Butt and breath.
Tuck. Purpose. Glute bridge.
Open the groin.
Tuck. Purpose. Glute bridge.
Unlock the knees.
Tuck. Purpose. Glute bridge.
Neutral spine.
Tuck. Purpose. Glute bridge.
Catapult / coin flip.
Tuck. Purpose. Glute bridge.
Erupt through the bar.
Tuck. Purpose. Glute bridge.
Recover lost breath
The most advantageous position for you to actually pull air is before you have the weight on your back... You're getting everything tight, then pull as much air as you possibly can and then when you stand up with it, you can let a little out and then you know pull that back in again.
Elite FTS
I'll take a big [breath] at the beginning through my nose and then take [the bar] out. I don't want to let it all out because... you're actually loosening up... You want to keep it locked in. So as you walk back you're letting out a little bit of air and then getting more in. Just enough to do the exercise itself and you don't want to take in too much of it through the mouth because you're not filling up your lungs well.
Super Training
Inhale before you unrack the bar and walk it back. Inhale again when you’re ready to Squat, right before you go down.
StrongLifts
There is breathing time and there is lifting time and the two are not friends... You should get a big belly breath and you should brace it down, but from the moment that that bar begins descending you should not be [exhaling] whatsoever until you are 90% done with that squat. Filling your torso with air and holding your breath that's something that your body does naturally to help protect its spine when you go to pick up something heavy.
Neversate
Fundamentally, you want to be breathing in only at the top before you descend, and you want to breathe out towards the last half of the movement or even just breathe out at the very top. You don't want to be breathing in as you go down and out from the very bottom.
Renaissance Periodization
So once I've gotten my air in, I brace my abdominal wall. I'm going to hold that throughout the duration of the movement until I finish the rep and then I'll blow it out forcefully. If I'm doing multiple reps I'll then take a new breath in at the top of the rep and then descend, do the next rep, and repeat.
Super Training
Hips back + groin open
Open up the groin... Open up your taint... [When you] push your knees out, you feel... a lot of strain on your knee. Instead, open up way up high in your groin. When you concentrate and open it up back here it makes you sit back and... you don't feel any stress on your knees... You end up using more hip and hamstring.
Super Training
First thing I do is sit my hips back... It's important to note that the sitting of the hips back does not move the bar. The bar stays in place while the hips break.
John Paul Cauchi
A short movement of the hips backwards and then squat down from there. “Back, back, back” isn’t for you, it is more “down, down, down”.
Juggernaut
If I try to push my knees out too far, I don't sit back but I feel it on my knees... if I when I break my hips it'll naturally start to open up your groin way up high. So if that stays open, your knees naturally come out so there's less strain on them.
Elite FTS
To initiate the squat, think about sitting back and pushing your knees out to the side. This will help you load the glutes and hamstrings, as well as helping keeping your lower back healthy.
Robertson Training Systems
Regular trainees will often exaggerate [the 'sit back'] cue, sitting back at the hips and maintaining a near vertical shin angle while they descend... A very useful clue that something is wrong during the descent is the distribution of weight across the feet. Ideally, the combined center of mass of the barbell/lifter system is held in perfect balance over the mid foot throughout the lift.
Alan Thrall
Pushing your hips back while unlocking your knees instead of just unlocking your knees and going down is a good cue to use here. So when you think of squatting think of going a little bit back and then plenty down and think of actively staying on your whole foot heels and toes.
Renaissance Periodization
To initiate the descent, I think about basically two things: I drive my hips back and I drive my knees out... You do not want to lead with your knees.
Super Training
Knees over toes.
As long as you break at your hips and knees at the same time or even your hips first if the knees cross over the toes later that's absolutely fine.
Renaissance Periodization
Your knees should generally point in the same direction as your toes. They shouldn't cave in or be forced out excessively...
Jeff Nippard
Keep your knees inline with your feet... Your knees should end above your toes at the bottom of your Squat. They’ll be more forward if you have long thighs than if you have short thighs (or long feet). But your knees should end inline with your feet and almost directly above your toes... Knees out creates space for your belly and makes it easier to break parallel. It engages your groin muscles which increases your Squat. And it prevents twisting of your knee joints. Don’t let your knees cave in during heavy Squats or you risk injuring your knees.
StrongLifts
If I push my knees out slightly, this gets my femurs out of the way to create space and I can keep a little bit more upright back angle.
Super Training
External rotation is the rotation of the leg AWAY from the midline of the body... Ultimately, the goal is to turn your femurs outward to open the hip capsule and allow the hip to bear the load on our back. This also allows all the bony landmarks, where tendons are attached, to rotate out of the way. Stand up and put your left foot out with your heel on the ground and toe up. Now rotate your foot outward away from your body. Feel that? That’s your glute firing. Now stand in your squat position. Contract the glutes and rotate the leg out towards the pinky toe WITHOUT letting your foot slide across the floor.
