If you work with basketball athletes or taller athletes, you may have noticed that these athletes may struggle with not only double leg squatting but also single leg squatting. This is because their femurs tend to be longer than the average folk.
This comes back to simple physics as a longer lever is more difficult to control. And if an athlete has trouble controlling movements, injuries are sure to occur. Every joint within our body needs a certain amount of mobility (movement) and stability (control). If mobility is established then we need to add stability/control to it. In our case of long femurs and squatting, the first step is to make sure there is adequate mobility within the hip joint. If that is good we need to move onward to see why an athlete still has trouble performing the movement. The movements that tend to be the hardest to control are the eccentric actions of the squatting movement which are internal rotation and adduction. Now what muscles help control these femoral movements?
Namely the muscles that help to externally rotate and abduct the hip which are the gluteal muscles.
The Glute max, medius and minimus play a huge role in developing femoral control. And we have to train these muscles in ways that help to work on these actions.
If we don’t include exercises that help to work on femoral control than it could lead to knee issues in our athletes. Double leg squatting is a good starting point but having 2 fixed points of contact doesn’t challenge the hip musculature to the same degree as single leg work….and single leg unsupported to be specific.
Mike Boyle was the first strength coach that broke down single leg training into single leg supported and single leg unsupported. Single leg supported exercises is where you have 2 points of contact where one leg is performing the majority of the work. Examples are lunges, split squats, lateral squats, etc. Single leg unsupported work is where the body is supported on a single leg and the other leg is free (in the air). Examples of these exercises are single leg squats, single leg reaches, and pistol squats.
With basketball athletes and athletes with longer femurs it is imperative that single leg unsupported work be included to help develop the glutes to control the femur. Single leg squats to a box with a band above or below the knees is a great way to start and get the athlete to understand femoral control and the importance of it. You may need to start your taller athletes with a higher box and progressively move them down to a lower box as their strength and control improve.
We should all know the importance of single leg strength now, but if you are working with taller athletes make sure single leg unsupported work is included within your program.
What are other variations that you would include?
Deadlifting can be a great alternative to squatting
The title of this article is not a mistake. If you told me a few years ago that the deadlift is an excellent way to manage hip, knee, and back pain in hockey players or in any athlete, I would have thought you were crazy. I was never familiar with the exercise and I always cringed at the though of deadlifting my athletes because of all the terrible form I witnessed and all the horror stories I heard about people throwing out their backs doing the exercise. As time goes on and I get more experience working with athletes and learning about different modes of training, I have learned not to count out any exercise.
So why the deadlift? If you are a strength coach and someone gets injured, what is one of the first things the athletic trainer or physical therapist says? If you said “No squats,” then you guessed the right answer for a majority of any lower body injuries. If you have an athlete that has a lower body injury and you try to get him/her back to their normal routine they will probably say that everything feels good, except when I squat. Or they will rehab and start feeling better only to be out of squatting again in the next few weeks. Next time you are in this situation, try having the athlete perform what I call an elevated deadlift where the athlete does not go all the way down to the floor, then see how they feel. Just like any other lift, make sure you are familiar with the exercise and can teach your athletes how to safely perform it.
