Alpha Progression
Squats: Optimal depth and how to reach it

Squats: Optimal depth and how to reach it

Today's article is about 2 questions about the squat that people ask very often.

The optimal depth

How deep should I go when squatting?

As low as possible! For a long time there was a rumor that it was dangerous for your knees to go lower than the point where your thighs are parallel to the floor. But that's a myth, as I'm sure most of you know by now.

Why should you go as deep as possible? If you only go to parallel, you can move more weight. That's true, but more weight is not always better.

Advantages of deep squats

Muscular stress

The load on the target muscles - i.e. the quads - is either just as high or even higher if you go as deep as possible. Normally, the target muscles are more stressed with a higher range of motion.

However, a study was recently published that showed no difference in quad stress with deep vs. parallel squats alone. Therefore, the stress is "either" just as high or even higher.

What is certain, however, is that you definitely work your glutes better with deep squats. That's not the target muscle of this exercise, but why not build good glutes through squats if that's an option?

Stress on the nervous system

In addition, the stress on your nervous system is lower when you do deep squats. This is mainly because when you do deep squats you have less weight on your neck and therefore the spine or spinal cord is less compressed.

Part of the central nervous system is located in the spinal cord and is especially stressed when the spinal cord is compressed by a high load. So by doing deep squats with less weight, of course, you'll spare your nervous system a bit and have more strength for the exercises that follow.

Reduced risk of injury

In addition, the risk of injury tends to be lower with deep squats. You move less weight and therefore technique errors are less likely to cause major issues.

Let's use an extreme example: You want to do parallel squats with 500 lbs, so you put the bar on your neck, lift it up, take 2 steps backwards, and then stumble so that you fall over. This could be quite painful with 500 lbs.

Standardized range of motion

Another advantage of deep squats is that the range of motion is standardized. When you go so deep that the back of your thigh touches your calves, you feel it. You go down and you notice immediately - very clearly - when the downward movement is finished and you should begin to raise the weight again. You don't have to think too much about it.

But if instead you only go to parallel, then it is not at all clear when the downward movement is finished. You go down and ask yourself the whole time "am I already at parallel, or am I now, or now?"

And if it's an exhausting sentence, your brain tricks you and gives you the signal to go up again, even though you haven't gone as far as parallel yet. Then you are happy that you have apparently improved. But you haven't really improved.

You may have been able to move more weight for the same number of reps, but you also had a smaller range of motion, which means you most likely didn't stimulate your muscles any more than you did last time. You have therefore made fake progress.

This is something that usually only becomes apparent after a few weeks, when a friend watches you squat and says "hm, so 4 weeks ago you went 6 in deeper." This can be very frustrating, because you then have to reduce the weight again to be able to do the sets to the original depth.

For tracking and evaluating your training, such fake progression is of course also a disaster. You want to know if you are making progress with your current plan so that you can change the plan if you don't make progress.

With fake progression, you aren't making progress even though you think you're making progress, and you probably aren't changing your plan even though you would probably be better off changing it.

So you can see that you have a lot of advantages if you go as deep as possible in the squat. Again, we're talking about training for optimal muscle growth.

If you are a powerlifter and only have to go down to parallel in competitions, it can of course make sense to go down to parallel more often or even always in training.

Reaching the optimal depth

How can I learn to go deeper on the squat?

Not everyone's anatomy is made for going all the way down on a squat while keeping the lower back straight. But these people are the exception to the rule. Most people can do it!

But of course that doesn't happen overnight. As toddlers, we all did deep knee bends all the time without any problems. Most of us then unlearned this skill during childhood, because it was not practiced, and now it has to be learned again. This takes time.

Practice regularly

There are very many mobility exercises that you can do regularly to help you go deeper. These can be useful. But what is even more useful is to do squats regularly and try to get deeper every time - not to do any major frippery at all.

Keep the weight and reps constant for a few weeks and try to get lower each week. When you eventually get down so low that the back of your thighs touch your calves, keep the technique and gradually increase the weight or reps from that point on.

