When it comes to functional fitness, few exercises are as universally praised or as widely used as the squat. From elite athletes to beginners in the gym, the squat stands as a foundational movement that offers a host of benefits. But while squatting might seem like a simple action, there is a lot of education behind the movement to ensure it is done properly and effectively. Let’s break down the science, benefits, and proper techniques of the squat so you can maximize its impact and minimize the risk of any injury.

The Anatomy of the Squat: Which Muscles Are Involved?

To understand why squats are so effective, it is important to know which muscles are activated during the movement. Squats primarily target:

• Quadriceps: Located at the front of the thighs, these muscles are responsible for extending the knee.
• Hamstrings: These muscles at the back of the thigh help in knee flexion and hip extension.
• Glutes: The gluteus maximus, or your butt muscles, play a key role in hip extension, helping to straighten your body as you rise from a squat.
• Core Muscles: The abdominal muscles, lower back, and obliques all work together to stabilize your torso and maintain proper posture during the squat.
• Adductors: The inner thigh muscles that assist in controlling your legs and supporting the squat’s balance.
• Calves: Though not as primary, your calves (gastrocnemius and soleus) help with stabilization and balance during the movement.

The Benefits of Squats

1. Strength and Power Development: Squats are incredibly effective for building strength in the lower body, particularly in the quads, glutes, and hamstrings. This increased strength can translate to improved performance in other exercises, sports, and even daily activities.
2. Improved Functional Movement: Since squats mimic the action of sitting down and standing up, they enhance functional mobility, making everyday tasks easier and less stressful on the body.
3. Core Stability: A well-executed squat requires core activation to maintain an upright torso and prevent rounding of the back. Over time, this can improve overall core strength and stability, which is crucial for preventing injuries and supporting better posture.
4. Joint Health and Flexibility: Squatting promotes healthy joint movement, particularly in the knees, hips, and ankles. It helps maintain joint flexibility, reduces stiffness, and improves the range of motion.
5. Better Balance and Coordination: The squat helps improve balance by engaging stabilizing muscles. This is vital for functional movements and prevention of injury, especially as we age.

How to Perform a Proper Squat: The Education Behind the Movement

While the squat may seem simple, executing it with proper form is key to getting the full benefits and avoiding injury. Here’s a step-by-step guide to mastering the basic bodyweight squat:

1. Stand Tall with Feet Hip-Width Apart: Position your feet so they are shoulder-width apart or slightly wider, with your toes pointing slightly outward. This is the stance you’ll need for balance.
2. Engage Your Core: Before you start lowering yourself, brace your core. Think about tightening your abdominal muscles as if you are about to get punched in the stomach. This will help stabilize your spine throughout the movement.
3. Initiate the Movement from Your Hips: Push your hips back as if you are about to sit down in a chair. This will prevent you from leaning forward too much and placing too much strain on your knees.
4. Lower Yourself Down: Bend your knees and lower your body toward the floor. Keep your chest up and your back straight. Aim to bring your thighs parallel to the floor (or lower if your full mobility allows). Your knees should track over your toes without caving inward.
5. Keep Your Weight on Your Heels: Throughout the squat, make sure the weight stays in your heels, not your toes. This helps activate glutes and hamstrings and reduces stress on the knees.
6. Return to Standing: Push through your heels and straighten your hips and knees to return to a standing position. Squeeze your glutes at the top to complete the movement.

*Not everyone’s squats are going to look the same. What is described here is in a “perfect world.” In reality, everyone’s squats are all going to look different and will need different tweaks and improvements based on the individual.

Common Squat Mistakes to Avoid

1. Knee Valgus: This happens when the knees cave inward during the squat. It can lead to knee strain and reduce the effectiveness of the exercise. To fix this, focus on pushing your knees outward in line with your toes.
2. Leaning Forward: If you lean forward too much, it places unnecessary stress on your lower back. To prevent this, keep your chest lifted and imagine reaching your hips back rather than bending your torso.
3. Heels Lifting Off the Ground: Lifting your heels off the ground during a squat shifts the weight to your toes, which can strain the knees. Make sure your heels stay grounded throughout the movement.
4. Not Reaching Depth: While it’s important to squat within your range of motion, aiming for at least parallel thighs will ensure you’re engaging the glutes and hamstrings effectively.

