Arina Hunter

Finding your functional squat that uses the natural mechanics of your joints and where your body is best set up to lift yourself and weight is a powerful catalyst to reducing pain and feeling better in squatting motions.
When you send your b***y back as you squat or deadlift, it provides stability, balance, and distribution of your weight through your joints that allow the ability to lift heavier.
Now, in conjunction, as your b***y goes back, your torso will lean forward providing counterbalance between the two.
This will be really helpful with the get back up, stand yourself up from sitting onto a chair or surface.
A common pain area that comes up in my clients is knee and low back pain from doing funky things in their squatting and hinging motions: you do these all the time in everyday life sitting onto a chair and getting up, getting in and out of the car, picking items up, etc.
Taking a moment to check in on what you are doing during these base motions both in daily life and in your workout is a wonderful way to discover how to reduce and mitigate your pains and aches and to be able to lift heavier stronger.
Part 5 of how to squat with less pain.
Part 1 talks through what actually is a squat
Part 2 a quick checklist to explore
Part 3 tools to find your pain free squat
Part 4 tools part 2
Part 5 right here! :)

Postpartum mamas and those with wrist pain!
A common struggle new mamas have is wrist pain. A great quick check in is to think of your arms as robot arms.
So that your hand to forearm is connected and move together.
A very common thing is to do funky hands and wrists while holding baby and items, and that often leads to that pain.
So check in for yourself while holding, or pushing stroller, or carrying, etc: can your hand to forearm stay braced in one line and not do those funky bends and breaks?
When you are pushing the stroller, where are your wrists?
When you are picking something up, where are your hands to forearms?
As you are holding and carrying?
As you push the door open?
As you pull the car door?
When you carry the groceries?
As you pick up the mail package?
Are they bending in funky directions? Holding a silly position?
The first step is to notice what you are doing,
And test out using your robot arms for the day.

Kegels are one of the most talked about pelvic floor exercises.
You’ve likely heard: “do your kegels!”
Now, kegels could possibly be great for you.
They also might not be.
For many, kegels are the opposite of what they need.
Kegels are an exercise that aids in strengthening your pelvic floor.
They can be wonderful when used correctly.
However you do not always need to kegel and they might not be right for you.
Your pelvic floor needs to tighten and to release!
Yes we also need to release and relax the pelvic floor, not just tighten.
There are many, many other ways to connect to, strengthen, and to release your pelvic floor.
What our pelvic floor needs is balance.
Not just one.
And we are searching for that balance between being too weak or being too over tight.
For all those tighten and engage parts of the exercise, we also need to release and relax.
Your breath is a fantastic way to connect to, to feel, to strengthen and to release, and to connect your pelvic floor to daily life, your workouts, and the things you want and need to be able to do.
Pop back in and I’ll be sharing other breath work and exercises you can do to learn to feel, strengthen, release, and connect to your pelvic floor!

Tools to aid in finding your pain free, functional squat part 2:
1. Slow things down, so you can actually listen and feel what is happening in your body
2. Use something external for feedback: a mirror, video, a coach.

Now, going quick can be wonderful. However when we are trying to learn where our pain, funky patterns are happening, or just are trying to learn something new or different, going slow is key.
Slowing down allows your body and brain to have that tiny moment to register where things are, where any pain might be happening, and to notice the silly things we sometimes have been doing.
Slow is a fantastic way to check in and reset.
And going slow is a magic spot for learning and adjusting.

And lastly, external feedback!
Something or someone that can give you feedback and help to notice the things your body is doing. Such as: oh my hips are twisting, ah my knees are falling forward and in, hmm my low back is arching.
Sometimes we just need something outside of our internal sensations to be able to see, notice, or name what is happening in our body.
And it’s not necessarily that you are doing something wrong, just that there might be a more functional and intentional pathway that will help you to feel stronger, more steady, and better in the exercise and in daily life.

Having a coach even for a quick check in can be the key piece in finding your pain free, functional pathways to exercise and move through life.

Often small shifts and check-ins are what we need to adjust pathways that might be causing issue or to find where we need to build strength and stability to reduce pain and aid recovery.

Try these out and let me know how they go for you!

Missed part one, pop back to catch the first tools :)

Tools to aid in finding your pain free functional squat:
Using a box/seat/chair/bench
Using bands, Pilates ring/circle, or an exercise ball

These tools are great for tactile feedback which is a wonderful way to help find new patterns in our bodies.
Tactile feedback aids in finding and feeling center and where we want our body to start to move.
It is very common that people have no idea that their body is doing funky things. That they are shifting into the right hip as they squat.
Or that their knees are falling into the middle.
Or that their shoulders are rounding forward.
Or that they are twisting and creating additional tension and imbalance.
The tactile feedback of a seat, bands, a ball allow the body to get feedback on where balance is, where center is, and to feel more easily if we try to shift back into our current habits.
We do squats daily in life: they are how we sit and stand, get on and off the couch, chair or bed, and part of bending down to grab things.
Through these daily patterns, it can be easy for our body to start doing funky things, especially when we are experiencing pain.

