Movement coach and model Roger Frampton thinks we should be squatting far more often – here are his tips on how.
- Business Insider spoke with Roger Frampton, movement coach and author of “The Flexible Body”, about the importance of the squat.
- Frampton said most Westerners don’t squat naturally and shares his tips how to “regain” this position.
- He adds that practising just 10 minutes a day can produce results.
Read the full transcript below:
Roger Frampton: So this position is the squat. Most people, when I talk about the squat, think about a bobbing up-and-down exercise that works your legs and butt.
Well, the squat is actually a position that we’re designed to defecate in. So every kid sits and rests in this position. And if we look at western people, you’ll see most people end up sitting up on their toes in this position.
What I’m advising is that you get this position back – not for an exercise necessarily, not because of fitness or to be fitter, but just because you’re designed to do it. This here is just the human resting position.
When I run classes, people always talk about the squat and how they can’t quite get their heel down on the floor. Now the reason for that is because, since the age of about four years old, you’ve been wearing shoes.
We are an animal, we’re designed to walk around on bare feet. And the reason that we lose our squat ability is simply because we become tight in our ankles. And therefore, you can’t get all the way down to the bottom.
Now all you need to do is – if you put your heels on a yoga block or a book, so you’re in that position rather than that position, that will take away your ankle mobility and allow you to get all the way down.
You can use a yoga block or a book, or two or three of them – if you’re a girl, squatting in heels is so much easier than squatting flat on the floor.
What you do is you start in whatever angle you’re comfortable in, and you work your way down to becoming flat on the floor.
So really a squat is just a test of your ankles. If you’ve got good ankles, you’re great at squatting, and if your ankles have become tight then the squat is really difficult and hard, but like every other muscle and joint in the body it’s trainable and you’ve got time to get it back.
If you do something for 10 minutes every day – kind of like brushing your teeth – it gets into a habit and you go, you get up you brush your teeth, you go to bed, you brush your teeth. By doing 10 minutes every day, you’ll get into a habit, by using that short amount of time you can really focus on how your body’s moving.
Now some of the exercises that I recommend you do within those 10 minutes – first one is the squat – sitting in a squat, not bobbing up and down. Just being able to function to sit down in a squat. Something, again, that is innate to us as human beings, something that you are able to do as a child.
So spend 10 minutes every day getting your squat back.
Produced by Fraser Moore. Camera by Leon Siciliano.
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