The back squat, universally hailed the king of leg exercises, holds a timeless place within the realm of strength training. It’s a basic barbell movement that challenges not only your physical strength, but mental strength as well.
The rationale it’s such a tricky exercise to overcome has to do with not only muscular power, but muscular coordination, as well. (1) While you perform the classic barbell squat, you’re recruiting multiple muscle groups at the identical time, from head to toe, while coordinating your effort amongst the physical and technical demands of the exercise.
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While many exercises can have their place in a leg workout, in the event you’re in search of to reinforce the muscular density and strength of your lower body, the back squat is the undisputed champion. It puts your muscles to the test, because it demands a level of metabolic dedication that’ll trigger a spike in growth hormone that plays a job in stimulating hypertrophy. (2)
Take a better look and concentrate on the mechanics of the squat, the muscles recruited, and a few easy and effective variations that may enable you to get probably the most out of the time-tested back squat.
What Muscles Do Squats Work?
How you can Do the Squat— A Technique Guide
The barbell back squat can appear deceptively easy at first — put the bar in your back, squat down, and get up. Nevertheless, there are a lot of details to this lift that may often be neglected, equivalent to specific bar placement, hand and foot position, and the posture of your head and neck.
Here’s a step-by-step guide to performing the squat, together with some tricks to develop into a greater squatter. Safety is crucial. Ensure to use all of those steps for each individual repetition to not only get stronger, but to coach smarter, too.
Step One — Set the Barbell Height
Set the barbell at shoulder-height in a squat rack. While you grip the bar, position your arms parallel to the bottom, ensuring a snug grip width that suits your shoulder mobility. Starting with a shoulder-width grip is beneficial, but adjust to your individual balance of mobility and stability.
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Coach’s Tip: In the event you encounter difficulties along with your shoulder mobility, perform an intensive upper-body warm-up before starting your leg workout to enhance your shoulder and chest mobility.
Step Two — Position the Bar and Create a Shelf
Make a choice from using either a high bar or low bar placement. What deciphers between a high bar or low bar position is whether or not the barbell is above your rear deltoids, or on top of (or below) your rear deltoids.
A high-bar squat tends to emphasise the knee joint which might recruit more quadricep dominance than a low-bar squat, which might place the burden closer to the hip joint to recruit the glute muscles. Select the bar placement that aligns along with your training goals.
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“Constructing a shelf” helps to create an area for the barbell to take a seat comfortably on the upper back to squat. To construct a shelf, retract your scapulae (shoulder blades) and tighten your upper back to create a stable shelf for the bar to rest on.
Ensure your elbows are positioned underneath the bar, further securing it and promoting higher posture. In case your elbows aren’t under the bar or near perpendicular to the ground, your upper back might lose tightness and cause your spine to bend forward.
Coach’s Tip: To assist keep your elbows underneath the bar, explore your grip width on the bar. The broader the grip, the more mobility your shoulder can have to support this aspect of your squatting performance.
Step Three — Unrack the Weight and Set Your Stance
Lift the barbell off the J-hooks and take two steps back. In the event you’ve set your barbell height accurately, it needs to be relatively easy to unrack the burden. When stepping back, keep the initial step small, because the second step is primarily used to regulate your stance. Avoid stepping too far back, as it will make it more difficult to re-rack the burden later.
Your stance significantly influences muscle engagement. For a more quadriceps-focused squat, go for a better stance along with your toes forward or barely outward. Athletes should keep their feet forward to mimic the stance of their specific sport. (3)
In the event you are in search of maximum squat strength, angle your toes barely outward to be certain that your knees stay outward in a more advantageous position. If you need to engage your hips more, stand wider and switch your toes outward — a way often utilized by powerlifters and strongman competitors.
Coach’s Tip: The strongest and comparatively biggest muscles of the body are your glutes. If you need to maximize strength, you need to use a more “glute-dominant” variation of the squat. Ensure your feet are slightly wider than a traditional stance, along with your toes outward. Think about using a low-bar position, as well.
Step 4 — Head Position
To take care of a flat and rigid spine throughout the squat, be certain that you position your head barely down at roughly a 45-degree angle. This head placement helps flatten the cervical spine — the vertebrae of your neck — which helps influence the remainder of your spine to stay stable throughout the lift.
Coach’s Tip: In the event you struggle to have good posture, start off along with your head barely facing down, but, as you perform the squat, keep your head barely forward until you hit your sticking point moving upward. When you hit that sticking point, tilt your head up and forward to assist influence your spine to “get taller.” This could put you in a greater position and improve your squat.
Step Five — Time to Squat
After the detailed means of organising in position, it’s time to perform the squat itself.
- Initial Phase: Before starting the descent, brace your core by taking a deep breath through your belly, increasing pressure inside your abdominal cavity. This method enhances lower back rigidity and overall posture. Think about using a lifting belt for added support. To maintain the brace in your core, breathe through your nose, and don’t allow your shoulders to rise during your initial breath.