These tactile tools are a great reset and check in tool. Take your time. Go a little slower so you can actually feel what is happening.
We check in and reset then use that feedback to go into free standing squats, front/goblet, back squats, deep, weighted, and lifting heavy.

Pop back for two more tools to aid in finding your pain free, functional squat.

Let’s create a quick check list to check in and adjust your squats:
Where is/are your:
Pelvis,
femurs/knees,
feet,
shoulders/chest/torso?
Are you breathing?

Your pelvis:
When you squat down, does your pelvis go backwards or straight down?
At the top, does your pelvis stop in neutral in line with your shoulders and feet?
Does your pelvis thrust forward, swaying your lower back?
Does your pelvis stop short, before your glutes actually engage?
Do you shift more weight into your right or left leg?
Do your pelvis twist or rotate?

Femurs/Knees:
Do your knees fall in or out?
Your knees are coming from your femurs! What are your femurs? That lovely big leg bone in your upper leg that goes into your pelvis as a ball and socket joint, and all the way to your patella/knee.
Do your knees go forward past your toes?
Do your knees stay relatively over your feet?

Feet:
Do your toes point in the same direction?
Are your feet in line with each other? Is one foot slightly in front of the other? Is your right toes pointing out to the diagonal and your left toes pointing straight forward?

Shoulders/Chest/Torso:
Do you learn your torso/back as one controlled piece, like a plank?
Or does your chest round or back arch?

Breathing:
Are you breathing?
It’s actually really common that people stop breathing!
A general base rule is exhale through the up, inhale on the down or in between.

Use this as your starter check in list.
Do a quick run through and take note what you notice for yourself?

In the next video I’ll talk through ways to start to implement and put into practice your functional squat 😊

A little reminder that that number on the scale is just a number until we assign value to it.
My client’s almost three year old saw the scale and decided to step on it.
He looked down at the number and gave his best approximation of what he knows it is right now.
Then he asked mama to go on the scale.
She obliged.
He read out the number he thought and she softly muttered the number that it was.
Then he stepped back on the scale and he said the number that he just heard her say.
Because that number is just a number until we choose to assign value to it.
He heard that number and thought, awesome that’s my number too.
And, that almost three year old, your little one is not going to remember the number on the scale.
He is going to remember watching his mama work out,
How strong she is,
Getting to workout with her,
Mimicking her workout motions and telling her which ones he wanted them to do,
That it is fun to get to move your body,
Getting to play within the space as she got her workout in.
And that mama is strong and so is he.
It is an easy thing to feel that we need to be a certain number on a scale. Or that it being a certain number means x, y, or z about us.
Yet, there are many other things that that scale number does not show or give credit to.
Such as:
The way you feel in your body and self.
The way that your clothes are fitting.
The things that you are capable of doing.
The pain that has reduced or changed.
The muscle that you are building or any body decomposition that might be happening.
The way that our bodies change over time and throughout the day/week: water retention, menstrual cycle, gut health, etc.
The scale is just a number if we let it just be a number.

How to squat with less pain:
First, what is a squat?
When you think squat, what motion is your body doing?
Are your knees bending? Your hips? Does your chest go forward? Your shoulders? Your whole torso? Where are your feet?
Now this connects to, why are squats important?
Squatting is sitting and standing.
It’s sitting at the restaurant and being able to get back up.
Using the toilet.
Getting on and off the bed.
The couch.
Into the car.
The airplane seat.
It’s part of bending down to grab things and pick them up. Part of moving about and through space.
And, thinking about this sit to stand motion is a fantastic way to find your pain free, functional squat.
To squat pain free, we first have to understand how a squat moves,
which allows you to then feel better, lift heavier, and get stronger.
Pop back, in the next video I’ll give you a quick guide for how to check and adjust your squat to relieve pain.

If you do something that supports your goals, your health, your wellbeing for 5 minutes three times this week,
that is 15 minutes more towards your goals than you would have been.
now if you continue that next week,
it’s 30 minutes,
if you did that for the coming 5 months that finish this calendar year, it would be 330 minutes!
just if you kept doing only 5 minutes three days a week.
now do that for the coming year,
and you are 780 minutes built into the life, the goals you want to be experiencing.
And,
if along the way you built off the small and mighty momentum of it feels good to do the things I said that I would,
and you added into just 15 more minutes each week,
you would be 1,560 minutes invested into your self, health, and wellbeing.
Small is mighty.
Little things add up.
That tiny little moment of showing up for yourself is absolutely worth it, especially over time.
Something is far far more than nothing (and continuing to wait til you can do more, waiting for perfect or all in, is nothing until you stop waiting and take action)
What’s your five minutes you can make happen this week?