Squats: How low should you go?

Many fitness professionals, athletes and coaches consider squats one of the most important and effective overall exercises for building muscle mass and tone. Squats contribute to leg muscle growth by working the quadriceps, as well as what is sometimes referred to as the “posterior chain:” the various muscles comprising the hamstrings and glutes. Free-weight squats also give your lower back and abdominals a great workout, as you use your core muscles to stabilize yourself throughout the movement.



Because the exercise involves the largest muscles in the human body, squats generally burn more calories and build a large amount of calorie-burning muscle. In fact, studies have shown that squats, when performed at high intensity, can even release hormones that facilitate muscle-growth in the upper body. So they might even be just the thing to get over your bench-press plateau. Moreover, squats give you functional strength and flexibility where you need it most for athletics and daily activities: your legs and core. Think squats will bulk you up too much? Unlikely. If losing weight is your thing, squats can only help by building fat-burning muscle in all the right places. Even long-distance runners and endurance athletes can benefit from improving their upper-limit leg and abdominal strength as this strength helps maintain proper form.

Now that we’ve sung the squat’s praises, how do you get started? The seemingly simple movement can in fact be deceptively complex. Depending on your training goals, you may want to use resistance in the form of a barbell over your shoulders, or just your own body-weight. You can place a swiss-ball between your back and the wall for balance. Next article we’ll cover how to perform a plethora of squat variants, but by definition pretty much all squats involve bending your knees and lowering your upper body.

Much of squatting form is pretty well settled: try not to let your knees extend past your ankles so as not to over-stress your knees, keep your head up and back straight (don’t arch forward or back), and push off with your heels.[1] One age-old and potentially thorny question for would-be squatters is how far to go down. For many of us, much of this decision is decided by the limits of our own flexibility. But as you lessen the resistance, perform assisted squats, or develop strength and flexibility over time, you may discover the possibilities….

Standing: You aren’t even squatting yet. But good start. If you can’t stand, you can’t squat.

Quarter squat: You pile on the weights and sink your hips a couple of inches. We’re all very impressed. Actually, even these baby-squats start to develop leg strength, flexibility, muscle recruitment, and balance. If this as far as you can or want to go for now, that’s fine. But if you are using a lot of resistance and only performing quarter-squats, try de-loading and getting yourself a bit lower. The gains you realize will be worth the blow to your ego, I promise. On the other hand, if you been training by squatting much lower with lighter weight and feel like its getting harder to add more poundage, it might help to return to quarter-squats for a couple of sets in order to get yourself used to carrying the big weight again.

Hamstrings parallel: A lot of folks tell you to squat until your legs are “parallel to the floor.” Problem is, if you are like most humans, viewed from the side your leg is probably somewhat oval shaped. So which part should be parallel? If you were to draw an imaginary line parallel to the floor from your knees and extending out behind you, the first benchmark would be to get the bottom of your oval-shaped leg to touch that line. Congrats, you are hamstrings parallel.

Half-squats, or legs parallel: Now imagine squatting down lower so the middle of your leg is aligned with that same imaginary line. No easy feat, and tough to change the momentum of the resistance by pushing up here. This is an effective squat. Try pausing in this position.

Quads parallel: Go even lower, to where the top of your quads are aligned with a line parallel to the floor. Here your butt will be slightly lower than your knees, you’ll have to lean very slightly forward to keep balanced, and you have to use your muscles in a slightly different way to push back up. Be careful, this will feel awkward at first so don’t try it with a lot of weight. This is the position that qualifies as a “convincingly deep” squat for powerlifters: athletes who compete for the heaviest deadlift, benchpress, and squat.[2] Working from this position can make for an extremely intense workout. Some maintain that this is the best position, because only in a low squat like this does your posterior chain of glutes and hamstrings get properly worked.[3] According to these sources, more shallow squats work your quadriceps too much and your posterior chain not enough, potentially leading to muscle imbalances. There is some disagreement on this point, not everyone is comfortable or flexible enough to get to this position right away, and you may have to work at properly flexing your posterior chain in order to properly engage those muscles. But most everyone would agree that squatting to a quads parallel position is a super-effective way to build leg strength. So take off even more weight if you must, and squat low.

ATG (Butt to Ground): Olympic-style weight-lifters do it all the time because it is an integral movement to catching the bar in their two events: the clean and jerk and snatch. However, for those without training in those disciplines, bending your legs until they are touching your heels and cannot possibly go any lower may not be possible, or even desirable. The ATG squat changes your body-mechanics significantly, and can put stress on the lower back or knees if you aren’t used to performing it properly. The name of the game is to go slow here. For those that do venture to the depths, the rewards are great. Besides legs of steel, you can easily quantify your progress when doing ATG’s. There’s no wondering if by ramping up the weight you have also been unconsciously compensating by not squatting as far down.

For most exercises, we advocate using a full range of motion whenever possible as good form. Squats may constitute a special case, however, as the physical limits, training goals, and development of each individual may be better served by either limiting or periodically varying the depth of the squat. In doing so, we develop body awareness at each position and confidence with increased loads, as well as add a destabilizing element that helps fool your body into continuing to develop instead of stalling out at a plateau. For the most effective gains, try to progress to deeper and deeper squats. Remember to pair squats with hamstring exercises such as hamstring curls and straight-leg dead lifts in order to maintain a strength balance in opposing muscles.
[1] If you restrict your knees from extending past your toes, the exercise will produce less shear force of the knees than leg extensions. But by not letting your knees move forward as you go down, you may have to slightly increase forward lean to keep the weight balanced. Lean too far and you’ll be putting too much torque on your hips and stress on your lower back. See “Optimizing Squat Technique,” by Paul Comfort, MSc, CSCS; and Peter Kasim. December 2007, Volume 29, Issue 6, NSCA Strength and Conditioning Journal. Stop if you feel joint pain. Keep your back straight, and control your form by flexing your glutes and hamstrings as you go down.
[2] For more on legal squat depth for powerlifting, see “Squat Depth Clarified” by Wade Hanna. http://www.usapowerlifting.com/newsletter/06/novice/novice.html
[3] See Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore.