You call that a squat?

The lift in question is easily the best exercise for building lower-body muscle and power, but it’s rarely done correctly. Of course, we are talking about the squat.

Bottom line: you’re not going to get strong, muscular legs without doing squats. However, you will also not get the desired results by doing it incorrectly. The squat is all about hip control. You have to force your hips to go a certain way down and up to get the most out of this lift. Otherwise, you’ll put too much pressure on the wrong muscles and probably suffer the same injuries as everyone who warns you never to squat.

Let’s start with a step-by-step analysis.

With the bar on your back, position your legs so that your feet are slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and your toes point slightly outward. Most of your weight should be supported by your heels, but stay flat on the floor.

As you start to lower into the squat position, you can do one of two things: you can shoot your knees forward or you can shoot your hips back. Throwing the knees forward will put the emphasis on the quads and knees instead of the glutes. Also, for balance, your back will begin to lean forward, letting your lower back bear the weight on your shoulders. I hope you have good health insurance if you plan to do your squats like this.

Your first instinctive movement while squatting should be to throw your hips back, while trying to keep your spine and shins vertical. Focus on maintaining the arch in your back to prevent rounding your lower back. Keep your muscles tense, as relaxing can cause you to lose your balance.

To get the full effect of the squat, the thighs should pass slightly parallel to the floor. If you can’t handle the weight going down that much, drop the weight! There’s no need to try to impress everyone by stacking more weight than you can handle.

I know it’s popular these days, especially within the CrossFit community, to perform ultra-deep squats, where your butt nearly touches the ground before rising back up. While I can accept this practice in theory, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the lift performed correctly or safely. Lifters using this method tend to drop their torsos as low as physically possible before rebounding up due to the natural elasticity of the muscles and tendons. With a weight so heavy that it forces the body downward even further, this can overstretch the tendons and ligaments in the knee and can lead to significant knee damage.

To prevent this, slowly lower your torso and pause briefly at the bottom of the lift. This eliminates the desire for your body to build momentum by jumping up and focuses more effort on your muscles. Focus on pushing up through your heels, while keeping your back arched and your shins as vertical as possible.

If this feels uncomfortable, that’s okay. It’s a very uncomfortable lift when done the right way. But squatting like this will ensure that you get the most out of every lift.