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

More show notes at https://www.just-fly-sports.com/podcast-321/ 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.com, 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