Squat
Muscles worked : Quadriceps, glutes · Hamstrings, core
How to do it
- Stand with your feet hip-width apart, toes slightly turned out.
- Push your hips back, then bend the knees, keeping them tracking over the feet.
- Lower until the thighs are close to parallel, weight spread across the whole foot.
- Keep the torso upright and the gaze forward, without rounding the lower back.
- Drive back up through the heels to full hip extension.
Common mistakes
- Knees caving inward on the way up.
- Heels lifting: a sign of limited ankle mobility, not of missing strength.
- Lower back rounding at the bottom, when the depth exceeds available hip mobility.
Where you should feel it
The work is felt in the front of the thighs and the glutes, with solid pressure across the whole foot. Tension isolated at the front of the knee signals that the hips are not moving back enough and the movement is starting from the knee alone.
Range of motion
Go as low as your mobility allows without the lower back rounding — the back is the cue, not a target angle. Thighs close to parallel is enough to load the whole chain.
Tempo and breathing
Two to three seconds down, one to two up. Inhale on the way down, exhale pushing through the heels.
What works, precisely
The quadriceps extend the knee and the gluteus maximus extends the hip: both movers work together. Hamstrings and adductors stabilize, the gluteus medius stops the knee caving in, and the spinal erectors with the abdominal wall keep the torso braced.
Movement mechanics
Double flexion then double extension of the hip and knee in the sagittal plane, in a closed chain. The descent is eccentric, the ascent concentric. With no chair or external marker, ankle and hip mobility set the depth you can reach.
Benefits
- The base movement of the whole lower chain: it is the free version the chair squat prepares you for.
- Needs no equipment and no support, so it travels anywhere once the depth is under control.
- Serves as the foundation for every loaded variation — goblet squat, leg press — which change the load, not the movement.
Adapt and progress
- Easier : Go back to the chair squat, which gives a constant depth marker.
- Harder : Slow the descent to five seconds, pause at the bottom, or move to a loaded goblet squat.
- Move on when : When three sets of fifteen go by with no knee cave and no heel lift, add load.
Precautions
If the knee hurts, reduce the depth rather than the number of repetitions: a pain-free partial range beats a full range that hurts.