Squat Articles

“Beginners Guide to Squatting Pt.2”

By Ian Smalley

1. Ready to Squat…Almost

  Proper squat form should look like this: Hips and glutes back, upper and lower back arched, chest and head up, mid section tight and body weight sitting on the heals. Before you start descending with the weight, this is what you should look like, if you don’t then re- rack the weight and start over.

2. The Proper Descent

Begin squatting down by letting your hips and glutes lead you down. The simple act of breaking at the knees will bring your hips and glutes backwards. About halfway down, begin to open up your hips by forcing your knees out to the sides. This will allow you to drop to parallel and keep your body in the correct alignment with the weight. It’s common to lean forward a little when you do this, which is normal when you focus on sitting back. As long as you don’t lean forward too much because you’ll end up doing a good morning out of the hole. Because bodybuilders skip step 2 and keep their hips closed you often see them with a 10 lb weight under their heels to keep the weight distribution correct….and they still don’t even get close to parallel, so without keeping your knees out it won’t work

3. Explode out of the hole.

Once you hit parallel, thrust off of you’re heals, spreading the floor with your feet. Again, keeping your knees out will distribute your power evenly on the way up and you won’t get that awkward “knee pinching in” syndrome so common to weak squatters. Keep your head up and press out against your belt as hard as you can with your mid section all the way to the top. .