Can You Graduate from Squat University? (with Dr. Aaron Horschig)

If you have a light bulb that goes out in your house, you shouldn’t have to call an electrician. You should know how to change your light bulb. If your knees are a little achy after you do some squats, you should know how to take the first steps to fixing that.

 

If you have a great physical therapist that’s awesome, use them but I know not many people have that ability, and often when they do go to some medical practitioners, they get the wrong advice.

Welcome to the “BarBend Podcast,” where we talk to the smartest athletes, coaches, and minds from around the world of strength. I’m your host, David Thomas Tao, and this podcast is presented by barbend.com.

 

Today, I’m talking to Aaron Horschig, a physical therapist, strength and conditioning coach, speaker, writer, and weightlifter. Aaron is the author of one book on mobility and movement with another on the way next year but he’s probably best known as the creator and mind behind Squat University.

 

In our chat, we discuss what so many elite strength athletes are missing when it comes to movement and how Aaron’s own experience as a weightlifter impacts his approach to helping people prevent, and recover from injuries. If you’ve ever wanted to improve your squat, this is a great place to start from the ground up.

 

I do want to take a second to shout out Today’s episode sponsor, MANIMAL, America’s Longest-Lasting Wrist Wraps since 2010. MANIMAL has over 1,000 five-star reviews and trusted by athletes and coaches who want to get stronger in the gym, minus the wrist pain. Want to put MANIMAL wraps to the test? Visit Manimal.com and use code BARBEND for 15 percent off, backed by a Lifetime Guarantee.

 

Aaron, thanks so much for joining us today. I’m really excited because we’ve actually been going back and forth. We’ve wanted to chat for a while. To finally get you on the podcast, it’s great and you’re the dean of Squat University.

That’s a good way to put it.

You’re the dean, chancellor, janitor, professor.

Everything, everything.

Everything…

 

For sure tenured.

 

You’ve got tenured whether you like it or not. Squat University, what is it and why is it called Squat University? Can I get a degree from Squat University, because I need some remedial courses maybe.

You definitely can and here’s the deal. Tuition is free which should be great for everyone to hear especially nowadays. First off, I’ve got to say thank you so much for having me on the podcast. I really appreciate it.

 

Squat University basically was birthed from the idea that the squat as a movement pattern is first and foremost the one building block to an athlete’s paradigm that will say that has, in my opinion, been lost throughout the year.

 

Now, if we look at the way an athlete is built, their fundamental, sort of baseline, in the way in which they are moving, all stems from their movement patterns, their quality of movement. The way in which we look at the squat is always in exercise first. We don’t think of the squat as a movement first.

 

Now, as a young physical therapist, I kept on having these déjà vu-like scenarios, time and time again, where I was evaluating an athlete — I’m talking some of the strongest athletes in the world, some of the fastest athletes in football, and all across the spectrum.

 

During that evaluation, I have to be almost a detective to try to determine what created this pain. How did this person become injured in the first place so that I can create an evaluation plan that then leaves them out of pain and back to performance?

 

Time and time again, when I would I ask them the simple things like, “Take your shoes off. I just want to see you squat just barefoot.” Time and time again, I would see these great athletes have horrible squat patterns. These are athletes that are putting 600, 700, 800 pounds on their backs.

 

I’m seeing very, very strong athletes in the movement of a squat. When I remove their weightlifting shoes, when I had them go barefoot, it just show me, “Can you do a full depth bodyweight squat?” They lacked great-looking movement quality.

 

They could not get to the bottom with maybe their feet collapsing over, or small hip shifts side to side. All these things are small clues. Poor movement, even small little issues like that, when loaded over time, create microtrauma, which then eventually leads to those nagging issues that every single strength athlete has.

 

Believe me, I’ve been an Olympic weightlifter since 2005. I have had every single issue that most of you listeners have heard about. I’ve had knee pain that has led me to want to throw my belt against the wall, because I can’t get over 60 percent of my squat, feels like a knife is jabbed into my knee.

 

I’ve had back pain that has kept me on the couch for a couple of days. I’ve had all these issues, especially when you’re getting closer and closer to competition. It could be extremely frustrating, because all you want to do is perform at your best.

 

What I found, like a said, it was time and time again, this déjà vu-like scenario where the pattern of the squat was something that we were missing. We were great at loading the squat, but we were missing the fundamental ability to show competency in this movement pattern first.

 

Needless to say, if I ask someone to do a single-leg squat, I’ve seen one amazing looking single-leg squat on both sides in someone that was having pain. There’s always something in the squat pattern that can be exposed through just proper screening. I was like, “Aha.”

