How to squat with a barbell

The back squat, along with the deadlift and the bench press, is one of the three best exercises there is for building strength, muscle and athleticism. No variation beats it. You can load more weight than on anything else, and it asks for real skill — ankle and shoulder mobility, and a trunk you know how to brace.

That combination is the whole point. It's also why the squat is where people's technique quietly falls apart. A bad rep with 95 lbs on your back is a bad rep. A bad rep with 225 is a bad rep with 225.

Here's the whole thing, cue by cue, in the order I teach it in my gym.

Before you unrack

Most squat problems are set-up problems wearing a disguise. Fix these three and a surprising amount of what felt wrong at the bottom stops happening.

1. Hands slightly outside the shoulders. Close enough that you can pull the bar down into your back, wide enough that your shoulders aren't screaming. Where exactly depends on your shoulder mobility, which is the thing most people need to work on before the grip feels right.
2. Lock the bar in. Pull it down into your back and pack your armpits — as though you were squeezing something under each one. This is active, not a position you set and forget. Don't let it go at any point, especially at the bottom. The bar loosening in the hole is how a good squat turns into a good-morning.
3. Feet in power position, torso slightly tucked. A stable base you can drive the floor away with, and a standing hollow through the middle — ribs down, nothing arched, nothing flared. Never lean back. Not on the walkout, not at the top of the rep, not ever.

Then brace. Build the pressure while the bar is still on the hooks, walk it out already pressurized, and hold it until you're standing tall again at the end of the rep. If that sentence doesn't mean anything concrete to you yet, stop here and read how to brace your core first — it's the single thing that most changes what a squat feels like, and there's a ten-second test in there that tells you whether you're doing it right.

The rep

Three things, and only three.

• Descend slow and controlled. Not slow for the sake of it — controlled enough that you arrive at the bottom in the position you intended, rather than wherever gravity dropped you.
• Hit depth. Hip crease below the top of the knee. More on what that actually means below.
• Drive back up forcefully. The descent is controlled; the ascent isn't. Once you've hit depth, go.

Breathe at the top, between reps. On a heavy set that means one breath per rep, not one per set.

Watch it

Reading a movement only gets you so far. Here's the whole lift, taught:

How deep should you squat?

Squatting deep and squatting to depth are the same thing, and the definition isn't a matter of opinion.

Depth means the hip crease — at the front of your body — drops below the top of your knee when seen from the side. That's it. If you're at 90 degrees or above, you haven't hit it. In powerlifting, in CrossFit and in most competition settings, that's a no rep.

The part worth internalizing: depth is a position, not a feeling. Almost everyone thinks they're deeper than they are. Film yourself from the side, once, and find out — it takes thirty seconds and it settles an argument most people have been having with themselves for years.

Low bar vs high bar squat

Let's keep this simple, because it gets argued about far past the point of usefulness.

	Low bar	High bar
Bar sits	Lower on the back, across the rear delts	Higher, on the traps
Stance	Wider	Narrower
Torso	More bent over	More upright
Range of motion	Shorter	Longer
Best for	Moving the most weight	Mobility and core control

If you're a powerlifter, low bar is the most efficient way to lift as much weight as possible. Wider stance, more bent over, shorter range of motion — all of it shortens the distance the bar has to travel.

That doesn't mean you're stronger. It means the lift is built to move weight. A bigger number on a low bar squat is a bigger number on a low bar squat.

High bar is the better choice if you want to be more functional — which really means better mobility and better core control. That's what carries over to sport, and to anything that asks for athleticism rather than a one-rep max. For most people who aren't competing, high bar is the one I'd put you on.

Squat rack or Smith machine?

Back squats are normally done off a squat rack, and that's what you'll see in the video above.

A Smith machine works if you don't have a rack. But the bar is on rails, which means the machine is doing your stabilizing for you — and the stabilizing is a large part of why the squat is worth doing. You lose the full-body demand and keep the leg work.

If you have both available and you're healthy, take the rack. Every time.

If you can't hit depth, it's usually mobility

Two restrictions account for most of it.

Ankles

If your heels lift, your knees won't travel forward far enough to let your hips drop, and you'll either cut the squat short or fold at the back to find the room. Ankle dorsiflexion is the usual culprit and it responds well to consistent work.

Shoulders

If you can't get your hands where they belong without pain, you can't pull the bar into your back — and a bar that isn't locked in will shift on you under load. Shoulder mobility limits the squat in a way most people don't expect from a leg exercise.

Work on both directly, alongside your training rather than instead of it. In the meantime, squat to the depth you own.

How to squat heavier

If you want to squat more weight, you need the right program. Not more effort — more effort is what most people already bring, and it's not what's missing.

Broadly, loading falls into three jobs:

• Higher reps build work capacity and give you more practice per set. This is where I start every new lifter, because twelve reps is twelve chances to rehearse the pattern and five is five.
• Moderate reps, roughly five to twelve, are where most people get the best return on muscle for the time spent.
• Low reps, three to five, are the strength range — heavy weight, long rest, few reps. One to two reps, moved fast, is where power lives.

Most people pick one of these and live there for years. That's the real reason a squat stalls. A program that's worth running cycles through all three deliberately, and knows which one you're in and why.

If you want to see what that looks like written out — sets, reps, percentages, rest — there's a full routine here, including why the block I start people in isn't the heavy one.

Then go and use it

Brace, then technique, then load — that order is most of what keeps lifting safe. The squat is one of three lifts worth learning properly; the deadlift write-up is here, and both videos are up free on learn the lifts, no signup.

And if you're coming to the barbell later than most people do, start with strength training for women over 50 — it covers why loading matters more after fifty, not less.

This article is general information about exercise and health. It isn't medical advice. If you have current pain or a diagnosis affecting your knees, hips or spine, see a professional who can examine you before loading a barbell.