By the end of this newsletter, I’ll show you how I got rid of lower body pain in 7 easy steps. As a bonus, you’ll be able to do something cool that you couldn’t before.
Here’s what you’re going to take away from this newsletter:
1. The 3 things you need to regain your resting squat
2. Why those 3 basic functions matter.
3. The movements you need to regain those functions
4. The numbers for reps, sets, and frequency you need to see change.
My whole lower body malfunctioned when I blew my back out. Because of this dysfunction, certain muscle groups started to lock up, which threw off my ability to stand and walk without pain.
You need to know what I discovered because I understand how pain can ruin even the most fun activities. I went to Disney and was in pain for 20,000 steps a day.
It should have been awesome, but it was terrible.
If getting rid of lower body and back pain is so easy, why aren’t more people fixing themselves?
Well it’s twofold. First, they don’t have a templated plan to blindly follow. This is important because when you’re in pain and tired, you need to be able to do things on autopilot and trust that the process will work.
Second, they don’t know it’s fixable. Muscle pain can be fixed. Unless there is a metal spike in your back that hasn’t been removed, then progressively loading and working on range of motion will often fix your pain. Trust me.
I realized that something is dreadfully wrong if I can’t rest in the kneeling and squatting positions like a normal functioning human.
SO I FIGURED REGAINING THOSE POSITIONS WOULD REDUCE MY PAIN
Let’s go.
You need three basic things to do a rock bottom resting squat where your hamstrings rest on your calves.
And they are:
1. Ankle flexion (how close your toes get to your shins)
2. knee flexion (heel to butt)
3. hip flexion (knee to chest)
When all three of those are combined, you can do a deep squat with the heels on the ground.
Let’s talk about how to get each of these.
Getting More Ankle Flexion:
Ankle flexion we will get from calf raises. But instead of using massive weight, your goal is to get a maximal stretch at the bottom and a maximal contraction at the top.
We have two big groups of calf muscles and we need to strengthen and stretch both.
The gastrocnemius is the ball of muscle right under your knee.
The other muscle is your Soleus. You use the Soleus muscle mostly when your knee is bent.
So do 10 calf raises with a straight leg and then put a good bend into the knee and do 10 more.
I do regular loaded calf raises for growth on different days, but for mobility days, we stay focused on range of motion.
But we’re not done yet. After warming up the muscle with the calf raises we need 30 seconds of passive stretching using the wall.
All you have to do is put your toes up against the wall, keep the knee straight, and bring your body close to the wall.
Then after 30 seconds of straight leg, switch to the other leg. Do this twice.
Then do the same stretch with a bent knee for the Soleus.
If you stay consistent and do that 3 times a week for a month, you’ll have the ankle mobility you need.
Getting More Knee Flexion:
Knee flexion comes down to doing split squats, but they are too hard normally if you have knee pain. So use a chair.
All you have to do is put your foot on top of it and try and get to a maximal knee bend without pain. Then press out of it as far as you can without your foot coming off the chair.
By using the chair you’re lightening the load, so there’s not so much pressure being slammed into your knee the whole time. I found blood flow heals, so I did 50 reps of this low-intensity movement in a row.
Getting More Hip Flexion:
Keep the chair but now we sit. Widen your legs as much as possible. Grow tall and keep the back perfectly flat. No rounding or hyperextending. Now lower forward toward the floor and pause where you feel that stretch.
This is a bodyweight good morning exercise.
You could feel a significant stretch in your groin, glutes, or sometimes your back. All these are good. You feel it where you need it compared to someone else.
If you’re comfortable with your back and you don’t have back pain you can also try a 30-second rounded back stretch on the last rep. Now you can let the back relax and round down to the floor to improve forward rounding for things like the pistol squat later.
Once you get more advanced, you can put your hands behind or above your head to increase resistance and stretch.
Do these like a normal exercise instead of a stretch and do three sets of 10 reps.
If you treat this routine seriously and do it consistently over time, a deep squat will become a fun and cool resting position for you in any surrounding. This includes Disney World.
1. Calf raise 10 reps
2. Soleus Raise 10 reps
3. Calf stretch 30 seconds x2
4. Soleus stretch 30 seconds x2
5. Split squat 30-50 reps
6. Kneeling pumps 30 and rest 30 seconds
7. Seated good mornings 3×10 reps alternated with #8
8. (surprise!) Seated knee lifts one foot on the ground, hands pushing into chair 3×10
We are all stretched out, warm and a little fatigued. Now we strengthen the movement pattern just a bit to lock it in.
We do that by doing two sets of 10 repetitions of our best full range squat.
That’s it.
I hope you found this helpful and take to heart what I just laid out for you. It’s taken me a long time to weed through all the information out there and come up with this simple action plan.
Use it and fix yourself.
Have a great day,
Raymond Burton
P.S. – This is the first unedited blueprint for going from limping to being able to rest in the kneeling and squatting positions without pain.
Shortly I will be adding video and further explanations and selling it as a mini course.
When you see it, know that you already have the info and don’t need to buy it.
That is of course unless you just want more details and to see the video examples.