 

This is that aha moment where you’re like, “If we can conceptually rearrange our athletic priorities to put the squat as a movement first, learn how to move well first, in all the different parts of the squat, from learning foot stability to how to properly engage your hips, breathing and bracing, the simple things that make up a great-looking movement of the squat, and then start loading it, move well first, then lift big weight, not only can we unlock future performance potential that we never thought was possible before, but we also decrease the risks of aches and pains.”

 

When you do find those aches and pains, they’re not nearly as severe as what many people succumb to that leads them out of their sport for a long time, because the small aches and pains add up, and eventually, they become big aches and pains. It was the squat first, and then let’s have some fun with it.

 

I figure the squat almost sets the foundation for so many other things. I can talk about deadlifts. I can talk about cleans, snatches, all because they start on the foundation of the fundamentals of a proper squat.

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Now back to the conversation. The squat, I’m going to continue the university analogy here. If this is getting really old quick, too bad listeners, because I got you for a little while here.

 

A bodyweight squat’s the standardized test to get into Squat University. What’s the curriculum look like? How are you addressing these issues? Obviously, everyone’s different. This is not a medical-advice podcast. We’re not going to tell everyone exactly how to address their individual thing, like see a qualified professional.

 

What are the sorts of things that you’re working with people on to get them to that level of competency in the squat?

The great thing about the University, and we’ll continue going along that path, is that if you were to go to a university, and they’re like, “Hey, pick the classes that you want,” what’s the path that you want to go along? You want to be exercise science. You want to be a music professor, anything like that, the choose-your-own-adventure kind of thing.

 

When someone comes to me with anything — and this could be a mechanic issue, it could be they’re in pain — it all stems from a proper evaluation. From that, it allows us to then break down the body systematically and do different tests and measures to figure out what is your weak link.

 

Every single person, I don’t care if you’re a middle schooler learning to squat for the first time or an Olympic gold medalist. I’ve worked with both. Every single athlete has weak links. Once you know your weak links and you can expose them, you are empowered to then understand what you need to do to tackle that problem, fix your issue.

 

Then, like I said, you have performance that’s unlocked, and you can help slowly get out of pain. For example, someone comes to me. Their squat doesn’t look very good. I’ve got all this information for free on squatuniversity.com, on my YouTube, things like that.

 

They go, and they’d say, “All right, let’s start with the ankle test. Let’s do a five-inch ankle-mobility test and see, do I have good mobility? Is there a different side to side?” They do the test. They find out, “Oh, my ankle mobility is an inch shorter on the right side versus my left.” Figured that out. Now it’s exposed. It’s illuminated.

 

Let’s try these different exercises. Based on that, then we retest. Did it improve? Yes or no, that lets me know that one of my weak links can be corrected with this type of exercise.

 

Then we repattern the squat over the top because it’s not just do these simple corrective exercises. I want you to be able to then see how it affects your movements, see how it affects your squat. Then we slowly reapply a load and allow someone to get back to doing what they want to do. It all stems from the evaluation.

 

A lot of the different things that you’ll see me put out either on Instagram, YouTube, podcast even, is literally, “Here’s your problem. Try this test.” It has to start with a test because you can’t just say, “Shoulder issue, do this exercise.” There could be 1,000 different things that are wrong with that person that created that shoulder issue. You have to have a specific set of tests.

 

I try to make my content user friendly in the way that…I don’t want to speak down to people using a bunch of that ivory tower speak. The university is trying to be on that level where I can talk with you, not to you. You can understand, OK, that’s a simple test.

 

I’m not using all the fancy words that many doctors or physical therapists use, but it’s coming from that background. It allows you to again be empowered to take control of your own body. That’s what Squat University is about.

 

I had so many of these injuries in my own competitive nature growing up. I was so frustrated in some of the people that I went to. I had knee pain, horrible knee pain leading up to the 2011 US Nationals, which was one of the highest level meets I was able to go to.

 

I was starting to pull two days, maybe a couple months prior because I’m not going to let this go to the wayside. I’m going to put everything I can into this first national meet. I knew it was just bugging me so much.

 

I went to one of my professors in PT school, and I’m like, “What should I do?” He’s like, “How often are you squatting?” I’m like, “Well, I’m pulling two days, three days a week, I’m squatting technically squat almost every single day. I’m an Olympic weightlifter, every day’s a weight-day.”

 

Literally, he goes, “Well, just stop lifting so much. You need to cut your volume completely out.” I’m like, “That can’t be the answer. There has to be something better.”

