What a squat can tell you about how your body moves
Nicola Tik
The overhead squat is one of the most informative movement assessments available because it asks the whole body to work together at once. How the body moves through that pattern reveals a great deal about the relationship between mobility, stability, and strength across multiple areas simultaneously. This article explains what the overhead squat is assessing, what a lower score tends to reflect, and how to move toward a better result.
The overhead squat combines ankle flexibility, hip mobility, thoracic spine extension, shoulder mobility, and the ability of the trunk to remain stable and upright while the lower body moves through a deep range. Those demands happen simultaneously, which is what makes it such an informative test. A limitation in any one of those areas tends to show up as a visible compensation somewhere in the movement pattern.
Common patterns include the heels rising from the floor, which tends to reflect limited ankle flexibility. The trunk folding forward excessively reflects limited hip mobility or thoracic extension. The arms dropping forward reflects limited shoulder mobility. Most people show a combination of more than one of these patterns, which is entirely normal and simply points toward the areas that will benefit most from attention.
The movement qualities the overhead squat assesses are not just relevant to the test itself. Ankle flexibility, hip mobility, thoracic extension, and trunk stability all underpin the quality of everyday movements like bending, lifting, reaching, and climbing stairs. When these qualities are well developed, the body distributes load effectively across multiple joints during movement. When they are limited, the body compensates in ways that tend to concentrate load in fewer areas, most often the lower back and knees, over time.
Improving dynamic posture does not just improve how you perform in the test. It tends to improve how the body feels and functions across a wide range of daily and recreational activities.
Sustained sitting and limited varied movement are the most common contributors to restricted dynamic posture. Ankle flexibility reduces when the calves and Achilles tendon are not regularly moved through their full range. Hip mobility reduces when the hips are held in a flexed position for most of the day. Thoracic extension reduces when the upper back is sustained in a rounded position over time. Each of these is a common consequence of modern sedentary patterns rather than anything more significant.
Trunk stability tends to be lower when the core muscles have not been regularly challenged through varied and progressive movement. This is very responsive to targeted work and tends to improve relatively quickly with consistent effort.
Improving dynamic posture involves working on several areas alongside each other rather than focusing on one in isolation. Ankle and calf mobility work, hip flexor and hip mobility exercises, gentle upper back extension movements, and core stability work done consistently over several weeks tends to produce meaningful improvement in the overhead squat pattern.
Bodyweight squatting practice, working within a comfortable range and gradually deepening it as mobility improves, is both a useful training tool and a way of tracking progress directly in the movement being assessed.
Staying generally active and including varied movement in the week, walking, swimming, or any activity that moves the body through a range of positions, supports the mobility gains that more targeted work produces.
If you would like to try a guided exercise for mobility and dynamic movement, VIDA has a short video you can follow at your own pace.