Written by Corey Hayes Check Out These Other Parts of the How I Built My Best Squat Ever series… Front Squats by Dan Green
Low Bar Good Mornings by Blaine Sumner
After sitting and thinking about an assistance move that has helped me the most throughout the years and going back throughout my old training logs, one movement kept popping back up. It was a movement that I hadn’t ever thought about much but it just so happened every time my squat was at its best, I had been doing this movement for weeks before hand. What is it? The split squat….
I feel like the split squat is honestly a flawless assistance movement. Why? The split squat is a perfect combination of strength, mobility, coordination and balance.
The muscles being worked are mostly the quads, glutes and core which you can never really have enough of, I believe that the movement “activates” my glutes like no other. Many people really don’t take advantage of the glutes, these are the people that tend to stall at the top on dead lift. The core gets tied in due to the fact that your standing on one foot with a bar on your back, unless you have the balance of a tight rope walker you are going to be going side to side some which will destroy your core.
The mobility aspect is crucial for me to keep a healthy back in my opinion. On the eccentric portion of the lift, the hip flexors are stretched out. For you guys that aren’t big into the anatomy, the illiopsoas connects at the front of the hip and wraps around to the back, which can lead to an offset pelvis and messed up back if too tight.
A good goal for these, which I’m working towards is body weight for men and 75 percent of body weight for women for 10 reps. Start light to learn the movement and once you figure it out, blast them every workout until you get your goal, I promise you’ll end up a better squatter and dead lifter.
Corey Hayes is an up incomer to the strength and conditioning world. He is currenty a student at Eastern Kentucky university and a Professional level powerlifter. His best meet lifts are 725/425/675 at 220 raw and 880/640/680 at 242 geared. He has future plans of taking over the world and making a living doing what he enjoys, the iron game. Facebook, YouTube
