of the best ways to measure how stable your core is and how mobile your hips and your shoulders are. It's like a complete exercise and it just tells the truth. You either do it well or you can't and you want to be able to do it well if you want to squat and run your best, so doing that exercise gives me those squat mechanics.
Its like a goblet squat, but a goblet squat, you want to use heavier load because the weight is in here; this is why people love the goblet squat, because the goblet squat helps your hip flexors. People living in a modern culture generally have poor his flexors because you spend your whole day sitting, which means that you're sort of frozen in that position. You can neither extend nor flex at the hip joint when you sit all day. This exercise fixes that problem.
So, Inhale down, boom! I'm getting those similar mechanics as a goblet squat, but the overhead action is much easier than if I had the weight here because I get the leverage.
Now compression, I want to make it really, really tight, everything's packed in. I want to keep this perfect and the thorastic [perfect]. So "sssssssssssssss" and up. Doesn't take many of those and you're going to create this muscle memory effect of total body core stability and what I call a torpedo body, just one cylinder that has tremendous strength and power. So that right there, boom! I'm going to just use that.
I use this exercise to prime my body, to squat, to deadlift, to go heavier, and to have better mechanics. I use the exercise as sort of a daily practice to just constantly make my squat better. Because I live in a modern culture and for most of my life I wasn't squatting deep, I was sitting in chairs, I have work to do and I'll always have work to do. The lower you can make the squat with that perfect positioning through the spine, the less pain you'll experience, the better health you'll have, and the better athlete you will be.
So check out that exercise, go to WeckMethod to learn more, follow us @weckmethod. If you're ever in San Diego, check me out, check out S10 Fitness and I will see you guys soon. In balance and strength.
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