 

What I have found through all my years of experience being a doctor of physical therapy, training some of the best athletes in the world is it often comes down to small little nuance issues in mobility and stability, the way in which we’re moving.

 

When you can expose those problems with proper testing, it gives you the power to know what you need to fix to address the issue head-on. It’s not just about volume modification or taking the weights down.

 

It’s not about lathering icy hot on your knee and taking ibuprofen and just keep pushing. There has to be a better way. That’s really what I’ve tried to do to build your own adventure through the university.

All that I have to say, you’re the cool professor. You’re the cool professor with who I can play beer pong with and who’ll let you call him by their…

Definitely.

All that stuff. I want to follow this thread, pull at it a little bit. How your own athletic experience influences what you do today?

 

We’ve had some very, very talented, physical therapists on the podcast. I always kick myself after we’re done recording with them because I don’t ask them enough about their practice, oftentimes, and about, OK, you are an athlete.

 

Let’s think of this from the athlete’s perspective, and the experiential perspective of someone who does lift, who does squat every day or at one point did squat every day, and understands that you’re going to get frustrated if a medical professional tells you, “Well, just lift less.”

 

You’re like, “Well, that’s not the point of what I’m doing. I’m trying to do this at a level of competency where I can sustain it.” How did you originally get into weightlifting? Were you a physical therapist first or a weightlifter first? It’s an interesting chicken and egg scenario.

Exactly. There’s very few of us that have taken the path that I’m on. There’s definitely some out there that were a weightlifter in very first and foremost.

 

Growing up in high school, I was exposed to weightlifting for the very first time. We did the power three, your power clean, your squat, your deadlift thing, bench press, things like that growing up.

 

In high school, I was very fortunate enough to have a coach that knew a lot about the weightlifting movements. I never competed in weightlifting early on but I was exposed to learning the power clean and the full clean at eighth grade going into ninth grade.

 

We had 12 weightlifting platforms in our high school gym, eight leg curl barbells that he picked up from an international meet that was in the United States. I don’t think it was the 96 Olympic Games in Atlanta. After a lot of the bigger international meats, they will sell off a lot of the equipment that was used. He picked up seven or eight leg curl bar.

 

Most people listening, did your high school have leg curl equipment? Most of us can say no. I felt very privileged to have that ability.

 

When I got into college, I wanted to play baseball, and God so have it that I ended up hurting my elbow during try outs which was the best thing ever for me because I did not make the baseball team.

 

The next day, if you remember this is when Facebook first started, 2005, groups were a big thing. You were scrolling through groups at your university trying to connect with people and there’s the Iron Dog Olympic Weightlifting team. I’ve heard of Olympic weightlifting. I’ve never competed in it.

 

I went to the informational meeting. I already had my pair of weightlifting shoes too. I bought my first pair of weightlifting shoes when I was in high school. I knew about the sport enough to get weightlifting shoes and everything. They’re telling me all about the sport and how they train five, six days a week and then compete on the weekends.

 

I was like, “Wait. That’s amazing. I want to do that.” I started competing Fall 2005, and my very last meet was in 2016. The reason I took a step back from competing was only because a couple things.

 

I got married. I started Squat University so not only am I working 40 to 50 hours a week as a clinician seeing patients, I’m running a side business on my after hours trying to produce content every single day, writing my first book, still lifting as much as possible.

 

My wife’s like, “Hey, you can only have so many passions.” I’m like, “You know what, that’s true.” At the time, the last meet I had done was the 2015 American Open which is like the second-tier national meet in the US.

Some people actually considered it for a time the premier weightlifting event in the United States. Now the AO finals. It’s a big deal. It’s right up there with [inaudible 16:19] finals.

Exactly. At the time, I’ve believe the 2015 AO and this was in Reno, Nevada. This was the first mega meet, flashback four years prior 2011 US nationals, it was up in Iowa, maybe 350 competitors. There was an A and a B class and 85-kilo weight class. That’s it.

 

2015 American open and there was over 900. It was the first 900 plus person meet. It was crazy. I went from placing sixth in 2011 in the entire 85-kilo weight class, I think I placed 76.

 

Roughly made a couple of kilos more in my total but it was time for me to duck out. I was slowly getting swallowed up by all of the amazing athletes that were coming up at the time.

 

I’m done with competing but I’m still training as a weightlifter because it’s a sport that I love to do. Currently this week, I’m just starting a brand-new plan that I’m working with Chad Vaughn, a two-time Olympian, an amazing person in the sport. He’s programming for me so I still train Olympic weightlifting.

