How Deep Should You Squat?

A person who can squat to full depth will always be able to squat to partial depth, but a person who cannot squat to full depth may find themself in trouble if they ever reach an inadvertent depth.

Why not prepare for it all and train yourself to own every inch of range of motion that is available, to unlock all of the potential of your squat?

If you ask me, some trainees need to squat deep.

If you ask me, every trainee should (at least) try to squat deep.

A few examples of ones who need to squat deep are powerlifters, weightlifters, and sport athletes. A powerlifter needs to reach a certain amount of depth to be awarded a successful squat in competition. A weightlifter needs to be proficient at squatting as low as possible in order to receive snatches and cleans at lower heights. A sport athlete is destined to wind up in various crouched positions that they must recover from and get out of quickly in order to remain a participant during their games.

Everyone else should be attempting to squat as deep as they can.

To me, “as deep as they can” means as far down as they can go while maintaining form and balance. It does not mean as far down as they are comfortable going.

Depth: Unnatural vs. Unfamiliar

If as you venture to greater squat depth, your heels peel off the ground, your knees sandwich together, and/or your back begins to take the shape of a waxing crescent 🌙, you may be trying to go too deep, for now at least.

If as you journey to greater squat depth, you stop at any point because you are unsure you will be able to get back up, you could probably go deeper, you just have not tried enough of it yet.

The former is an example of someone who is trying to force a range of motion that is unnatural, and an argument could be made that attempting to go that deep should be avoided in order to prevent injury.

The latter is an example of someone who is reluctant to squat deeper because of an unfamiliar range of motion, which is just uncharted territory. This, in effect, presents unexplored room to build more strength, mobility, and coordination than their current squat depth. This should be considered encouraging!

More depth: Making Unfamiliar, Familiar

If you aspire to develop a deeper squat, you will need to practice it regularly.

Obviously, you will have more trust in yourself squatting lighter weights to greater depths than you will heavier ones, so take full advantage of building confidence on your lighter sets. Make a concerted effort to travel further down than you normally do as you are warming up and working up in weights.

If you form the habit of squatting lower during your lighter sets, it will begin to translate to your heavier sets over time.

Once you are equipped with the ability to squat to full depth, it does not mean you need to get there with every set, but there will be a higher probability that you bail yourself out if ever the weight pushes you lower than you want to go.

To sum up, do not force more range of motion if your body is not ready for it, but do reflect on the reason you cut your depth at a specific point if there is still room to go deeper. If it is not due to pain or a mobility restriction, consider testing out a deeper squat.

Be patient, go about it slowly, and drill it with consistency.

A Daily Goal That Led To A Finding

At the start of February, I set a goal for myself to begin each of my workouts with at least a couple sets of dumbbell rows. I planned to do this for a month, and was hoping to strengthen my upper back to help boost my deadlift.

Also, I wasn’t planning on doing ordinary DB Rows - I was using a very heavy dumbbell (one that was so heavy that it required some body english to hoist around).

I started doing these rows at the beginning of each workout without much focus on the movement or much planning. Some days I would do sets of 5, some days sets of 8-10. Some days I would do a ton of sets of just one or two at a time. I didn’t really care about set and rep structure, I just wanted to pull some reps on a heavy weight.

For most of the month I was consistent and stayed true to my goal. Toward the end of the month though, I got lazy a couple of days and skipped the rows at the beginning of the day.

And on the days that I skipped my rows, I noticed a surprising correlation…my lifts were lousy on those same days and my workout in general was not good.

When I first devised the idea to start each session with heavy rows I figured that my performance would go down a little bit due to pre-exaustion from the rows. I never really noticed that to be true, but I certainly didn’t expect the rows to enhance my performance every session.

It wasn’t until I linked my bad workouts to the skipping of rows that I actually did believe they helped my lifts that same day.

Here is what I now believe…

Starting your lifting session with a few sets of heavy rows activates your upper back and helps familiarize a “set” shoulder position.

You need a strong upper back and “set shoulders” to support the weight you are trying to squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press, etc.

Any compound movement you can train will heavily involve the upper back.

Starting your workout with heavy rows warms you up in a hurry.

If you are using heavy enough weight, your whole body will be stimulated making the exercise a potent energizer.

My theory is that the weight you are rowing should be very heavy - nothing you can do in strict fashion - and done at relatively low volumes (I would say 25 or less total repetitions each side).

If you’re rowing a weight that doesn’t require use of straps, the weight isn’t heavy enough.

I do predict that if you performed rows at higher volumes to begin each workout, say 30-60+ reps per side, that a pre-exhaustive effect would set in and your performance would in fact suffer for that session.

That’s just a guess though. Maybe I’ll try that in the future.

As for now I’m going to keep doing my heavy rows at the beginning of each day. I like how they make me feel and I like what they do for my lifts.

Try them for yourself and let me know what you think…