The squat should be a staple exercise in every gym-goer’s program. Whether your goal is simply to build strength, achieve hypertrophy, improve acceleration or increase your jumping ability, the squat is a tool for all of these purposes. Besides working the muscles of your legs, hips, abdomen and lower back, squats stimulate growth and development throughout your body, as their training effects also extend to your arms and other muscles not mentioned above.
Put simply, squatting involves placing a barbell loaded with your chosen weight across your shoulders, bending your knees and hips to descend into the bottom position, known as “the hole,” then rising back to a standing position. Next, we will break down the squat and its technique.
Body position/starting position
Body position and posture during a squat vary considerably from person to person, but one rule applies to everyone who wants to progress and reach their potential: keep your feet flat on the floor throughout the squat, without rocking onto your heels or the balls of your feet. As a general rule, the combined center of gravity of your body and the bar should sit over the middle of your feet, with your weight distributed evenly across them. However, it is generally better and more efficient to drive upward with your weight shifted slightly toward your heels. This helps maintain the bar’s position and prevents excessive forward lean. To develop a feel for squatting with a slight emphasis on your heels, you can even practice with a light weight and your toes raised, shifting more pressure onto your heels. Your feet should be at least shoulder-width apart; some lifters use a stance twice that wide. The narrower your stance, the greater the load and emphasis on your quadriceps, and the considerably longer the distance you and the bar have to travel. A wider stance, also known as sumo style, is more common among powerlifters because it is mechanically more efficient: the bar has a shorter distance to travel. Still, when it comes to setting records, neither style can be said to have an advantage over the other—both have been used successfully. A sumo stance brings the hip adductors and biceps femoris more into play.
Lifters with longer legs generally tend to use a wider squat stance than shorter lifters, although there are, of course, exceptions. And as mentioned, the wider your stance, the more your biceps femoris, glutes and adductors contribute (1).
Your shins should remain as vertical as possible, or close to vertical, throughout the squat—as though you were sitting down. This significantly reduces the opening of the knee joint, along with the load and shear forces acting on it. The less pressure and load you place on your knees, the more work shifts to the large muscles surrounding your hips, and the harder these muscles have to work. Keeping your shins more vertical also benefits powerlifters because, again, it shortens the distance the bar has to travel. The farther your knees move forward during a squat, the lower your hips must descend to reach below parallel. This is also a requirement in competition.
There are many different schools of thought on squat depth—in other words, how low you should go. Many people who are misinformed or lack sufficient knowledge warn against squatting below parallel, claiming it will ruin your knees. Nothing could be further from the truth (2).
Stopping at or above parallel actually places a substantial load directly on your knees, whereas a deep squat shifts the load to your hips (3), which can handle considerably greater forces and loads than your knees. Believe it or not, various studies have shown that squats place less compressive force on the knee joint than leg presses and leg extensions (4). To develop functional strength, you should squat as deeply as possible with control. While many people do perform squats explosively, this is more the exception than the rule. Dropping ballistically into a deep squat is indeed unhealthy.
The deeper you descend, the more your biceps femoris muscles are recruited. With correct squat technique, the biceps femoris is actually twice as active as it is during leg presses or leg extensions (5, 6), since one of its functions is to protect the patellar tendon—the tendon connecting the patella to the shinbone. This tendon bears most of the load when you straighten your leg or perform a leg extension.
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The biceps femoris is actually activated during a leg extension as well, and the greater its activation, the more protection your knee joint receives during a squat (7). This is particularly relevant if you are a powerlifter, since the top of your leg at the hip must descend below the top of your leg at the knee joint when you squat. In other words, your hips must go slightly below knee level.
Knee injuries are supposedly a common problem associated with squatting, although in reality this applies to people who do not know how to squat with correct technique. A correctly performed squat places an appropriate load on the knee (8, 9). A more accurate description would be that it increases knee joint stability and protects the knee against various shear forces. Appropriate loading helps your knee joint adapt and prepares it for progressively greater loads. When included in a training program over the long term, squats, like many other exercises, improve collagen turnover, resulting in hypertrophy of the joints and ligaments.
At least one study has confirmed that international-caliber weightlifters and powerlifters had a low incidence of symptomatic arthritis (12).
Another criticism leveled at squats is that they reduce knee stability. Again, nothing could be further from the truth. Research has shown that squats actually improve knee joint stability by reducing joint laxity and instability (13, 14). In fact, squats have been used as a rehabilitation exercise for many injuries (15).
To be continued…
References
1. Stance width and bar load effects on leg muscle activity during the parallel squat. McCaw ST; Melrose DR Med Sci Sports Exerc, 31(3):428-36 1999 Mar
2. Ariel, B.G., 1974. Biomechanical analysis of the knee joint during deep knee bends with a heavy load. Biomechanics. IV(1):44-52.
3. High- and low-bar squatting techniques during weight-training. Wretenberg P; Feng Y; Arborelius UP, Med Sci Sports Exerc, 28(2):218-24 1996 Feb
4. An analytical model of the knee for estimation of internal forces during exercise. Zheng N; Fleisig GS; Escamilla RF; Barrentine SW, J Biomech, 31(10):963-7 1998 Oct
5. Biomechanics of the knee during closed kinetic chain and open kinetic chain exercises. Escamilla RF; Fleisig GS; Zheng N; Barrentine SW; Wilk KE; Andrews JR Med Sci Sports Exerc, 30(4):556- 69 1998 Apr
6. A comparison of tibiofemoral joint forces and electromyographic activity during open and closed kinetic chain exercises. Wilk KE; Escamilla RF; Fleisig GS; Barrentine SW; Andrews JR; Boyd ML Am J Sports Med, 24(4):518-27 1996 Jul-Aug
7. Chandler TJ and Stone MH. (1991) The squat exercise in athletic conditioning: a review of the literature. NSCA Journal. 13(5): 58-60.
8. Hsieh, H. and P.S. Walker. 1976. Stabilizing mechanisms of the loaded and unloaded knee joint. Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery. 58A(1):87-93.
9. Uhl, T.L. and P.V. Loubert. 1990. Axial compression effect on anterior displacement of the in vivo tibeofemoral joint. Master’s thesis, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
10. Herrick, R.T., Stone, M.H. and Herrick, S. 1983. Injuries in strength-power activities. Powerlifting USA. 7(5):7-9.
11. Panariello, R.A., Backus, S.I., and Parker, J.W. 1994. The effect of the squat exercise on anterior-posterior knee translation in professional football players. American Journal of Sports
Medicine. 22(6):768-773.
12. Steiner, M.E., Grana, W.A., Chillag, K., and Schelberg-Karnes, E. The effect of exercise on
anterior-posterior knee laxity. 1986. American Journal of Sports Medicine. 14(1): 24-29.
13. Palmitier, R.A., Kai-Deca-Durabolin – nandrolone decanoate – , A., Scott, S.G., and Chao,
E.Y.S. 1991. Kinetic chain exercise in knee rehabilitation. Sports Medicine. 11(6):402-413.
Author: Janar Rückenberg (translation)
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