Good technique

In addition, you should train far away from muscular failure for now. Be sure to leave 3 RIR on each set of squats for the first few weeks until your technique and therefore depth are solid. The reason for this is that technique usually deteriorates during the last, most strenuous reps.

The more often you perform reps with poor technique, the more this poor technique is burned into your brain and it becomes difficult to correct it again. So don't let it get to that point and take a relaxed approach to the sets at the beginning. There will still be plenty of opportunities to tackle the knee bend fight when you're ready to go full berserker mode.

Consider this lower-intensity, technique-focused training as an investment for better muscle building in the future. You accept a little less muscle building in the beginning, but build up much more muscle in the future - and with less risk of injury.

By the way, you can look up what proper squat technique looks like in the Alpha Progression App by typing "squats" into the exercise database.

Then you will find a video and also a written explanation for proper squat technique. Of course, there are also videos not just for the squat, but also for over 450 other exercises.

Training frequency

You should increase the frequency with which you perform the squat to twice or even three times per week until you have mastered the technique. If you only squat once a week, then you have 7 days to unlearn the technique before you next squat.

After a week, you start almost from scratch again. Squatting 2-3 times per week is also absolutely no problem in terms of recovery, since you will be performing the sets with a relatively low effort level for now.

Also, make sure to do many warm-up sets with gradually increasing weight to get more practice. For example, if you want to do 4 working sets with 120 lbs and 8 reps, do 3 warm-up sets: One with 60 lbs and 8 reps, one with 80 lbs and 6 reps, and one with 100 lbs and 4 reps.

Other tips

Another thing that can help you squat deeper are weightlifting shoes. These are shoes that are raised at the back of the heels and ensure that the lack of ankle mobility in many people does not limit their squat depth.

If you first want to make sure whether or not such - admittedly quite expensive - shoes will do you any good, then first try squats with thin weight plates under your heels. It should feel similar with the shoes. If you get lower with the plates under your heels, then order the shoes.

Squatting with weightlifting shoes is much safer than standing with your heels on plates. This is quite wobbly and can be very dangerous, especially with a lot of weight.

Another important point for squatting deeper is to find the right leg width. Personally, for example, I get maximum depth when I stand a little wider than shoulder width and turn my toes very slightly outward.

As soon as I take a wider stance, I no longer manage to keep my knees in line with the tops of my feet and I don't get down as low by a long shot. However, many people get lower with a wider stance. The challenge then is almost always not to let the knees go inward.

So just try to find out at which stance width you can get the deepest with a straight back. This is then your best stance. And if your knees tend to go inward, of course take special care to always push your knees outward a little.

By the way, what can also help with the knee issue is if you wrap a resistance band around both knees when you squat, which will pull your knees inward. This way you will have to use even more force to push your knees outward.

After a few weeks of not using the band, you will see how easy it will be to not let your knees go inward during sets without the band.

As a last tip, to get deeper, you can do paused reps on the squat for a few weeks. You go down as far as you can, pause in the lowest position for 2 seconds, and then go back up.

The term "pause" is perhaps a bit misleading. You should not, of course, completely lose tension during the "pause" and rest for 2 seconds. You just pause the movement, but continue to tense all the muscles involved - especially the core muscles.

This pause allows you to spend more time in the most critical and probably most uncomfortable position of the squat - the lowest position. So you practice more often or for longer the position that is most difficult for you. This is not pleasant, but it will get you to your goal of lowering your squat more quickly.

Conclusion

You should go as low as you can when squatting.

This is less dangerous, puts less stress on the nervous system, stresses the quads just as much or even more than if you just go up to parallel, definitely stresses the glutes more, and gives you a standardized range of motion (so you don't get fake progression).

How can you manage to go deeper? Perform squats 2-3 times a week, train them with 3 RIR or more, do many warm-up sets, possibly buy weightlifting shoes, find the right stance width, and perform your squats paused for a while.

If you want to record, evaluate, and optimize your training, download the Alpha Progression app here.