Do you dread performing the back squat because it feels challenging, or because it gives you pain in your hips, knees, or back?

The back squat is often labeled the king of lower body exercises and is a foundational exercise that anyone looking to improve overall muscle and strength will benefit from. While the squat will absolutely build your legs, it’s also an essential movement to learn for long-term health and function.

Whether your goal is:

• Full body strength
• Developed glutes, hamstrings, quads, calves, and back muscles
• Athletic development
• Better aging
• Or overall hip, knee, and low back health… 

Then the back squat should be a staple in your routine. 

While this doesn’t mean you need to set records and lift tons of weight (although you could), your body will benefit from having this in your routine and not leaving it out of your regular program. 

That being said, all those benefits mentioned above are only available if it’s done correctly. Walk into any commercial gym or watch videos of people online performing squats, and you’ll see all sorts of technique that will make you cringe. 

If you’ve ever heard squats are bad for your knees, hips, or lower back - that’s simply not true. In fact, it’s essential for keeping all those areas healthy when done correctly. If you ever feel your knees, hips, or lower back hurting when you squat - it’s from the way that you’re performing the lift, not from the lift itself. 

I regularly get to help clients go from this being a weak lift or having pain during the lift due to not knowing what to do, to lifting very respectable weights and putting on serious muscle in the process. Full body movements like the back squat will cause muscle building potential from head to toe due to the positive stress it puts on the body.

If you’re looking to improve your back squat, whether you’re just starting out or you’ve been lifting for years, here are some simple cues that will improve your squat:

1: Pull Down On The Bar

The difference between a strong squat and a weak or failed rep largely comes down to your setup (covered in steps 1-4 in this article). If you just get under the bar, walk the weight out, and hope you’ll drop down and stand back up, you’ll greatly limit your potential to get strong while keeping your joints healthy. Pulling down on the bar and getting your shoulder blades pulled down will help set a strong upper back position while engaging your upper body. 

Think about using your arms to pull the bar towards your shoulders, instead of simply moving your shoulders to the bar. This should feel like you’re doing a behind the neck lat pulldown as you get your shoulders packed tight.

2: Breathe and Brace

If you don’t properly breathe and brace before initiating the lift, you’re failing to stabilize your spine (very important) and create enough pressure to lift more weight (also important).

With your hands on the bar, BEFORE unracking the weight, take a big 360 degree breath into your belly/sides/lower back and tightly brace your core - as if you were about to get punched. This should NOT involve your shoulders rising up and down.

3: Pull Ribs Down (NOT Chest Up)

You may have heard the cue used to keep your chest up, which is NOT a cue I recommend. This leads to excessive arching of the lower back, which can compromise your joints and greatly limit power output. Instead, you want to think about pulling your ribs down, which further creates good core activation and alignment of your spine and your hips.

Pull your ribs down (or pulling your sternum towards your pelvis), as if you were doing a ¼ crunch.

4: Stay Tight Through Walkout

If you’ve nailed the first 3 steps outlined above, your next goal is simply to maintain it as you walk the weight out. I see too many people completely lose all their tension when walking the weight out, and then try and create tension when the weight is already on their back. This is significantly harder to do, especially as the weight gets heavy.

Maintain the proper tension and tightness you developed above, and unrack the weight with a 3 step approach to get ready to squat. Step back with one foot, back with the next foot, and then step wider with the first foot. This should be all you need to find ideal set up and be ready to squat your first rep.

5: Grip The Floor/Rip The Floor Apart/Tripod Foot (NOT Knees Out)

All these cues are designed to create a strong and active foot position, align your knees properly, and create tension in your hips. By doing this, you will be set up to produce the most amount of force (obviously very important for squatting respectable weights) while also aligning your joints in a way that will provide maximal stability and protection. The key is to avoid your knees caving in OR rolling out excessively. The cue knees out gets overused and results in people rolling to the outside of their foot, which is also problematic. 

By thinking about gripping the floor or ripping the floor apart, the goal is to create equal pressure between your heel, big toe, and pinky toe (think like a tripod). You should feel your femurs and knees slightly rotate outward while maintaining equal pressure of your foot.

6: Crack The Hips+Knees Together/Straight Up and Down (NOT Sit Back or Hips Back)

The cues of sit your hips back or reach your hips back are overused cues that usually result in poor form. When you think too much about reaching your hips back, it usually leads to tipping your pelvis forward and extending your lower back (anterior pelvic tilt). This is not an ideal position for maximal strength or protection of your joints, and results in a squat that looks more like a deadlift.

Think about allowing the hips and knees to ‘crack’ (or bend) together, which should result in you moving the weight straight up and down (similar to a hack squat machine).

7: Accelerate Through Lockout/Press Shoulders Through Bar

Most people think about pressing hard at the bottom of the movement, but most people then let up too early and coast their way into the lockout. This increases the risk of losing your proper alignment and reduces the amount of muscles that are working, which will reduce your overall strength and muscle development.

Think about accelerating the bar through the middle and the end of the lockout to ensure maximal muscle activation, or driving your shoulders into the bar throughout the entire movement.

These are just some of the simple, but extremely effective, cues we use with our clients that get great results in improving their back squat. Experiment with different cues to discover which ones help improve how you feel during your bench and which ones help your performance while keeping you feeling great.