All Things Squats
Let’s talk about all things squats!
Whether you lift weights or not, squatting is a foundational movement and a part of everyday life. If you sit down and stand up, you are squatting. The ability to maintain this movement pattern is vital to independence in our late decades. Now, we aren’t going to dive into the importance of weight lifting and muscle mass as it relates to aging, we will cover that another day. In this blog, we will touch on:
Squatting Points of Performance
Different Squat Stances
Different Body Types and Squat Styles
Hip vs Quad Dominant Squats
Low Back Pain & Knee Pain with Squatting
Let’s cover the basics.
Banded Air Squats
What are squatting “Points Of Performance”? In an ideal world we will see folks squat with:
Neutral spine position
Hips below parallel
Knees track inline with the feet
Feet don’t move
Hips and chest rise at the same time
If using a barbell, the bar path tracks over the middle of the foot - this is your center of gravity
When it comes to your spine, we want it to be mobile, but we also want to be able to keep it rock solid. If you are squatting with weight, the ability to maintain core stability and keep spine tension will allow you to lift more and do so in a safe fashion. Maintaining a “neutral spine” refers to not changing your spine position when squatting. We commonly see errors near the bottom of a squat where folks round their lower back (butt wink) or when initiating a squat: they stick their bum out (think duck butt), and then squat down. With each of these faults, we’ve lost the neutral spine position and increased loading into the lumbar part of the spine - A.K.A lower back.
Not everyone can get their hips below parallel (hip crease below the knee crease), but that is the goal and something to work towards. Again, this is for your later years in life. It might not matter now, but it will when you’re 75+ and trying to get up from the toilet.
Knees tracking inline with the feet is for knee health. While it can be normal for your knees to cave in to a degree when squatting heavy from the bottom position to standing, it is not ideal to see this pattern as someone descends into a squat or knees track in under light/no loading.
Keeping your feet “glued” to the ground will help with power development. Sometimes we see folks move their feet as they are squatting. This is a leaky system and not efficient. Keep your feet still to build tension.
We want squats to be a fluid motion: the hips and chest should rise at the same time. We will discuss this in a bit, but we don’t want to see the hips shoot up and then the chest. The only thing this will do is load your lower back more.
Squat Stances: Body Types & Different Squats
Different Body Types
No squat fits all. While squats should contain the points of performance listed above, they won’t all look equal. Why? Everyone’s body is different.
If you’ve been to one of our in-person squat workshops, Sarah and Britt do a live demonstration to show this.
Sarah L and Britt are the same height, but Sarah’s inseam is like 12” and Britt measures around 34”.
(Obviously those aren’t real numbers, but point made)
Sarah L has short legs / long torso and Britt has long legs / short torso. One body type is more favorable over the other…
Short legs and a long torso is more favorable to squatting. But, why is that? It has to do with femur lengths and our center of gravity, which is right around the midfoot.
Photo shared from @thebarbellphysio / www.barbellphysio.com and Starting Strength Book
As seen in the image above, if you have long legs, this will put your hip joint further back as you squat down. This results in folks having to bend forward more to maintain their center of gravity over their midfoot. People will look a little more folded over when they squat. Shorter legs compared to your torso length puts you at a mechanical advantage to having a more upright position and hitting squat depth more easily.
If you fall into the long legs camp, to avoid excessive forward folding you can try one or all of the following to “shorten” your legs:
Widen your stance
Turn your toes out slightly
Improve your ankle mobility - this will help your knees travel further forward
Use weight lifting shoes to elevate your heel
Trunk Position & Different Squat Types
The same principle applies to different types of squats. The barbell should always be over your center of gravity, which we’ve covered is over your midfoot - A.K.A where your shoelaces are. Your trunk angle will have to change to accommodate the different bar placement in order to maintain your center of gravity over your base of support.
This photo from www.squatuniversity.com demonstrates this very well:
Courtesy of www.squatuniversity.com
Low Bar Back Squat → High Bar Back Squat → Front Squat
Note the change in trunk angle to accommodate the bar placement
Because of the bar placement, he has to change his hip/trunk angle and this photo shows this really well. It’s unrealistic to maintain the same hip/trunk angle during back squats and front squats. While we still want to see folks keep an upright chest, know that the type of squat you are performing will change that!
Hip vs Quad Dominant Squat Patterns
Some folks squat perfectly, and once the weight gets heavy the compensations may start to show. To help address these muscle imbalances, let’s talk about the two most common patterns we see.
Hip Dominant Squats
A hip dominant squat under heavy loading is a compensation pattern in which the hips shoot up first from the bottom of the squat. This means that our hips and chest are NOT rising at the same time, which is an important point of performance that we want to maintain. This happens because your hips are more dominant than your quads and ultimately means that we need to increase your quad strength to create better balance under heavier loads.
To help improve this, work on your quad strength. Cyclist or heels elevated squats are a great way to do this.
Cyclist Squat
Knee Dominant Squats
Knee dominant squats are opposite: instead of the hip driving up, the knees will drive forward and folks often shift into their toes. This is your brain trying to overuse your quads, meaning we need to strengthen your glutes & hamstrings (posterior chain) to help balance this compensation.
There are loads of exercises to improve your glute and hamstring strength, but some of the best would be deadlifts, hip thrusts, and step ups – as long as you aren’t jumping your foot off the ground and performing the step up with the leg that is on the top of the box.
Banded Hip Thrusts
Pain with Squatting - Low Back
We’ve mentioned the fact that our center of gravity is over our midfoot. So, when we are using a barbell, that means that the bar should track inline with the midfoot. This is where you would tie your laces.
The type of squat that you are doing will require subtle shifts in your trunk position in order to maintain that center of gravity; this was demonstrated in the photo above from squatuniversity.com.
When it comes to squatting with a barbell, some squat variations will increase loading to your lower back vs other types of squats. This has to do with where the barbell is in relation to your center of gravity - A.K.A keeping the barbell inline with your shoelaces.
(most low back stress) Back Squat → Front Squat/Goblet Squat → Overhead Squat (least low back stress)
While that continuum is technically true, overhead squats are very demanding and a high level skill squat…we don’t tend to recommend them as a starting point. Folks may do better with belt squats, Spanish squats, or cyclist squats which feature an upright torso and knee dominant positioning.
Spanish Squats
Pain with Squatting - Knees
The opposite is true for knee pain when compared to back pain with squatting. If we want to reduce knee stress during squats, a barbell back squat would be more favorable compared to an overhead squat.
(most knee stress) Overhead Squat → Front Squat/Goblet Squat → Back Squat (least knee stress)
If your knees are really cranky, Hack Squats are a good place to start to reduce knee loads, but still keep folks squatting. You’ll need to see what your body tolerates, because some may be good to go with back squats, but front / overhead squats cause too much stress and discomfort.
Hack Squat
In Summary…
Fully understanding the anatomy of a squat can seem overwhelming, but we want to simplify and get folks as comfortable with squatting as possible for high function! We’re here for any questions, so please reach out if you’re curious or would like to learn more!