Do you dream of effortlessly performing pistol squats?
Do you find it hard to squat ass-to-the-grass?
Do you want to improve your balance and coordination?
Do you have tight hamstrings and weak core muscles?
Unlocking the pistol squat addresses all of these issues.
Your journey to mastering this impressive feat begins here, with our Unlock The Pistol Squat Program.
🏆 Benefits You'll Experience: 🏆
🦵Strength and Muscle Engagement: The pistol squat uniquely challenges the lower body muscles. The quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes, and calves are actively engaged in maintaining stability and executing the movement. This exercise's unilateral nature also encourages balanced muscle development.
🦵Balance and Proprioception: Maintaining balance during a pistol squat requires symmetrical coordination between muscles and the brain. This engagement of proprioceptive senses—the body's ability to perceive its position—improves overall balance and enhances body awareness.
🦵Functional Fitness: Pistol squats mimic real-life movements, such as walking down stairs, climbing over high surfaces, and balancing on one leg. By mastering this exercise, you're enhancing your functional fitness and making everyday activities easier.
🦵Flexibility and Mobility: Achieving a proper pistol squat requires a decent amount of hip, ankle, and hamstring flexibility. Regular practice can improve your range of motion in these areas.
🦵Core Activation: As the body moves through the pistol squat motion, the core muscles play a pivotal role in maintaining an upright posture and holding the front foot off the floor. This translates to improved core strength and stability in daily life.
How Unlock Your Pistol Squats Works:
Detailed program cards that guide your balance, strength, flexibility and skill building journey.
Step-by-step video tutorials for all exercises.
E-book containing the why behind each training phase.
When you download Get Your Pistols Out, we’ll email you all of these goodies right away.
Program Details
There are 4 phases of training
Each phase is 4-weeks long
There are two sessions per week in each phase
Each session is roughly 60minutes of training, including the warm-ups
Equipment List
The equipment you'll need is:
Elevated Surfaces for calf raises and progressive step-ups
Barbell and weights for back squats**
Dumbbells or Kettlebells
Skipping rope
Gymnastics Rings
Yoga Block
** In 2/4 of the phases, there are barbell back squats. If you don't have a barbell, you can use dumbbells or kettlebells to load your squats.
🌟 Why Choose Our Program?
✅ Gymnastics Expertise: Our program has been crafted by coaches passionate about gymnastics strength training and understanding the nuances of body control, balance, and strength. We've distilled years of experience into a comprehensive program that will guide you toward achieving the perfect pistol squat.
✅ Progress at Your Pace: Our program caters to all skill levels, whether you're a complete beginner or an intermediate adult gymnastic skill seeker looking to refine your skills. Each program phase builds upon the last, offering a structured and adaptable approach to skill acquisition.
✅ Sustainable Training: We don't just focus on the pistol squat alone. Our program integrates a variety of gymnastics-inspired exercises that enhance your overall body awareness, flexibility, balance, and strength, setting the stage for your pistol squat success.
✅ Comprehensive Workouts: Unleash your body's potential with carefully curated workouts that focus on building the balance, strength and flexibility required for the pistol squat. Our workouts are designed to maximize your progress while minimizing the risk of injury.
✅ Video Tutorials: Visual learning is powerful. Our program includes detailed video tutorials that break down every aspect of the skill. You'll have a front-row seat to proper execution, ensuring you understand and master each technique.
✅ Personalised Support: We're here for you every step of the way. If you have questions, need feedback, or want to share your progress, our dedicated support team is just an email away.
Foot/Ankle Strength and Flexibility
One of the biggest limitations stopping adults from unlocking the pistol squat is a lack of ankle flexibility and foot strength.
A lack foot strength impact balance, and a lack of ankle dorsiflexion limits the accessible range of motion which impacts squat depth.
Therefore, it's essential to build a strong a stable base of support to unlock the pistol squat.
It's for this reason calf raises, barefoot skipping, balance drills, and unique foot strengthening exercises are all included in the program.
Knee Strength and Stability
Pistol squats demand a high level of knee flexion and knee stability.
At the bottom of the pistol squat, the hamstring must cover the calves. To achieve this, the knee extensors (quads), must lengthen while the distal point of the hamstrings shorten.
Flexible quads and strong hamstring are therefore essential for pistol squat success. Stretching the quads before performing knee flexion movements such as hamstring curls on the rings is a excellent way increase knee flexion strength.
The knee is a stability joint, and this stability comes from the muscles and joints above and below the knee. Unstable ankles or hips often causes unstable knees.
The main muscle above and below the knees are the calves, hamstrings, adductors (inner thigh) and quads (mainly the VMO). Exercises like step-ups, Romanian deadlifts, calf raises, hack squats, and hamstring curls are used throughout the program to build strong and stable knees.
Hip Strength & Stability
Glutes, quads, adductors, hamstrings, obliques, quadratus lumborum, deep hip flexors, and the abdominals all work together to stabilise and move the hips.