Elite FTS
As you’re standing up, don’t forget to keep pushing your knees out as well. If your knees are caving in, your shifting the stress to your quadriceps and adductors, versus your glutes and lateral hamstrings.
Robertson Training Systems
Push your knees out in the bottom of your squat! If you're in the bottom of a squat and you have no other place to go, the reason why is because your body is in the way... That's why you don't see a pregnant lady just flop on a couch; she starts pushing her knees out to allow room for her belly... You need to push your knees out to create a little bit more space and still be able to maintain position then come out of the hole.
Neversate
A lot of people... when their knees go in, they use the cue to drive the knees wide... Their foot comes into a good arch; so that's a really great cue. However, if you drive your knees real far wide... you just become unstable. So that whole 'drive the knees wide' only works to a point because if you drive the knees too far wide then you just become unstable in other positions... on the outside of the feet.
Barbell Shrugged
Balanced over mid-foot
As you descend and stand up you should remain balanced (or heavy) throughout your entire foot. Feeling heavy on your heels or heavy on your toes would indicate you are not balanced...
Alan Thrall
Your most efficient squat path is going to be a straight bar path... and what what we want to do is try to get it as close to straight as we can... directly over our mid foot - that's our center of balance and gravity.
Super Training
I'm really pushing my knees forward over my toes... that's not bad for knees unless you're letting your weight shift forward onto your toes [so] no matter what you want to make sure you keep your weight balanced over your mid foot... and that way you're gonna make sure that you're not just engaging your quads, you're gonna be engaging all the muscles in your lower body.
Controlled Descent
Remember: the eccentric phase of muscle contraction (the lengthening phase) is very hypertrophic... you are here to tax the musculature. We want to control the way down... he controls the entire time on the way down and up - that means we're staying safe and our quads are active during the lengthening which means they're contracting eccentrically which is awesome for more muscle growth.
Renaissance Periodization
When most people descend quickly, they lose tightness, lose balance, and [so they're] not as strong as [they] would be... The only part [of your descent] that matters is staying tight, staying balanced. That's really all the matters throughout the entire lift.
Mind Pump
I want you to go down as fast as you can go down in the squat... as fast as your technique can tolerate... as fast as you can maintain tightness [and] be consistent hitting your positions... We may want to be a little bit slower and more controlled in the top three quarters of the squat and then (if you're able to maintain tension doing this) to accelerate into the bottom of the squat and allow yourself to get some some rebound.. exploit the stretch reflex.
Juggernaut
Torso angle
As we descend, we want to make sure we set our torso angle at a maintainable position. We don't want to see a big shift or change in the torso angle throughout the squat - specifically as we hit the bottom and start coming back up. So on the descent, if we can get the appropriate angle, then we can keep it for the rest of the lift.
Calgary Barbell
As you squat down, it’s critical that you keep your chest up. This will help keep your lower back flat/neutral, and allow you to transfer maximal force into the bar.
Robertson Training Systems
There should be no drastic changes in your back angle during the ascent portion of the squat. If you descend with a vertical torso, stand up with that same vertical torso. If you descend with a more horizontal torso, stand up with that same horizontal torso.
Alan Thrall
This brace should not be an arch. We’ve spent all this time trying to get into an ideal spinal position, so stay in a neutral spine position! ...make sure the head and neck are neutral as well. Often this requires you to pull the head/neck back a bit, to get them in-line with the rest of the spine.
Robertson Training Systems
Being super bent over in the lower back doesn't do anything good for injury risk but... it reduces your ability to produce force through the quads. The back becomes a limiting factor... you should at least have your spine relatively straight, brace nice and tight, keep your chest not necessarily super up but don't let it cave forward... At the bottom of a deep squat, gravity and body mechanics want you to fold over on yourself - just don't do it. Resist by maintaining upright posture... [with the] back either neutral or in a slight lordosis.
Renaissance Periodization
I don't ever think about trying to arch my lower back. I think about trying to drive my core out and stabilize, and if I do that correctly I stay straight.
Super Training
Constant head, chest, and torso position! [When I] pick my chest up out of the bottom, this shifts my balance. The barbell is no longer over the middle of my foot and it takes the tension off my hips, making it difficult to grind through heavy reps. Maintaining the correct torso position and knee position will allow you to stay in your hips during the entire squat... Now I'm looking down and out in front. I'm burning a hole in the ground with my eyes... Keeping my nipples down towards the floor helps me maintain the correct chest and torso position.
Alan Thrall
Keep your chest up, your upper-back tight and the bar over your mid-foot. Don’t let your hips rise faster than your chest or you’ll lean forward and end in a dangerous position... Maintain the back angle you had at the bottom.
