How to Squat Properly
Squats might seem simple, but they’re actually incredibly technical—and easy to mess up. Carolyn Parker, a Gym Jones instructor and the founder of the Ripple Effect Athlete Training Center in Carbondale, Colorado, estimates that 90 percent of the people who walk into her gym, including both recreational athletes and professionals, could use some serious help with their squats.
“Outdoor athletes typically don’t have a gym base and have never been taught how to squat properly,” she says. “They just move their bodies in the mountains in the way that feels easiest.” When we prefer to play outside instead of hit the gym, we typically overdo it and neglect strength, stretching, and mobility work. “That’s where we start to see poor form and injury,” Parker says.
When done correctly, the squat is the ultimate exercise to build strength, power, and mobility in the legs. Across all squat variations, the primary muscles involved are the quadriceps, glutei maximi, and the large hip adductors on the inner thigh. While these are the main movers, other muscle groups engage to act as stabilizers, such as the calves, hamstrings, erector spinae (back), core, and obliques, depending on the type of squat and how you’re carrying the weight.
Bret Contreras, a coach, author of The Glute Lab, and a leading expert on glute training, has conducted many experiments to measure muscle activity during exercises and found that all types of squats essentially do the same thing. “Most squat and single-leg variations elicit similar levels of muscle activation, even if they feel different,” he says. The findings reinforce the point that there’s no need to get fancy with complicated squat variations—they only offer subtle differences in the balance of muscle activation. But there is something to be said for starting with the easiest version of a basic squat and gradually ramping up the difficulty. If you’re new to squatting, or working with limited mobility, starting slow will keep you injury-free.