Variations of the Squat

To keep your workout routine fresh and to continue progressing, try adding different squat variations. Some common ones and favorites of mine include:

• Goblet Squat: Holding a weight (usually a kettlebell or dumbbell) in front of your chest to add resistance.
• Front Squat: A barbell is held in front of your body, challenging your core and upper body strength.
• Overhead Squat: A challenging version where you hold a barbell or weight overhead as you squat.
• Jump Squat: Adding a plyometric element to the squat for increased power and cardiovascular conditioning.
• Bulgarian Split Squat: A single-leg squat variation with one leg elevated on a bench behind you.

Conclusion

The squat is more than just an exercise; it is a functional movement that forms the foundation of a well-rounded fitness routine. Understanding the anatomy, benefits, and proper technique behind the squat can help you optimize your workouts, avoid injury, and ultimately build strength that translates into better overall health and performance.

By educating yourself on the intricacies of the squat, you empower yourself to reap all the benefits this incredible exercise has to offer. Whether you are squatting to build muscle, improve mobility, or simply move better in everyday life, the squat is a cornerstone that will help you achieve your fitness goals. So, squat with confidence, knowing that you’re strengthening not just your legs, but your entire body!

Toria

Union Fitness offers so many unique memberships and add on opportunities, and today I wanted to take some time to highlight all our classes specifically! 

#Powerful: This is our staple class here at UF. It is a weightlifting class focused on main powerlifting moves such as the squat, bench, deadlift, and overhead press. Each day of the week highlights one of those listed main moves and includes some accessory and cardio work mixed in as well. The schedule is as follows: 

• Monday 6am, 5+6pm – Bench Press 

• Tuesday 6am, 5+6pm – Squat 

• Wednesday 6am, 5+6pm – Overhead Press 

• Thursday 6am, 5+6pm – Deadlift 

• Friday 6am – Mobility mixed in with some extra strength training (programming on Friday’s are done by our in-house Doctor of Physical Therapy, Jared) 

Cardio Lab: This is a fun 45-minute-high intensity class. It includes the use of body weight exercises, medicine balls and fat bells/kettlebells as well as rowers, ski ergs, and Rogue assault bikes. The programming is switched up every day of the week due to the difference in instructors. This allows the classes to be a different challenge every day. The schedule is as follows: 

• Monday 7am, 6pm 

• Tuesday 7am, 12pm 

• Wednesday 7am, 5pm 

• Thursday 7am, 12pm 

• Friday 7am 

• Saturday 9:30am 

Blitz: This class is only 30 minutes total and mixes in some strength training as well as cardio, so you get a full solid workout in. This is a great class for those who work in the office and want to get a quick lift in. The schedule is as follows: 

• Monday 12pm 

• Wednesday 12pm 

• Friday 12pm 

Mobility: This class is designed for those who want to feel better after their lifting sessions throughout the week. They use foam rollers, lacrosse balls, bands, and various body weight stretches. The schedule is as follows: 

• Tuesday 6pm 

• Thursday 6pm 

Yoga: Vinyasa: Vinyasa is a flowy style of yoga that connects breath to movement. Postures may be held for 3-5 breaths, and special attention is paid to the transitions between shapes. Flows range from slow and mindful to strong and powerful, with options for all skill levels along the way. The schedule is as follows: 

• Wednesday 6pm 

• Sunday 10:30am

Come and check out one of our classes! Whether you are already a current member, or a prospective member, the first class is always free!

Toria

First and foremost, before diving into motor unit recruitment and its importance in training, it is critical to define what a motor unit is. A motor unit is made up of two parts, one is the motor neuron and the other is the muscle fiber that it innervates. Often, one motor neuron will innervate a large number of muscle fibers, and each muscle will consist of many muscle fibers. Think of this as the link between the central nervous system and the muscular system. For a muscle to contract it needs to be stimulated by the motor neuron. These stimulations happen all throughout the day by the movements that we voluntarily, and sometimes involuntarily make. Any time a motor unit stimulates all the muscle fibers needed, it will contract in an all or nothing principle. Now it is time to talk about training. 