StrongLifts
Flat neck
When you [look up] you are placing your spine in a position where it can simply support less weight... like driving your car with the emergency brake on... it is very very important that from the moment that you unrack the bar until you put the bar back in the rack that you keep your chin nice and neutral and it doesn't change position. Just fixing that alone will often solve many other structural issues in the squat as well as up your bar speed which is always an excellent thing when it comes to moving heavy weights.
Neversate
You want a neutral head position... looking up is not a good idea. That's going to put a curvature into your spine and the curvature into your bar path... Typically I look slightly down.
Super Training
You're gonna have this tendency to hyperextend with your neck... it turns on all these muscles on the back side of your body... and drive you into an anterior pelvic tilt... It's going to shut off your glutes and your hamstrings... So [instead] we want neutral neck, eyes up... you can see he's neutral through his lower back and his hips. This is gonna allow him to use his glutes and his hamstrings when coming off the floor.
Robertson Training Systems
... you want to keep your chin as neutral as possible, which basically means that you're just trying to stare at a point that's about 10 to 12 feet in front of you... and stay there...your chin stays straight down [and] neutral.
Neversate
Stretch Reflex
At the bottom of a full squat... several muscle groups reach a full stretch [which] will produce a contraction that feels like a natural bounce out of the bottom - a stretch reflex. Do not dive bomb your squat and bounce your hamstrings off your calves... The lower back should remain rigid throughout the entire squat. Maintaining tension throughout the entire squat is hard and it's uncomfortable but it's absolutely necessary.
Alan Thrall
I actually never even think about coming back up. I'm so tight I'm just like a spring. I just start to come back up, now I finished the movement by squeezing my glutes and driving them forward.
Super Training
Squat down, break parallel, then quickly reverse the movement by Squatting back up. The weight will be easier to Squat because you’ll use the Stretch Reflex. Your leg muscles will contract harder because the way down stretched them. The harder your muscles contract, the stronger you are on the way up. The key is to maintain proper form at the bottom by keeping your knees out, hips back and lower back neutral.
StrongLifts
...you generally don't want to pause in the hole at all, but rather take advantage of the stretch reflex at the bottom and immediately reverse the motion the second you hit depth.
Jeff Nippard
Feet into floor + traps into bar
...initiate the ascent by driving your traps back into the bar aggressively while driving your feet through the floor... Since the bar is trying to crush you forward (imposing a spinal flexion and hip flexion moment), driving your traps back into the bar will counter that tendency...continue driving your traps back into the bar aggressively [through the sticking point], while simultaneously trying to drive your hips under the bar. Your knees will probably shift forward as well.
Stronger By Science
The squat isn't just pushing with your legs, you have to use your back at the same time. So as you push up off the floor you want to drive your back up into the bar as hard as you can and pop your chest up...You don't want to come backward... so you'll push up with your lower body and you're going to take the chin and chest and drive it straight up through. That drives the bar up [vertically] and not back.
Super Training
Keep your chest up out of the hole by driving your head and shoulder back into the bar. Also drive your elbows forward under the bar (again there may not be much actual movement of the elbows but the intent will help you avoid collapsing forward) as you initiate the drive out of the hole.
Juggernaut
As you’re coming up out of the hole, don’t think about standing up – think about pushing BACK into the bar. This will help you keep your chest up and the bar moving in a straight line.
Robertson Training Systems
We're watching for his butt to come up and the barbell to come up at the same speed. The knees drive the hips up and because he's rigid in his mid-back, the bar comes with it.
Barbell Logic
Shoulders should be the first thing to move coming back up... out of the hole... like you're trying to heave that bar off of your back and throw it into the back wall... Come out of the bottom with your shoulders first, chin first... some people will say chest first.
Elite FTS
We're gonna take that head and shoulders unit - which again is locked in like she's wearing a neck brace - and we're gonna drive it all back up into the bar... and what she's trying to do is create even pressure with her feet into the floor and her upper back into the bar to maximize both the strength of our legs and lower back as we lift the weight.
Juggernaut
Erupt
EXPLODE. Lift every rep as fast as you can while still maintaining proper technique... you’ll gain strength much faster if you make a point of lifting each rep as explosively as you can, from the first rep of each set to the last.
Stronger By Science
Focus on accelerating the bar throughout the concentric movement all the way to the top of the lift.
Juggernaut
You want to explode out of the hole as if you were trying to jump through the ceiling.
Jeff Nippard
Think of throwing the bar off of your back as you rise. This can help you ascend faster.
Legion Athletics
Be explosive, but always in control. "Being in control" does not mean NOT being aggressive. It often means to slow down, but not to go slow. Be quick, but don't hurry… Every inch you go down in the squat, you're gaining strength and tension. Then come up and explode with everything you have.
Alan Thrall
We need to get the load to stay on the quads... Think about keeping your knees forward as you come up out of the bottom. Now I'm not saying drive your knees forward harder all the way through the lift, but simply don't let them shoot back... Keep some pressure on the front of your foot. Actively drive your toes down as you push up out of the bottom.
Calgary Barbell