 Let's today talk about the best position you can have when squatting. So this is a common question that I'll receive and I'm hesitant to tell you up front, but it's kind of a misconception. Best position is very much dependent on what you're trying to accomplish and who you are. So for someone like me, like I have a lot of hip mobility, but I have pain when I load a lot. So I don't want to do very heavy squats and I don't want to do them very wide because I lose congruency of my hip. I lose the the joint on the or the socket on the ball congruency and it starts to push it forward and I get less contact and the forces aren't dispersed through as wide a position and generally afterwards my hips hurt a little bit more. So for me, I like squatting more narrow. I like squatting with more reps. I like breathing in on the way down out on the way up and I'm like holding my breath quite as much. All of those things are totally the antithesis of squatting the most weight that you can possibly do. So if you're powerlifting, don't listen to any of that. Don't squat like how I do right now. Just consider that optimal might be dependent on your goals. But what I want to talk about today is the positions that you can get that I might say are optimal the the original goals that I have for everyone. So assuming that people have normal mobility in every one of their joints and assuming that people don't have any other restrictions and assuming that people are just general training, right? They're they're looking for general fitness, general health. They're not looking for maximal strength or whatever. They're not squatting in single ply squat suits or anything. What am I looking for? So generally feet are about shoulder width, maybe just outside shoulder width. I'm in that stance already toes are slightly turned out, maybe about 15 degrees, not too much. They're not pointed forward that kind of torques the knees a little too much. And they're not way out here unless you you have some mobility restrictions, right? So again, 15 degrees is where I'm starting. This is what I'm considering my optimal starting point. And so I take this and I squat down and generally I'm going to snap my mic and my back pocket here. Generally I want to squat to hips about knee level, maybe not quite as far, maybe a little bit further, but your heels have to stay on the ground. That's the big thing. If you need help, you can wear squat shoes and that helps you get a little bit deeper. But the general principle is the same. You need to be driving through your heel. Outside of that one way to look at this is if you look at I think this is from Mark Ripito. He talks about this really well in starting strength. If you look at the shin angle and the angle that the torso make, they should be about parallel. So a really hip dominant squat has my shin angle pointing upward and my torso angle bending over more like this. A really knee dominant squat, maybe something that an Olympic lifter might use, especially if they are catching a snatch right and they need their arms up overhead. They can't bend over because they'll lose the bar forward. They need to kind of be as upright as possible and they'll even extend their backs a little bit more to get those shoulders pointing straight up, get those hands pointing straight up. They might adopt a more knee dominant squat like this. So where my shin angle is now more forward and my torso angle is now more upward. Probably optimal for most training people is somewhere where they're about parallel. And so I'm going to try to just do it. As I hit, I'm probably bent over a little bit too much, but right about here, yeah. And so we can come down here and then you can see. So my torso angle and my shin angle are about parallel. So just to recap, stance is toes slightly outward about 15 degrees, feet are about shoulder width, maybe a little bit outside of that. And as I come down, I'm looking for parallel shin and torso angles that generally optimizes my leverage. Now, again, going back to the start, that might not be the best thing for you to do, but in general, if you're giving squatting advice or if you're starting squatting advice, that is a good place to kind of recommend people begin, especially if you're just getting into lifting. That's a place for you to start. That's a place for you to see if this is right. And if it's not, then you can kind of tinker through things and find out, okay, maybe it feels a little bit better if I bend over a little bit more. Maybe I like to be a little more upright or maybe my heel elevation is definitely necessary. You can kind of work through all those different changes and see what works best for you.