Exercise of the Week: Skater Squats
Posted on February 9, 2011 by Ben Bruno
This week’s Exercise of the Week is Skater Squats. I first saw this exercise while reading Mike Boyle’s first book Functional Training for Sports (great book, by the way), but I never tried out until recently after Mike talked about it in one of our recent staff meetings. It came up in the meeting because Mike was contemplating using it as a replacement for trap bar deadlifts with athletes suffering from back pain. Being a back pain sufferer myself, I figured I would try it out. I liked the exercise, but after getting used to it, I did not find my own bodyweight to be challenging enough and holding small dumbells like I typically do in a single leg squat was not enough. I tried loading on a bunch of weighted vests, but it was too hard to perform the movement without the vests bumping the front leg due to the forward lean involved in the movement. At that point, I shelved it; that is, until I saw Jaime Rodriguez (be sure to check out his blog and You Tube page, he is a beast) perform it holding a kettlebell using the goblet hold. I tried it out myself and it worked very well.
The primary difference between the Skater Squat and a regular one leg squat is the forward lean of the torso, which turns the exercise into more of a hip dominant motion. To perform the exercise, stand on one leg with the other leg bent at approximately 90 degrees. Make sure you have some sort of padding behind you. From there, squat down until the knee of the non-working leg taps the pad and return to the starting position. In order to do this motion, you will inevitably have to lean forward with your torso. This forward lean is not only acceptable but welcomed (within reason), as it transfers more stress to the glutes and hamstrings. I like the goblet hold because it allows you to lean forward slightly, but still forces you to stay somewhat upright to avoid falling forward.
Form cues to remember:
1) Control the movement. You really need to focus on a controlled eccentric as you don’t want to be dropping onto the pad forcefully. This will risk damage to the knee of the non-working leg and will also detract from the work the working leg must due to stabilize the body.
2) Think about keeping the “chest up.” Of course you will not literally be able to keep the chest up as some lean is inevitable, but keeping it as a mental cue will help stave off excessive leaning.
3) Think “knees out.” It is easy for the working leg to going into valgus (knee caving in) during this movement. Focus on pushing the knee out to keep this from happening.
- See more at: http://benbruno.com/2011/02/exercise-of-the-week-skater-squats/#sthash.cBnBhaDm.dpuf