 Today, we are going to answer the age-old question of how deep should you actually squat? All right. Got my beautiful bride, Rachel, here. We're going to talk about how deep should you squat, right? So we have the age-old question like a lot of people argue and say Astrographs will be bad for you. You should squat only to 90 degrees just below parallel What is the right answer? And really the right answer is we don't want too high. We don't want too low We want something right in the middle, you know, sort of like Goldilocks here. That's what we're looking for So what we're going to do first is we're going to establish this Proper squat depth without the bar first because when I'm teaching somebody when I put the bar on their back It sort of complicates everything and they have to start thinking about the barbell So let's not think about the barbell first So normal hip width stance toes out just a little bit more than that just like that Hands together like you're gonna pray and you're gonna descend in your squat eyes down on the floor But I will actually want you to stop a couple inches high. So a couple inches above parallel Let's see how that looks stay on balance on midfoot Stop about a little tiny bit deeper about right there. Okay now at this position You can see she's pretty much at a 90 degree angle of her knees But her hip is clearly three four inches above her knees and in this position Her quads are super tight and they're pulling on the knee from the front, but the hamstrings aren't really engaged I actually feel they're significantly looser than the than the quads So you're not really pulling on the knee from the back side So this is all quad and we're not really engaging the hamstring now. You okay to go down to a normal depth Come back up for a second. Okay Take a deep breath You're right now go down to normal depth just below parallel Put your elbows between your knees push them out that looks good right there Maybe drop another half inch that right there now in this position. You can see her back is relatively horizontal. That's okay She's balanced on midfoot The knees track the same direction as the toes and in this position She's gone down low enough now that her hamstrings are significantly tighter her her glutes are stretched her quads are stretched We're using all the muscles that we should plus the inside of the thigh drive up right here stand up. Good. That's perfect That's the middle now. Here's the hard one because you never do it this way Let's go way too deep So just go all the way down and kind of sit on your ankles Butt to ankles just like that now when you go to butt to ankle as you can see with Rachel She's pretty flexible and so her back is still relatively flat for most guys They're actually gonna round their pelvis and so they're gonna lose some back Extension here. What's happened with Rachel and what happens with a lot of people to have good flexibility is they Relax their hamstrings to get in this position. So now the quads are super stretch But the hamstrings have shortened again the glutes are super stretch So this is a this is a good lift for quads and glutes But we've taken the hamstrings out of the movement, right and you see she's way more vertical in her back. So drive back up Okay, perfect. Now the goal is to basically use as much muscle mass as possible We want to be able to use the quads on the front of the leg the hamstrings on the back of the leg The glutes on the obviously the butt and then we also want to use the inside of our thighs the adductors And so all four of those muscles will allow us to lift the most weight And what that really comes down to is we're thinking about the total amount of work We're doing so work is the distance that we're gonna move the bar times the weight If I go too deep I'm gonna use so much more less weight even though I've got more distance that if we put it into the algebraic equation I'm still doing less work. So what we're trying to find is the happy medium there again The porridge it not too hot not too cold, right for Goldilocks And we're gonna squat to just below parallel So the idea is that the crease of the hip Goes just below the top of the knee at that point all those muscles are sort of maximally engaged Make sense. Okay, let's take it to the barbell. Okay, so we've Established what the proper depth is without the bar now We're gonna take it to an empty bar and if you're watching this and you're lifting alone Well, there's really two ways to find correct depth number one is to get a good professional coach to watch this for you And that's probably the best option number two Is to just video yourself from the side angle from kind of low between the hip and the knee height So that you can see and then just watch all your warm-ups and see if you're hitting just below parallel Above parallels too high way below parallels too low And so we're gonna have you take the bar go ahead and take your normal squat stance And of course, we've taught this in other videos squat stance low bar position Stand up tall Walk back and what I want you to do is I actually want you to try to squat about two to three inches high on the first rep So we can see the hamstrings don't really engage just just the quads so nice and slow and Up just like that good And you'll see a lot of people in the gym doing that especially as the weight gets heavier now I want you to go to the correct depth So just below parallel so big stretch in the bottom knees out really hard stretch stretch stretch stretch stretch stretch Right there and fire up that looks good now in this last one I want you to get loose and just relax and go all the way to the bottom and then come back up And in the bottom you'll see the hamstrings wrote lax you bounce off the knee tendons Which is not what we want once the we want to bounce off the hamstrings glutes and adductors slow and smooth on the way down Nice and deep fire up perfect good just like that again Deep fire up perfect nice Balance on mid-foot. That's what we want. Everything is stretched out and fire up good walk it in that's exactly right Nice so next time you're squatting We want to look for how to use the maximum amount of muscle mass to move the bar We want to use the quads and not just the quads The hamstrings which is what often gets left out the glutes and the adductors the entire the thigh and that Perfect depth is just below parallel not above parallel not three four inches below That's why we don't want to go astagrass or butt to ankles or whatever that is Because we want to utilize as much muscle mass as possible so we grow as much muscle mass as possible So we can move as much weight as possible do the most work and set pr's That's that's what we're trying to do to learn more about how to squat perfectly From certified coaches andrew nicky myself click the link right up here