It’s official, fellas: We’re so back. And by “we,” I mean chest hair, powerful haunches, and having a big-ass squat. Turns out these three things all work in tandem, since increasing your squat will (literally) grow your glutes and (metaphorically) put some hair on your chest. Squatting is also great for total body strength and power, building muscle, and improving mobility.
To get some tips on how to nail a new PR, we hit up Sam Shethar, amateur strongman and professional strength coach who’s helped four of his clients get to an 800-pound squat and 12 more squat 700 pounds. He’s also an extremely strong squatter himself, and is currently chasing an 800-pound all-time PR. (He knows a thing or two about deadlifting, too.) So, whether you’re hoping to compete in strength sports, looking to grow some tree trunks, or just want to crush your most recent PR, here are a few strategies and common mistakes to look out for when trying to increase your squat.
Nail your form, nail your squat
You’ve heard it before, but that’s because it’s true: Form is king. “There are some guys with pretty developed strong legs that aren’t particularly good at the squat,” Shethar says. “That’s because strength is a skill, and that skill is a little bit higher for the squat, since it requires a little bit more coordination than other lifts. To get better at squatting, we have to practice that skill even more. For example, when it comes to benching, if we’ve got passable technique and we get more jacked, we’ll probably bench press more. The same is not always true of the squat.”
Most people need to practice squatting as if it’s a sport itself—but how do you do that? “The key is to establish a good, well-balanced bottom position,” Shethar says. “After that, squatting just becomes finding your way to that bottom position while staying tight and keeping your balance. If you can do that, you’ll usually succeed in standing up.” However, he explains, if you don’t have sufficient mobility, nailing that bottom position is gonna be tough. “I think that doing a little bit of mobility would do a lot of people a lot of good,” he says. “One of the best things you can do is just spend five total minutes at the bottom of a bodyweight squat. Instead of piecemealing the squat apart into a bunch of different mobility components and having a 20-step mobility drill, let’s just make our mobility [routine] squatting.”
Pick a squat type and stick to it
So, what exactly “counts” as a squat, anyway? “I recommend a free squat pattern movement—not a machine, but an open air squat,” Shethar says, “but I don’t feel strongly about where you put that bar. If front squatting gives you access to a comfortable squat that you can load week after week and it doesn’t beat you up, you can front squat. If the high bar feels great, great. If you’re a longer limb lifter and putting that bar down your back in a low bar lets you get into your hinge a little bit, great.” What really matters, he says, is picking a squat that works for you and sticking to it. “Squatting to a box, using a safety bar, it could be a Zercher squat for all I care—what I really want is to see someone progress over time.”
The exception, he notes, is if your sport requires a specific kind of squat to a particular depth (think: powerlifting). “If you’re squatting for powerlifting, there’s a very well-defined depth: hip crease below the top of the knee.” But if we’re squatting for general athleticism or just squatting for the sake of squatting, it doesn’t actually matter, Shethar says. “Just get (ballpark) as low as your mobility allows. If that’s comically high, maybe set the goal of improving your mobility alongside your squatting, but just squat as deep as your mobility allows you to with good mechanics. Don’t force depth because some guy on the internet told you that if it’s not ass-to-grass, it doesn’t count—and don’t do comically high partials unless that’s something you’re very specifically doing as a sport-specific exercise.”