A Personal Hack For My Squat I Was Taught A Long Time Ago

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30 years ago I had a raw squat at about 420… sometimes. My big flaw was that I wasn’t utilizing my posterior chain to its maximum. Coming out of the hole was ok but it was slow and I would drift forward over my toes.

I did a lot of reading (powerlift usa and books) but somebody I trained with that had a big squat… like 500 something lbs for reps off the street in work clothes and steel toes…was calling out commands for me.

When I unracked and set-up… he quietly told me to lift my big toes and keep them lifted for the whole set…and try and push the earth away from mysel….

This immediately helped me to set back more and drive my heels through the ground using my glutes.

As time went on, I learned to do this flat footed with toes firmly planted.

I said all that to say this: to this day I will squat occasionally (belt or otherwise) with my big toes lifted for the first rep or two to remember to engage my posterior chain.

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Oh yeah… my raw squat blossomed to ~500lbs in a year at a bw of somewhere between 198 and 220

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Thanks for the tip @Poppy

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I’ve actually looked into some
Lifters that have larger toe box for the reason of splay and getting as much push as possible

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I will try this tomorrow!

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I did this today, and low and behold, it worked perfectly. By the end of the session, I was flat-footed, but it was a sure-fire way to get me in the right grove. Did working sets with 325 without much issue at all, which for me is PFG!

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This is one of my favorite que’s for a squat… monkey toe a deadlift and lift your toes on squat to gorce yourself to sit into your glutes and hams

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@Dirtnasty sit back into your glutes and open your taint

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Ed is that you