Erwan Le Corre & Gray Cook: Log Squats vs Weight Room Squats

Gray Cook and Erwan Le Corre discuss and explore log squats as alternatives to bar squats to reinforce better posture, breathing and movement quality.

Erwan: The visual feedback, because you may not see yourself, but you may feel yourself and you will feel the log on your shoulder and balance and gravity will tell you the best way to perform.

And the best way to perform will imply and demand movement quality, postural integrity and good breathing.

Gray: Perfect. So many people, including myself in high school, if you said, “Go squat that log,” we would immediately visualize it like the bar in the weight room, we’d try to get it across our shoulders, we wrap our arms over it and we would lift the same weight with absolutely no feedback. If we are going to lift the weight anyway, if we’re going to have the benefit of resistance anyway, why not have the benefit of resistance and feed back and an off-center load that we could then compare to the other side.

The exact same work is being done, but believe it or not, the efficiency is elevated, because as long as I am aligned under the load. The malalignment that I would have across my shoulders . . . there’s no communication. I have no feedback to tell me if I’m underneath the weight properly.

The malalignment with the weight on one shoulder is immediately perceived, I make the adjustment, the adjustment uses my skeletal system and my muscles together and that alignment actually reduces energy expenditure. It doesn’t increase it.


[afl_shortcode url=”https://www.otpbooks.com/product/gray-cook-erwan-lecorre-exploring-functional-movement-video/?ref=20″ product_id=’5002′]

[afl_shortcode url=”https://www.otpbooks.com/product/boris-bachmann-squat-talk-squat-rx/?ref=20″ product_id=’3218′]

[afl_shortcode url=”https://www.otpbooks.com/product/what-is-movnat-erwan-le-corre/?ref=20″ product_id=’3235′]