- Descending Phase: As you lower into the squat, ensure your hips move downward and barely back to distribute the burden evenly across your mid-foot. The goal is to take care of proper alignment between your knee and hip joints. Aim to succeed in a snug depth, along with your thighs near parallel to the bottom or barely lower.
- Ascending Phase: Throughout the ascent, concentrate to potential “sticking points” because the load gets heavier. When your strength gets challenged, technique becomes crucial. The higher your technique is from start to complete, the more likely you may battle through that sticking point to finish the lift. Return upright to a full lockout.
By following each of those steps and maintaining proper form throughout the movement, you’ll maximize head-to-toe muscle engagement and reduce the probabilities of common mistakes, ensuring a successful and effective squat.
Muscle Recruitment During Squats
Time to dig deep into the anatomy of the barbell back squat, exploring the first muscles and secondary muscles required to perform the movement.
The barbell back squat recruits a mixture of primary and secondary muscles, with the quadriceps and glutes taking the lead in knee and hip extension, respectively. Proper engagement of those muscle groups, and the support of secondary muscles, is crucial for executing a secure and effective squat.
Primary Muscles
A primary muscle is the fundamental targeted muscle used during an intended movement. The muscles are inclined to be the larger muscles of the anatomy, especially during a compound movement which involves moving at multiple joints — within the squat, you’re moving on the hips, knees, and ankles. The first muscles of the squat are the quadriceps and the glute maximus.
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Quadriceps
- The quadriceps are a gaggle of 4 muscles situated on the front of the upper leg.
- The first function of the quadriceps is knee extension, which is crucial throughout the ascending phase of the squat. They play a pivotal role in straightening the knee joint as you lift the burden.
- The quadriceps are heavily engaged when an athlete relies on their knee joint to maneuver the burden. The knee joint may be prioritized during a high-bar squat, a squat to full (below parallel) depth, or when the athlete’s knees begin to interrupt far in front of their toes.
Glutes
- The gluteus maximus, the most important of the gluteal muscles, forms the majority of the hip joint.
- The glutes are liable for hip extension, which is crucial for rising from a squat position. They supply the facility needed to straighten the hips.
- The gluteus maximus is heavily engaged when an athlete starts to rely more on their hip joint to drive the burden up. The hip joint may be prioritized when an athlete performs a low-bar squat, box squat, or when the athlete has “vertical shins,” which implies they’re putting more weight on their heels than their toes.
Secondary Muscles
A secondary muscle tends to be a comparatively smaller muscle group that aids the first muscle(s) with executing an exercise. The secondary muscles that provide support and stabilization throughout the squat are the hamstrings, calves, lower back, and core muscles.
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Hamstrings
- The hamstrings are situated behind your upper leg, running out of your hips to you knees.
- While primarily liable for knee flexion (like leg curls), the hamstrings assist in hip extension (straightening your upper leg in keeping with your torso). Your hamstrings help control the descending phase of the squat, acting as stabilizers.
Calves
- The calves are comprised of the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles, and are situated behind your lower leg.
- The first function of the calf muscles is the extension of the ankle joint — “pointing” your foot down. While circuitously involved within the squat, they assist stabilize the ankle joint, especially when pushing through the mid-foot. If you need to have an amazing squat, you need to keep your feet flat during each rep, meaning you would like great ankle mobility, which relies on flexible calf muscles.
Erector Spinae (Lower Back)
- The erector spinae muscles run along your spine’s length, supporting and stabilizing your lower back, especially.
- The erector spinae muscles are liable for spinal extension, helping to take care of an upright torso position throughout the squat.
Core
- Your core includes muscles equivalent to the rectus abdominis, obliques, and transverse abdominis.
- Core muscles provide stability to the torso, helping maintain proper posture and stopping excessive spinal flexion or extension. They work at the side of the erectors, as well.
How you can Emphasize Key Muscles
As mentioned earlier, the first muscles used to squat are the quadriceps and the glutes. Nevertheless, to emphasise one muscle group over the opposite will depend on adjusting your setup and movement, including foot placement, stance, depth, and barbell placement. (4)
Maximizing Quadriceps Recruitment
For those in search of to grow and strengthen their quadriceps, start by positioning your feet closer together, either at shoulder-width or barely narrower. This narrower stance magnifies the involvement of your quadriceps throughout the squat, intensifying their engagement.
To further emphasize quadriceps recruitment, favor a high-bar placement with the barbell in your upper back. Placing the bar higher in your back shifts your center of gravity forward, ensuring that your quadriceps take the brunt of the load.
This strategic bar placement is a key element in effectively targeting and strengthening the quadriceps, especially for those in a hypertrophic (muscle-building) phase of coaching.
One other trick toward quad-dominance goes below a parallel depth. This increased depth tends to cause the shins to lean forward, putting the ankle inside an amazing range of motion (also generally known as “dorsiflexion”) which is able to put more strain on the knee joint. This causes the quadriceps to be more activated.
