How To Do Squat- The Ultimate Guide To Squat

The squat is one of the great exercises for both muscle building and fat loss. But you need to know the proper form of how to do squats. Because it may also injure you if you do it the wrong way.

Many people skip doing squats I don’t know why but it is one of my favorite exercises.

Performing heavy squats once a week will increase your strength as well as build muscles. It is also a great exercise for those who want to lose their weight.

Many people have a nice development on their upper body, but their legs are like chicken legs. if you are one of them you must include squats in your workout schedule.

But first, you need to know how to do squats and proper form of squat.

Importance Of Squat

The squat is a great workout for stability and strength builder of your lower body. your whole body is depending on your legs. so, if you train your upper body then your legs need strength also.

It is a great exercise for weight loss and building muscle mass. Doing squat will give you a proper symmetry of your body.

Setup & Posture To Do Squat

Before jump into the workout, you need to know the correct setup and posture. Otherwise, you will be injured. Knowing a correct setup is important to target the specific muscles to stimulate them.

Place the Bar

At first place the bar on your trap and unrack the bar. then take one and a half step behind. Grab the bar with a slightly wider than shoulder-width.

Many people place the bar on their neck don’t do that unless your neck will be compromised and later it will get injured.

Feet Placement

Your feet will be shoulder-width apart. Feet should be pointed outside.

If you need more space, you can have a little wider step than shoulder-width apart but don’t overdo it.

Perfect Posture

When the bar is on your trap and feet placement is perfect, then you need to focus on your posture.

Stand tall and make your spine straight and chest up, look forward, don’t bend your neck. Look straight in front of you.

Make your core muscles tight enough to lift the bar without bending your back.

Executing The SQUAT

Breathing pattern to do squat

When you get into the position to squat take a deep and hold it. Inhaling the air and holding that inside will make the muscles contracted during the reps.

Make your core tight as I mentioned before.

Lower Yourself and Push

After having a deep breath slowly lower yourself until your thigh muscles are parallel to the ground.

Then explosively push yourself against the floor. Tall straight and squeeze your glutes. This will be counted as one rep.

Some people lower themselves and go all the way down. But I personally don’t recommend that to anyone.

Make sure when you lower yourself your knee should not cross your feet forward. I mean don’t lean forward,

Yes, this is true that going all the way down to the ground may stimulate the muscles more but with that heavyweights, your knee joint will be compromised. And later you may face knee joint pain either.

Make sure to maintain your posture throughout the reps.

Path of the Bar

Squat is not only an up and down movement. It is also about maintaining the torso back and forth.

When you lower the bar make sure the bar is traveling straight. When someone sees you from the side; it seems like the bar and your feet is in a straight line.

The bar should travel with that line. Do not lean forward or backward. Unless your back will be compromised.

Read Also: How To Deadlift Step By Step Guide

Tempo for squat

When you are lowering yourself do it slowly. Then push the floor with your legs explosively.

The tempo should be like; take two seconds to lower yourself then push yourself and stand tall take a one-second pause then again repeat the process.

Muscles Worked To Do Squat

The squat is a compound exercise. That means many muscles get stimulated during a squat. But the squat mainly stimulates the quads muscles.

Glutes, core muscles, back are the supportive muscles that worked together.

Safety Guide For Squat

To perform this kind of power movement you must follow the safety rules, so you don’t hurt yourself.

shoes

selecting a perfect shoe is very helpful to perform squats. Because all the powers come from the ground through your shoes.

If the soles of your shoes are soft, then when you push your legs against the floor the power will be distributed evenly to the ground because of that soft sole. So, choose footwear which has a hard sole.

Your shoes should have a flat sole. Because your feet need to be completely touched with the ground. So, avoid any type of shoes which has a curvy sole.

The thickness of the sole should be lesser. Thinner sole will shorten the distance between your feet and the ground.

Knee Wraps

During squats with a heavy load, you need support in your knees. Knee wraps may give that support. It will protect your knee joints during that heavy performance.

Belt

A belt is a piece of essential equipment during a squat. It will help you to make your core tighten and keep your spine in a neutral position.

Because of the heavy movement, many people tend to bend their back which can be dangerous. So, I recommend everyone to use a belt during squats.

Warm-up

Doing warm-up is a must before attempting any kind of compound movement. Make sure you do a proper warm-up session before lifting heavy weights on the squat rack.

First, do a proper stretching of glute, quads then do at least two to three warm-up sets. When you feel you are ready only then start heavy squats.

By doing a warm-up before any workout you will increase blood flow on that area, joints and on the muscles. So, the muscle will be a little bit pumped up and will be prepared before the heavy load.

If you don’t do warm-up and straight jump into the heavy work, the muscles will be shocked and to protect the tendons and muscle fibers it will be contracted against the resistance immediately.

And you may feel a cramp on your muscles and pain on your joints.

Variation Of Squat

there are many variations of squat you can do. Few examples are:

Front squat: Increases the load on quads.
Back squat: increase the engagement of core muscles more.
Overhead squat: Engage the core muscles and the back muscles more for stability. Involvement the glute muscle increases.
Bulgarian split squat: Stimulate the quads muscles more. Increase the mind-muscle connection.
Sumo squat: Targets the inner thigh and glute more.

Conclusion

You must do squats to build that heavy muscles on your legs. This is a great exercise to build core strength, muscle mass, increase the balance and many benefits of doing squats.

If you want to lose fat than squat is a lovely workout to burn more calories. Quads are the biggest muscle in your body so when you start training them you will burn more calories.

So, learn properly how to do squats and include it in your workout routine.