Q & A: Is there a right way to squat? What is the right way to squat?
A: There’s only one right way to squat right, which is: with your feet shoulder width apart, feet straight and parallel, heels flat, and stopping when your thighs are parallel to the ground – no more, no less… at least this is what my text books and courses have claimed. It turns out all of this is wrong, and there’s never been any evidence to support any of these opinions about squatting.
Can you squat wrong?
No. There is no right way to squat. Squatting is not a moral issue, so it can’t be “wrong” or “right.” Lying is wrong, murder is wrong, and squatting is just moving. The only way moving can be “wrong” is if you fail to move because not moving is neglecting and desecrating one of the most amazing gifts you will ever receive – your body.
Squatting right?
Research and 26 years of coaching say: the “right” way for you to squat is the way(s) that allows you to get your butt as low as possible that doesn’t hurt. Here’s a quick breakdown.
- As low as possible because:
- (1) Joint health. because motion is lotion. Our joints are lubricated and nourished by synovial fluid. Synovial fluid is created in response to and by movement. When our knees don’t bend much they get dry and stiff. The Tin Man had an oil can, and we humans have movement.(2) Flexibility and mobility. Our bodies adapt to what we do, and what we don’t do. If we don’t bend our knees or hips very far then those muscles will adapt to only doing a very small range of motion – they will stay or get “stiff.” Stretching is just pushing a muscle outside of it’s “normal” range, so doing your strength training through the fullest range of motion possible is very effective (and time efficient) for creating/maintaining great flexibility.
- (3) Calories. Work is force over distance. The further you move your body the more calories you have to burn in the process.
- Different Ways because:
- (1) Brain and body. We were designed to move in a variety of ways vs being rigidly stuck in one box of thought or movement. Maintaining your brain’s ability to do a wide variety of movements gets more important each year.
- (2) Change of emphasis. Using different styles of squats allows us to emphasize different parts of your body. The simplest example is that a narrow squat will work your quads (front of thighs) more, and a wide stance squat will work your butt and adductors (inner thighs) more. All of these muscles are important, so one version isn’t “better” than another, they’re just different.
- Doesn’t hurt: Pain? Discomfort? Warming up?
- Warm it up. We don’t have to bend or move our knees much in modern life, so they’re usually dry and hypersensitive at the start of a workout. Hypersensitive, in this case, means that the pain thermostat* has been set to low (the brain will label every sensation as pain).
- Complete comfort is not the goal, or realistic. Excruciating pain in the knee is also undesirable. Since pain is a subjective experience that no other person can objectively measure it is impossible to be exactly on the same page. But for knee pain in squatting here are the most common helpers:
- Assist – use your arms to help your body squat lower 15-20 times before you get to the “official” workout. Your arms will help your legs get warmed up and “ease” into the squatting.
- Heels up – at least 90% of the time, letting the heels pop up, or propping them up makes people’s knees feel better.
- Geography – for folks with a history of knee pain, we see they often think their knees are very tall. These tall knees extend up the thigh and down the shin, so when the muscles near their knee are burning they interpret this as knee pain instead of as normal (desirable) workout discomfort.
- For back pain with squats I can help in 1 word: wedge (some, sophisticated people pronounce it whedge). There are many competing theories (joint angles, proprioception, etc.) about why elevating your heels helps people’s knees and back feel better when they squat, but what matter is that it’s really helpful.
* Most people hurt when they’ve been driving for hours and get out for the bathroom, but feel better when they walk around for 5 min. Hurting to move after 60+ min of driving is becoming hypersensitive, and the two kinds of relief from walking to and from the bathroom is the beginning of desensitizing. Motion is lotion is a shorthand for moving your joints through ranges of motion they’re not accustomed to increases synovial fluid production and distribution while lowering the pain threshold in your brain.
Bottom Line
As society has descended into moral relativism we’ve moved the concepts of right and wrong into areas they don’t belong, such as “wrong squats” or “right squats.” There is no right way to squat, there are many ways to squat because movement is genuinely relative, as opposed to cheating, which is wrong in the absolute. There are many different bodies and different goals so we can and should squat in many different ways. Don’t let someone should all over your squats.