Maximizing Glute Recruitment
In case your objective centers on maximizing glute engagement, widen your stance beyond a shoulder-width position and point your toes out. This will influence your shins to remain upright, redirecting the main target to your glutes and intensifying their involvement.
You need to also use a low-bar position to shift the burden distribution at your hip joints. This helps you get a greater hip hinge, which accentuates glute recruitment. Placing the bar lower in your back ensures that the glutes play a more dominant role within the squat.
For individuals who struggle with feeling glute recruitment, try including a “pause” in the underside position, and even use a box squat variation, because the box enforces the cue to push your hips backward as a substitute of down. That’s a key point— in case your hips move further back, your glutes will be more engaged.
Squatting straight down pushes your upper thighs forward as you descend, causing your knees to be more recruited, which might cause a more quadriceps-dominant motion.
Squat Variations
There are a number of other squat variations that will be used to further emphasize recruitment of either your quadriceps or glutes. By making changes to the bar position or, in some cases, avoiding the usual barbell completely, you may force your body to recruit different muscles while performing the identical fundamental squatting movement.
Front Squat
On this variation, the barbell is positioned on the front of your shoulders slightly than across your upper back. To attain this unique position, you may either cross your arms over one another to carry the barbell or use an Olympic weightlifting-style “rack” position that puts your arms parallel to one another along with your arms bent and the bar near your fingertips.
The defining feature of the front squat is its demand for a more upright torso posture. That is what would make the movement more quadriceps-dominant than glute-dominant, much like a high-bar squat.
The front squat promotes improved posture and spinal alignment. It strengthens your upper back while reducing the chance of forward-leaning tendencies often related to the classic barbell back squat.
SSB Squat
The SSB (safety squat bar) is a specialized barbell that has pads and forward-pointing handles that hold the burden on top of your shoulders and upper back. The burden distribution creates a forward-leaning upper body angle in comparison with a normal barbell , which significantly impacts the mechanics of the squat. This makes it a more quadriceps-dominant variation.
The SSB squat is a really perfect selection for people who could have mobility limitations in certain areas just like the shoulders. Moreover, the SSB squat places a considerable focus, not only on the quadriceps, but in addition the upper back and the posterior chain. It delivers an amazing challenge to not only quadriceps strength, but postural strength as well.
When it comes to muscle engagement, the first goal throughout the SSB squat is your quadriceps. Nevertheless, the angled handles also bring your upper back and posterior chain into play. This shift in muscle emphasis sets it other than the classic barbell back squat, which primarily targets the quadriceps but doesn’t engage the upper back and posterior chain to the identical extent.
Belt Squat
The belt squat is unlike the front squat or SSB squat. As a substitute of placing a barbell in your upper body, you wear a belt around your waist attached either to a specially designed platform or to a barbell on the bottom set in a landmine unit. The belt distributes weight across your hips, which makes it a glute-dominant variation of the barbell squat.
The belt squat offers an efficient technique of difficult the lower body without placing weight in your torso and spine, making it particularly suitable for people coping with back issues.
Moreover, the belt squat targets your legs with little to no upper body involvement. This is able to be an amazing exercise for those with specific limitations, including poor shoulder mobility, spinal compression issues, or an inability to carry a barbell with one or each arms.
Time to Squat
The barbell back squat is a top exercise that engages multiple muscle groups and delivers massive advantages, from increasing strength and power to constructing more muscular legs. Overall muscle recruitment during squats is an important variable that will be manipulated by your stance, movement, and bar position. Regardless of the way you do it, the squat is an iconic lift that may improve anyone’s success in constructing size, strength, and athleticism.
References
- Myer, G. D., Kushner, A. M., Brent, J. L., Schoenfeld, B. J., Hugentobler, J., Lloyd, R. S., Vermeil, A., Chu, D. A., Harbin, J., & McGill, S. M. (2014). The back squat: A proposed assessment of functional deficits and technical aspects that limit performance. Strength and conditioning journal, 36(6), 4–27. https://doi.org/10.1519/SSC.0000000000000103
- Wilk, M., Petr, M., Krzysztofik, M., Zajac, A., & Stastny, P. (2018). Endocrine response to high intensity barbell squats performed with constant movement tempo and variable training volume. Neuro endocrinology letters, 39(4), 342–348.
- Ribeiro, Alex & Santos, Erick & Nunes, João Pedro & Amarante do Nascimento, Matheus & Graça, Ágatha & Bezerra, Ewertton & Mayhew, Jerry. (2022). A Transient Review on the Effects of the Squat Exercise on Lower-Limb Muscle Hypertrophy. Strength and Conditioning Journal. Publish Ahead of Print. 10.1519/SSC.0000000000000709.
- Larsen, S., Kristiansen, E., Helms, E., & van den Tillaar, R. (2021). Effects of Stance Width and Barbell Placement on Kinematics, Kinetics, and Myoelectric Activity in Back Squats. Frontiers in sports and lively living, 3, 719013. https://doi.org/10.3389/fspor.2021.719013
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