 

I’m 34 years old, and as anyone who’s 34 years old knows there’s a lot of aches and pains here and there. There’re issues. You’re not always 100 percent, so I’m constantly enjoying the process of being a weightlifter, which means I’m constantly tinkering, like a puzzle that is never finished. That is my life as a weightlifter.

1. Chad would’ve called you a spring chicken.

Exactly. That’s the thing too. As soon as the words went on my mouth, I was like, “Yeah, that’s not fair that way.” I really dislike when people say, “I’m getting so old.” I’m like, “Man, I’m 34 years old.”

 

Personally, I put up this type of post all the time on Instagram. I’m going to be doing clean and jerk squat well over 80. If you think about it like that, I’ve got a lot of way to go. I’m early in my lifting career, just constantly tinkering.

Your coach, Chad Vaughn, he’s a good friend of mine. He’s been on the podcast multiple times. I have absolutely adored Chad. He’s someone who lives this mantra of weightlifting for everyone no matter your age. This is a guy who almost won. He was literally a half-step away in the clean and jerk from winning nationals at 39. This is last year in Memphis, Tennessee.

 

This guy is, look, you don’t make it in two different Olympic Games without being pretty darn good at sport. I know he worked at a ton of Masters Athletes. Not that you’re quite there yet. He works with athletes of all ages. It’s something where it goes back to your practice.

 

Chad is someone…He was one of the first weightlifters I talked to, back before the days when it was in vogue. Saying, “Hey, work on your mobility without a barbell. Can you move without load?” I’ve had the privilege of doing a lot of color commentary with Chad at weightlifting events from small, all the way to big international events.

 

He’s the guy who would be deep in a squat, working on his squat patterning, loosening up, when we’re commentating on a session. He’s someone who really lives this practice. I didn’t know he was your coach. It’s awesome to hear you two are like a meeting of minds. The coach-athlete relationships are always special too.

The great thing about Chad is we definitely connect on that same idea of movement quality first. That’s originally when we first met and started working together. We collaborate all the time. We’re currently working on a full blog series and maybe drop to listeners an eventual book on Olympic weightlifting, wink, wink.

 

The idea is its movement quality first. We are constantly trying to improve our positional capacity, our mobility. If you can’t get in a full depth front squad with a full grip on the bar, elbows up high, and just sit there and feel comfortable, how are you going to get there when you’re doing a million miles an hour in a full clean.

 

It’s that idea that instantly we connected on. That’s why we’ve been able to create such great content and help so many Olympic weightlifters, improve upon those things that we all are trying to get at which is perfecting the two lifts on the competition platform.

Now, there’s something you said earlier, and I’m going to pull this thread as well. You mentioned earlier, your first book, which always implies a follow-up, and I believe that’s something that you’ve been deep in the weeds on working on for a bit, you have another book coming up?

Yes, the first book for those who have followed before [inaudible 20:57] just called “The Squat Bible,” it was basically your go to step-by-step process basically squatting for dummies, if you want to think about it like that.

 

We talked about before, creating your own path of figuring out specific strains to improve upon your squat pattern so that you can then load it with great technique, 128 pages to the point, you can read it in a weekend.

 

The second book is a whole another beast, that’s called “Rebuilding Milo.” It’s the lifters guide to dealing with common aches and pains that we have, in the gym.

 

Like I mentioned, there’s not a single strength athlete who doesn’t have something aching, their back, their hip, their knee, shoulder, elbow, something’s always bugging them that’s keeping them away.

 

As strength athletes in today’s world, if you are not privileged enough to have an amazing physical therapist, Cairo athletic trainer that you’re working with constantly, you’re often left to your best bet of — let me search on YouTube. Let me talk to a doctor who probably doesn’t understand lifting, he’s just going to tell me to stop lifting so much and take these pain pills.

 

There’s not really great options. You’re forced to either push through pain, and eventually things get worse, or you just take a lot of time off. That doesn’t even solve it a lot of times because I’ve had so many issues with athletes before they take a month off, and then they come back and their back hurts again.

 

My goal is to say, I want to help empower the athlete, I want to give you the knowledge that I have amassed over all these years working with some of the best athletes in the world, helping them get out of pain. I want to give it to you and speak to you in a way that you can understand as well. It’s 480 pages, it’s a big book.

 

But it is the lifter’s guide that should be with them for the rest of their life, so that in two months when that elbow starts flaring up, they can pull the book off the shelf, turn to the elbow chapter, and this is what it’s going to do.

