How to Squat Properly

By Dustin Aaron


Lots of people discuss what the king of all physical exercises is. A lot of fitness professionals will likely agree that the squat is one of the best exercise movements for building muscle not just on your hip and legs, but on your entire body. There is no doubt that lifting heavy weight in this exercise will turbo charge your results, but first you will need to learn how to competently perform the movement.

Begin by putting your feet shoulder width apart. There are several variations of the squat. You can execute the exercise with your legs and feet spread wider like a sumo wrestler, or you can squat with a very narrow stance to place more focus on your quadriceps. If you use a shoulder width foot position, you can then learn any other variation.

Right before you step under the barbell, you should arch your back as tight as you can. Holding a firm back arch through the entire movement will help to avoid injury to your lower back. With a strong back arch, you should put your hands slightly wider than shoulder width on the bar and then step below the bar so that it is resting on your trapezius muscles.

Grasp the barbell as firmly as you can, and think about arching the bar out of the rack. After the bar is out of the stands you should think about sitting back with it and not actually squatting down with it. This sitting back motion will activate your hamstrings and also take most of the weight off of your knees and put it on the more sturdy hip joints. You might have to lean forward somewhat to preserve your balance, but as long as you keep a firm back arch a tiny bit of leaning will not hurt you.

Continue to sit back right until your upper thighs are parallel with the ground and then press hard into the floor with your feet until you are standing fully upright. Be sure you keep your entire body tight throughout the workout. This can easily be learned by just gripping the bar as tight as possible and maintaining a hard back arch for each and every repetition. A tight torso and arched back muscles, will help to stop injury.

The squat can be performed with heavy weight for low reps to build strength or lighter with greater reps to boost your endurance and conditioning. Always remember to limber up before you set about to hoist heavy weights, and for the sake of your safety it is better to use at least one spotter when you perform the movement.




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