A common squatting fault, both in the front and back squats, is not finding the correct balance and weight distribution on your feet. In order to teach the proper technique, coaches will often use the cue “heels” to remind you that you should distribute your weight evenly across your feet. The ideal balance in a squat is to have the center of mass of you and the barbell over the middle of your foot. Why is the cue not “middle” or “balance”? There are several reasons, the first of which is that both of those are incredibly lame.

They also don’t help to correct the main problem, which is that you are attempting to balance yourself and added weight over the ball of your foot. In order to correct this, the best cue encourages you to over-correct and shift the weight to your heels. Hopefully you will try, and more importantly succeed in making a change that places the weight over the middle of your foot.

It may be hard for beginners to squat to full depth due to flexibility or strength imbalance. If flexibility is an issue, cueing may not improve squat technique. Instead it is more important to get into a good stretching routine that will loosen up hips/quads/hamstrings so that you will be able to reach the bottom of a squat easily.

If strength imbalance is the limiting factor, cueing may be a good way to solve the problem. usually people who squat on their toes are attempting to use their stronger quadriceps (the front part of the leg) to move the weight instead of engaging the hamstrings. Over time, and with constant reminders, cueing to place weight on the heels will strengthen the back of the leg enough so that the balance comes naturally. Other assistance exercises can be used to achieve this balance; however the squat, when properly executed, will usually the be most effective training tool for a begginer.

Good cueing can be done by both a head coach and spotters. In order to provide good cues you need to know several things; first are the technical errors that a lifter tends to make during the lift, second is a knowledge of the lift in general. When you know the errors that a lifter tends to make you can help them out by gently reminding them to correct their position before the get into it, yelling is the best means of this. For example if a lifter’s knees come in on the squat “knees out” is a common cue to prevent this. If a sport constantly reminds a lifter of the corrections they need to make, they will be more likely to make and keep making the change. If all the spotters focus on giving cues at the appropriate times then the lifter will have all of their technical bases covered.

Timing cues properly is an art that you have to learn through practice and knowledge of the individual that you are cueing. Some cues, such as “heels” (to correct forward movement of the bar can
be repeated constantly throughout the lift. Another cue that keeps the lifter balanced correctly is “back” often used when box squatting; this cue can be repeated constantly during the decent of the squat in order for the lifter to achieve the proper knee angle while on the box. A cue such as “head up” (to correct a lifter who is looking down) might only need to be stated once, assuming that the lifter responds to it.

Remember that each spotter in the lifting group will be rotating through the work and you will have to mentally re-tune yourself to the cues needed by each lifter. Through constant reinforcement all of the lifters in the group can improve.

Learning how to spot other lifters is a vitally important skill. It takes you from being an almost useless member of the gym to an asset. To be clear, by spotting I mean both being there to help in the event of a missed attempt and providing good cues while someone is lifting.

The physical aspect of being a spotter, helping with missed attempts, is an important skill to learn so that you and the athletes training with you can practice maximal attempts in a safe environment. An untrained spotter is a danger to both themselves and others. Generally speaking the lifts that require physical intervention from spotters are the squat and benchpress. This is not to say that spotters can’t be useful during other lifts; however your role as a spotter may be limited to cueing, covered in the second half of this blog post.

In both the squat and benchpress there are optimally 3 spotters. Two of the spotters stand on either side of the barbell to help lift the bar by the plates. The third spotter stands behind the lifter in the squat and on behind the rack in the benchpress. In the squat the third spotter has the job of supporting the lifters body in the event of a failure. The arms of the spotter reach around the lifter and touch the chest. Typically a spotter will hold their hands around the lifter but not touching the chest unless the lift is failed. In the bench press the third spotter stands ready to grab the bar in the event of failure.

It is important to note that the spotters should not touch the bar or lifter unless the attempt has clearly failed or is about to fail. The best way to judge this is bar movement. If the bar stops moving completely or begins to move backwards then spotters are needed. Otherwise the spotters should stick to cueing and get their workout in when it’s their turn to work. Look in any collegiate or commercial gym and you will see the two man benchpress workout. One works their ego while the other works their traps. Don’t let that be you.

Good cueing can be done by both a head coach and spotters. In order to provide good cues…

The next step in cue use is to let your training partners know about the cues that work for you. If the only person who knows what cues you need to hear is the coach and you have to go for a max effort attempt when they’re not around, your training partners can help you through the lift with the right cues. They get to take all the hard work your coach has done instructing you and remind you of the proper technique by saying a short phrase. That’s pretty sweet! Just make sure they know what you are trying to accomplish so that they can cue you at the right time.

Part three is to make sure you listen to your cues. This sounds so simple that it shouldn’t even be mentioned, but it is amazing how many times it is forgotten. When the weight gets heavy you need to pay attention to your cues even more because the margin of error becomes much smaller. The human mind has a tendency to shut out everything when the work gets hard and you have to fight through this to make sure you hear and respond to the technical advice being given to you. If you forget to pay attention to cues I bet you are forgetting your technique. Without this none of the hard earned strength you have built can be translated to the barbell.