The Mediterranean diet features simple, plant-based cooking, with much of each meal focused on fruits and vegetables, whole grains, beans and seeds, with a few nuts and a heavy emphasis on extra-virgin olive oil. Fats other than olive oil, such as butter, are consumed rarely, if at all, and sugar and refined foods should be avoided.

Red meat is used sparingly, usually only to flavor a dish. Eating healthy, oily fish, which are packed with omega-3 fatty acids, is encouraged, while eggs, dairy and poultry are eaten in much smaller portions than in the traditional Western diet.

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“In this study, adherence to the Mediterranean diet was a proxy for diet quality. Those who adhered most closely were eating more legumes, more vegetables, more fruits, less meat, and less processed meats,” said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine who founded the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine.

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Our hips are super mobile when we’re young (think about the hip mobility required to crawl, for instance). But as we grow, we tend to lose some of that mobility and develop more resistance in the hip joint. “Your squat position is actually dictated by your anatomy,” Weissman explains in the video. “How deep your hip sockets are, how mobile the hip is, how long the femur is, how mobile your ankle is—all of these things impact the range of motion of your squat.”( )

The good news is that there’s a lot we can do to mobilize the hips and achieve a deeper, more effective squat position. Just hit play to learn Weissman's squat secrete. ( )

3 Tips For A Deeper Squat

• Widen your stance. Adjust your foot position and stance width to accommodate your hip anatomy. If a traditional squat—with feet pointed straight ahead and a narrow stance (feet directly in line with the hips)—feels uncomfortable, try adding more space between your feet and rotating your toes out slightly.( )
• Elevate your heels. Tight ankles are one common roadblock when it comes to unlocking squat depth. Weissman recommends elevating your heels with weight plates (a rolled up yoga mat works well too) to compensate.( )
• Incorporate corrective exercises. Weissman suggests doing mobility exercises such as hip cars, butterfly stretches, kneeling lunges, as well as foam rolling to release tension in the glutes and deeper muscles such as the piriformis. "Find that tension, that pain, while you’re foam rolling, and hold, and then just breathe. Do that for 10 seconds, three to five times, and you’ll really notice a big difference," she advises. (She demos these exercises in the video!)
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