 

It’s going to say, “Hey, here’s some common reasons for developing elbow pain. Here’s some tests. Try these. Based on what you find, do these exercises. How did you feel pivot here, do this. Here’s how you rebuild your body to not having any pain and doing exactly what you want to do, which is lift some big ass weight.”

 

The book is basically the lifters guide to getting out of pain from a physical therapy movement perspective. Now a lot of people have questions. Who’s Milo? I would think that most people listen to this podcast know who he is.

 

For those of you who do not know, Milo is an ancient Greek Olympian, considered by many to be one of the best athletes in the world at his time. As the story goes, Milo lifted a small calf to his shoulders, walked around with it every single day. As the calf grew into a full-size bull, obviously, so did Milo’s strength.

 

I believe, as the story goes, if you look it up, think he walked it all the way around the Olympic Stadium, killed the bull and ate it, or something like that. Basically, the idea behind the story is where we got the idea of modern-day periodization, which is progressive overload.

 

Now, the entirety of that is to say that there’s a scientific code that our body goes through and adheres to, especially when it comes to strength training, in that your body, as far as the way in which it progresses, cannot exceed its adaptive capabilities. If you go in the gym and you just lift, lift, lift every single day and you’re not recovering adequately, your body starts breaking down.

 

It can do so also if you have the greatest training program, but you’re not moving optimally as well. You’ve got a small ankle mobility imbalance side to side, and you’re doing a lot of squats. Eventually, as you’re squatting down, things are starting to twist, and it’s the smallest little issues that eventually can lead to this micro trauma of the chain, and eventually, pain ensues.

 

The idea is that in our pursuit of trying to become our own version of Milo, we fall short because we break this code and don’t allow our bodies to adapt to the program, either by using poor-quality technique or inappropriate loading schemes.

 

Today, we’re forced to either succumb to medical advice that’s not right for weightlifters, that’s just, “Take this medication.” We’re not helping each other out in that pursuit.

 

We should have a better way. We should have the ability. I don’t believe that these common aches and pains that we develop as strength athletes are medical issues. They’re issues that we all should have the power to change.

 

If you have a light bulb that goes out in your house, you shouldn’t have to call an electrician. You should know how to change your light bulb.

 

If your knee’s a little achy after some squats, you should know how to take the first steps to fixing that. If you have a great physical therapist, that’s awesome, use them. I know not many people have that ability. Often, when they do go to some medical practitioners, they get the wrong advice.

 

This book is my ability, my giving back to the community of everything that I’ve talked about for the last couple years with Squat University, to try to give every strength athlete that gift that I wish I had when I was 18 years old and coming up and dealing with that knee pain and not getting the right advice.

 

It comes out January 19th, 2021. It’s available for pre-order right now all over the world.

 

I’m super psyched to have it come out and see what we can do in the strength community.

I’m someone who could certainly get a lot of benefit from that, so I’m looking forward to popping open a copy and starting to work on that. Seems like almost a flowchart mentality of, “If this, then that.” I’ll consider that my homework from Squat University. We’re all doing virtual learning these days, so it makes sense.

 

Aaron, you told us about the book, really appreciate that. Where are the best places for people to keep up to date with the work you’re doing and the constant content I know that you’re always pushing out there, most of it for free, too?

Besides the two books I have, everything else is free. That’s a big thing that I wanted people to understand is that I’m here to help you. I don’t want to hide behind the $9.99 paywall. I’ve got a few things for people if you want to pick it up, but all my content is free, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, blog website, squatuniversity.com, podcast “Squat University.”

 

Then, also, if you’re on TikTok nowadays, I’m on TikTok, too, so everywhere you can find.

You are the TikTok star in waiting. You’re the next big thing in TikTok.

[laughs] I’m the next Carly.

Yeah.

Charlie.

What you need to do is, here’s an idea. OK. You identify movement restrictions in TikTok stars’ dancer, TikTokers as they dance.

Perfect.

You’re like, “Oh, heard the elbow flare on that move in the middle of ‘Renegade.’ What you could do…” and you start circling and pointing out. You prescribe corrective movement and patterning for TikTok stars.

That’s going to go viral. I’m using that. [laughs] I love it.

That’s either the worst idea in the world or the best idea I will ever have, and there is no in between.

I’ll make sure I try to [inaudible 27:45] in the comments.

Aaron, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. Big fan of what you do. Personally, at BarBend, we love what you do, and I hope there are more ways for us to work together but we’ll include all of the info on where to find you and where to find info on your books in the podcast description and accompanying posts on BarBend. Thanks again.

Thank you so much.