The pelvis is the base of support for the spine. When the pelvis is unstable, we often experience unwanted spinal rotation, flexion or extension. We also see pelvis rotation, tilt and hiking. It's not what we want to see when working towards our first pistol squat.
Besides the lower body exercises that target the quads, hamstrings and adductors, the program also includes specific oblique and QL exercises such as side planks and side bends.
In addition to that, we also work on stretching the hip flexor muscles which are often tight in adults due to long period of sitting.
Tight hip flexors limit glute strength and effect the position of the pelvis and its ability to move. Tight hip flexors can also cause lower back pain, so we want to do our best to lengthen and strengthen them.
Hamstring Strength and Flexibility
The hamstring muscles work to extend the hip and flex the knee. Both are required in the pistol squat.
In the concentric phase of the pistol squat, the quads are doing most of the work to extend the knee and stand up. We don't often consider the importance of knee flexion in movements like squats and step-ups because the hamstring don't need to contract to pull us into the bottom position, gravity does the work for us.
The distal end of the hamstring (knee end) is shortening as we squat down, whereas the proximal end of the hamstring (at the hip) is lengthening. It makes sense that we want strong hamstring and glutes to help extend the hips and stand up, but do we need to train strengthen knee flexion?
This is where structural balance is essential, especially regarding the knee joint. If we only train the knee extensors, we cause an imbalance in the knee muscles. This can lead to knee pain or even injury.
To avoid this, we need to train both knee extension and knee flexion.
The muscles on either side of a joint work together to control and move the joint. I like to think of this as a pulley system - as one muscle is shortening, the opposite is lengthening. Tension on both sides of the pulley (joint) allows the pulley system to move smoothly.
If there isn't tension on both sides of the pulley, the pulley won't function correctly.
It makes sense that the level of force being produced on one side of the pulley must be controlled by the level of force on the opposite side.
Our ability to produce force in the agonist muscle (the muscle contacting to move the joint) is therefore limited by the force of the ant-agonist muscle (the muscle lengthening as the joint moves).
In simple terms, high levels of force production require the muscles on both sides of the joint (pulley) to be strong.
That's why you'll see movements like hamstring curls on the rings and harp curls in the pistol squat program.
Hip Flexion and Extension
The hamstring muscle also helps to extend the hips. Movements like RLD and Goodmorning help to strengthen the hamstrings as hip extensors.
In movements like pistol squats, we also need to have a certain level of hip flexion, as the front leg must stay off the floor at the bottom of the pistol squat.
This level of hip flexion requires hamstring flexibility. If you've got tight hamstrings, you will find it hard to keep the front leg straight and the foot off the floor.
This is why we recommend focusing on the range of motion in the RDLs and Goodmorning included in the program. We can use these movements to lengthen the hamstrings.
The program includes pike flexibility and core compression exercises to help strengthen the anterior chain while lengthening the posterior chain.
If you've got tight hamstrings and find it hard to keep the front leg straight and the foot off the floor, you might like to check out the FREE Core Compression and Forward Fold Flexibility Program on the TSTM website.
Core Compression Strength
The deep hip flexor muscles and the lower abdominals are used to lift the non-working leg off the floor as we move down in the pistol squat.
Hamstring flexibility is essential, but you're also going to need the strength core compression strength.
An aesthetically pleasing pistol squat is performed with the non-working leg straight. This create a long lever that must be supported by the core compression muscles.
This is where movements like supine leg raises, standing leg raises, and seated pike leg lifts become essential.
Strong core compression muscles also improve stability and the ability to produce lower body force.
Unlock The Pistol Squat For:
$150.00AUD
$400.00AUD
FAQ
What are the prerequisites?
The only prerequisite for the Unlock, The Pistol Squat Program, is that you're not carrying any injuries. If you've got an injury and want help fixing it, don't hesitate to contact us for individual design coaching.
What are the commitment levels?
2 x 60min sessions per week
There are 4 phases, each lasting four weeks—a total of 12 weeks of training.
Can I combine this program with my other training sessions?
Yes. We recommend doing something other than a lower-body day 1-2 days before/after these sessions. If you have muscle tightness/soreness, it’s best to do light movement and not sit still. Go for a swim, walk, an easy jog, or even a Yoga class.
But feel free to train your upper body, pay for sport, or attend a fitness class around the pistol squat sessions.
Can I use a phase for more than four weeks?
Yes, you can. Some adults find it helpful to continue on a particular phase for 6-8 weeks. The phases are progressive, so if you move ahead and find the next phase difficult, you can go back and do another week
or two on the previous phase. The goal and intention of each phase are covered in the ebook.
What if I cannot do one of the exercises?
If you are having trouble with a particular exercise, you can look at the previous phase to see what the regression of the movement might be. If you get stuck, you can contact our coaching team for assistance, feedback, and support.
If you’ve got a question, contact us, and we’ll get back to you ASAP.