EVERYBODY IS STRONG!
THE BODYWEIGHT SQUAT JUST WASN’T HAPPENING Trainer Jon Flake knew it the moment Jalen McDaniels started trying to drop his 6’9” (205cm) frame into a crouch. McDaniels, a 2019 NBA draft hopeful, was beginning a workout at the Peak Performance Project facility in Santa Barbara, California. Known as P3, the gym frequently works with NBA players, and Flake, the lead performance specialist, has seen plenty of bad squats. “For many tall guys, the squat goes wrong in one of two ways,” he says. “Either they push their butt too far back or push their knees too far forward.” McDaniels was somehow fusing the two, and in this moment, he looked like he was crammed into an invisible clown car.
This wasn’t McDaniels’s fault. He hadn’t set up in a squat position that properly took into account his long limbs. Flake spotted this immediately. He handed McDaniels a trap bar, which instantly took stress off the player’s upper back and pushed him to keep his torso upright. McDaniels, who now plays for the Charlotte Hornets, started doing flawless reps, because he was doing a move custom-built for his body. “It’s always about finding the exercise that best suits the athlete,” says Flake.
That fit
