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If you’re not currently doing squats as part of your weekly workout routine, you’re just not serious about increasing your strength or you don’t want to gain muscle. Period. I will throw a caveat here for guys and gals who are injured. A torn ligament or broken ankle is a good excuse for not doing squats.

I want to dispel some myths about squats and show you how to do squats properly.

Muscle Exercised –

Squat are a full body compound exercise. The main muscles groups that the squats work are the:

• Quadraceps
• Hamstrings
• Calves
• Abdominals
• Hip flexors
• Gluteus maximus
• Lower back

Why Squats Are The King Of All Exercises –

If you want to know the benefits of squats, see that post as I wrote an entire article on how great they are for building muscle and losing weight. This article is going to have more instruction concerning the proper form and technique so that you don’t get injured. Trust me, you don’t want to blow your knees out.

Can you say, torn ACL or pulled lower back? Injury prevention is critical when doing squats.  So you need to know how to do squats properly if you don’t want to be nursing sore muscles for weeks on end wondering how much strength you lost.

Where To Place Your Feet -

Your feet should be slightly more than shoulder width apart with your toes rotated out about 30 degrees.

Where To Place The Barbell –

Lots of guys like to go really low with the barbell down by your latsismus (lat) muslces. I don’t recommend this for beginners as it actually puts more strain on your lower back and causes you to NEED to widen the grip. The risk for injury goes way up the lower you put the bar on your upper back. For most people the barbell should sit right behind your shoulders (rear deltoid around your cervical vertibrae). It should sit comfortably.

How To Hold The Barbell -

Your hands should grip the barbell about 6 inches past  your shoulders with your elbows extended out.

Your Knees –

Your knees are critical. You entire knee joint can really get injured with squats so you need to learn how to do squats properly before you start lifting heavy weights. I strongly recommend you do body weight squats simply for at least 1-3 times simply to work on form and technique for injury prevention. Remember life is a long journey so don’t rush into doing squats, get injured and have to heal for 6 weeks getting weaker and weaker. Can you say idiot?

Your Feet –

Your feet should be slightly more than shoulder width apart (by a few inches). As I said above you can point your toes out (clockwise) about 30 degrees. But what is critical is that you put the bulk of your body weight on your heals. So as you’re squatting down, lift your toes up inside your shoe so that you put the most weight on  your heels.

This allows you to put more stress on your hamstrings and gluteus muscles as well as causing your hips to bend more instead of your lower back preventing injuries while doing the squat.

Because it redistributes the weight of the barbell over more muscles in your body, you have a greater anabolic effect which then helps you do create more androgens and testosterone, which in turn helps you gain muscle and lose weight.

So lift them toes up!

“No citizen has a right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training…what a disgrace it is for a man to grow old without ever seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable.” – Socrates

Your Hips And Butt –

Now it’s critical you use the right form and technique while lifting so much weight because otherwise  you’ll blow up your back and be sleeping with a heating pad for 3 weeks losing the muscle you want to gain.

Your hips need to be bending below or at your knee level.

Your Chest And Head –

Remember to keep your chest sticking out in front of you.  Over the years I’ve seen guys get injured because they don’t have the correct upper body posture for squats and they end up wrecking their lower back. Don’t be one of these guys. Your posture and spine need to be in a straight line, no rounding or slumping of your shoulders.

We all know posture begins with the head and back. You should never be looking down at the floor while doing squats. Learning how to do squat properly begins with the right posture. Look straight ahead with your head up.

One Final Squat Tip –

This allows you to lift more weight when doing squats. It’s a simple technique called hyperradiation originally coined by none other than Pavel Tsatsouline. What you do is right before you lower into the squatting position, you flex and tense all the muscles in your upper and lower body. This allows the stress of the weight to be distributed over larger muscle groups over your entire body.

Because tensing up like this helps you to feel more stable and secure and redistributes the weight of the barbell, then the actual muscles that are doing most of the lifting (quads, hamstrings and glutes) will have less stress on them because the weight is now redistributed by a small degree all over the body.

This then frees up your glutes, hamstrings and quadriceps to be able to push up more weight. It’s genius. I’ve been using this trick for about 5 years now with incredible results.

Try it. and tell me about it below.

Common Mistakes When Performing Squats –

• Not keeping the shoulders over the hips: This happens when you lean too far forward (usually when bodybuilders add too much weight)
• Knees buckling: This error is caused again when people try to lift too much. The knees usually buckle inward and can ruin your knees, cartilage and ligaments.
• Not putting the weight on the heels: This again puts more of the weight and stress on your knees and hips. By leaning on your heels, you not only avoid injury but get a better workout for your quadriceps and hamstrings.
• Hips not going below the knees: Many people will say that you should squat only half way. This is absolute crap. Your thighs should be at least paralell to the ground. Your knee joints are actually in the strongest state when they are full flexed (bent) and become more unstable as you straighten your leg. If you can’t drop down that low, take some weight off the barbell. Remember squatting is not about weight, it’s about proper form. Learn how to do squats properly with the correct technique and worry about the amount of weight later.

Video tutorials to do squats properly –

I really hope you gained some value and learned how to do squats properly so you can really gain a lot of muscle and stay injury free.

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