321: Katie St. Clair on Staggered Squats, Single Leg Mastery, and Dealing with High Foot Arches

Today’s episode features strength coach and biomechanics educator, Katie St. Clair. Katie been training general population and athletes for over 20 years, and is the creator of the Empowered Performance Program. She is one of my go-to sources of knowledge for all things biomechanics, and the finer details of human movement. She previously appeared on episode 279 of the podcast, speaking on biomechanical facets of running, lifting and athletic movement. Humans explore movement in a variety of ways as they grow from youth to adulthood. We skip, run, sprint, throw, bend and twist with substantial variability, all through the medium of self-learning. For some reason, as soon as weight lifting enters the picture, variation tends to go by the wayside, and a rigid bilateral (or even unilateral) method of moving that is pasted onto all athletes, is applied. Human beings are complex, we differ from one another, not only in our builds and structures, but also in how our bodies have compensated and compressed in particular ways over time. In this sense, our weightlifting programs should offer at least some room for each individual to learn more about the nuances of how each lift might be set up, or tweaked, in a manner the athlete could be optimally responsive to. On today’s show, Katie goes in detail on staggered-stance squatting and deadlifting, and how it can be leveraged based on the asymmetrical nature of an athlete’s body. She also gets into detail on single leg lifting, and how turning into, or away from the leg being worked can emphasize various elements of the exercise. She finishes by touching on hinging, posterior compression, and the link between high, rigid foot arches and what is happening upstream in the body. Throughout the conversation, Katie highlights how each of these lifting variations can be utilized to bring the athletic body into greater balance, where needed. Today’s episode is brought to you by SimpliFaster, Lost Empire Herbs, and the Elastic Essentials online course. For 15% off your Lost Empire Herbs order, head to lostempireherbs.com/justfly. To try Pine Pollen for FREE (just pay for shipping), head to: justflypinepollen.com View more podcast episodes at the podcast homepage. Timestamps and Main Points: 4:22 – The ideology behind staggered stance squatting, and how it can fit with athlete’s natural asymmetry 10:35 – What types of individuals would be the best candidates to give a left leg back, staggered squat to, in training 15:35 – The role of biofeedback in exploring squat and deadlift stance 25:00 – Thoughts on doing the stagger in a squat or deadlift one way, vs. both ways with athletes 31:06 – How to set athletes up, in a high-performance training program, to help them learn more about how their bodies work in a manner that will help them for a lifetime 44:11 – Single leg squat training with a turn at the top of the bottom to bias various elements of the gait cycle 48:30 – How to improve one’s pistol squatting on the left leg if an individual lacks the ability to internally rotate their left hip 58:25 – Katie’s thoughts on narrow and wide ISA’s, and how to look at deadlifting and hinging from that perspective 1:10:49 – Where to start with someone with high arches, or “banana feet”, and how the pelvic floor plays into that 1:21:38 – Using the pigeon stretch for clients with posterior compression in wide ISA’s vs. narrow ISA’s “Because of our natural asymmetry and organ position, the pelvis starts to turn to the right” “There are so many ways that the body is clever about maintaining that forward motion” “I used to do drills where I would reset my pelvis more back to the left, to get myself in a good position, and then go squat, but it still didn’t feel right….(but instead) In adding load and pulling my left foot back and sensing the outside of my left heel and inside of my right heel; just that little tiny maneuver, it’s just a game changer. I use it on all my squats” “If somebody doesn’t have issues with squatting, I don’t mess with (putting the left foot slightly behind)” “(Reasons to add in the staggered stance left-leg back squat) If every time they squat, it irritates some area, or if they have a big shift into the right, or as a repositioning activity for people higher in their training age who don’t want to do breathing drills’ “A regular deadlift with a barbell, sometimes I’ll take just a tiny step back and off-set that” “Doing a split clean where athletes can create more sensory awareness naturally, because they are not in a bilateral stance, is super useful” “(After giving a large group different variations of an exercise) I’ll say, on this last set, pick which one felt better for you” “When you have athletes who are stronger and more resilient, you might not need all of this (biomechanics) stuff” “You can’t go where to already are, if you are shoved forward” “Creating stiffness is good if you already have a lot of suppleness and laxity” “In a split squat, if the left side is in anterior tilt and outflared, when I go down in that mid-range of a split squat I am getting back internal rotation of the pelvis naturally” “If I go down in a single leg/split squat, and turn towards that leg, I am getting even more of that internal rotation” “If I turn towards the leg on the way up, I am biasing external rotation” “A lot of people are going to be horrible at left leg pistol squatting” “I would do a heel elevated on the left to get your pelvis underneath you; in terms of the internal rotation component, you want to get into a mid-range split squat and drive that internal rotation…. Some people are good at the top and the bottom, but they are limited by that mid-range” “Skaters are great if you are tighter on the backside, and you are a narrow and you have more of an ER bias, because they are more of a hinge position; as you are hinging down you are opening up the back of the pelvis naturally” “Keep the big toe on the floor as you turn away, and don’t just let the knee cave in” “The assessment test I use mostly now is standing rotation” “A wide ISA without a lot of compensations who moves really well, can typically deadlift pretty easily… having said that, there are wide’s with a multiple layers of compression who have a tight pelvic floor, and when they go to hinge they are equally creating those strategies of hinging the back or rounding the back… because they cannot open up the back-side of the pelvis” “Narrows are generally going to be more compressed on the backside of the pelvis so they are going to have a really hard time with a hinge” “Over-arching I see more in someone who is already in an extension pattern, and so their go-to is to go into more lordosis and hinge from the lumbar rather than letting the sacrum tilt forward” “She (Stacey) has people put a foam roller on the wall, and has them push their knee into the foam roller (facing the wall) so they stay over the mid-foot and then hinge back… so you are maintaining that dorsiflexed mid-foot stance while your hips go back” “That’s where I’ll have people breathe if they have tight pelvic floors (in a hinge position)” “Just try to contract your pelvic floor and touch your toes, you are not going to be successful” “If you are tight in your external rotators in general, you are going to be living on the outside edge of your feet” “As I lift up the big toe, the heel goes back, and that helps close-pack the talus up into the tib-fib to create that rigid structure to push you off” “(If tight pelvic floor is causing high-arch banana feet) I’d recommend pigeon stretches” “(Toes up wedges) is taking the slack out of the windlass mechanism and allowing the calcaneus to tilt forward” “There’s some “roll the bottom of your foot”; I would try that too, and then do some of the pronation drills with your foot to try and get more out of them” “If I got my wide ISA with a flat butt, tight external rotators and a sway back, they are getting a pigeon stretch all of the time… if they are a narrow ISA, I’d prefer for them to do more of a hip shift type of exercise, because a pigeon is producing more external rotation” Show Notes Staggered Stance Squat https://www.instagram.com/p/Cg4UOslFxNc/ Tight Posterior Pelvic Floor Description and Releases https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNWkhMkDwEA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMovhOulIWM About Katie St. Clair Katie is a wife, mom, strength coach, educator, business owner, and lover of all things movement. After 20+ years in the industry, Katie decided to create an educational program based on her passion for seeing other women excel in the industry as leaders and educators. There was a time when life got in the way and she couldn’t be the professional she wanted to be because she had to put her family first. She has spent the past 5 years embarking on a journey of learning and combining that knowledge with her love of athletic movement, as well as her passion for empowering female movement professionals, with the intent to elevate the entire industry standard.