When we exercise, we are forcing our central nervous system to stimulate a given amount of motor units to create muscle contractions allowing us to accomplish a task. Depending on the intensity of the exercise, this will dictate which kind of muscle fibers and how many motor units are recruited. Everyone has heard of type I and type II muscle fibers, but if not, we will keep it simple and say type I get recruited easily at low intensities, while type II requires much higher intensity levels before they come into play. Even though we are only talking about two types of fibers there is an entire spectrum of fibers to fill in the gaps between type I and type II that share some characteristics of both. So, the amount motor units recruited to do a body weight squat compared to a 500 lb. squat for an equally trained person will be drastically different. It is safe to say one of these movements will be more intense than the other. It is through this reasoning that I think it is safe to say that for the purposes of this article we can define intensity as the amount of motor units recruited.  

So high intensity training, HIIT workouts high-intensity interval training… does this mean you are recruiting the maximum amount of motor units? Well, sometimes but that isn’t always the case for HIIT workouts. Those can be just from the buildup and/or poor clearance of lactic acid in the body which makes things hard but that can maybe be the topic of another blog post in the future. Let’s take a look at some basic principles of motor unit recruitment that the very smart Dr. Vladimir Zatsiorsky has come up with and then talk about intensity: 

1. Recruitment order of the motor units goes from smallest to largest. 

1. Only recruited motor units get a training effect. 

1. Motor units that are recruited will experience fatigue.   

Now with this understood, you may think, “I need to recruit all the motor units of this muscle to get a training effect. I better lift as much weight as I physically can. I need to make sure the motor units fatigue”. Well, you aren’t totally wrong but is this only way? Is this this the best way for people just starting to workout or aren’t trying to set world records? The answer to this is no. There are other ways into maximal motor unit recruitment and let’s talk about those now.  

If we aren’t lifting maximally then obviously we are into submaximal training. For the sake of this post, we are going to omit training submaximal loads at high speeds for motor unit recruitment, which can again be for another post. So, let’s talk about the repeated effort method. This is what most people strive for in the gym 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps 5 set of 5 reps. The goal here is to reach maximal recruitment after the allotted number of sets and reps. Sure this works but I am going to bring up another rep scheme to accomplish maximal motor unit recruitment that may be a bit unfamiliar but equally and if not more effective than those just mentioned and that is 1 set of 20.  

This idea of 1 set of 20 comes from the mind of Dr. Yessis, if you don’t know who he is it’s not important for this, just know he has been in the world of sport science and training for a very long time and is highly respected. Anyways, this was something that at first I did not quite get, I was too caught up on things being heavy, force production, bar speed, etc. and really did not understand the essence of this method. It wasn’t till I got smarter and read Dr. Doug McGuff that I had this revelation of intensity and motor unit recruitment; then things became clearer. Don’t worry, we will get to McGuff shortly. Remember, we are talking about motor unit recruitment here not force production.  The goal of this training is to reach total failure of a movement by the 20th rep within a single set. This, however, differs a little bit from other rep schemes to failure, as this is better suited for a wider range of the population. Hitting failure on sets of 5 and even 8 can often be quite difficult for novice lifters who may give up and not know how to push through those hard reps to truly recruit those higher threshold motor units. With sets of 20, starting at a submaximal load will initiate motor unit recruitment for the low threshold motor units. As the reps increase, those lower threshold motor units will fatigue, forcing high threshold units to be recruited to complete the lift. When a maximal amount of motor units is reached and fatigued, around the 20th rep, the movement will no longer be able to be executed and only one set is needed for that movement.  

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t totally understand the 1×20 method and actually thought it was a bit silly, but then I came across Dr. McGuff and his method of training. Then things began to make a bit more sense. The approach that Dr. McGuff takes to maximize motor unit recruitment is not based around a high number of repetitions to failure but by slow tempo repetitions, and I do mean slow. These sets can take anywhere from 90 seconds up to 2 and a half minutes to complete while only doing a few total reps. For example, a rep scheme using this method could be a 15 second concentric motion and 15 second eccentric motion therefore making each rep 30 seconds to complete. With 4 reps per set, you have truly put in quite a lot of work. Much like the 1×20 method the objective here is to hit total failure of the movement but the designated time of each set using submaximal weights. Once failure is reached it is time to move onto the next movement. One of the interesting things Dr. McGuff notes about these slow tempo reps is the depletion of muscle glycogen by the end of the set. This makes me wonder if the 1×20 is equally as effective as the depletion of glycogen stores as the slow tempos.  

Regardless of how you want to train, what your goals are and what you find enjoyable, one of the main things you should be working towards each time you train is to maximize the number of motor units recruited. I will not deny the benefits and results of training heavy weights with low reps or classic rep schemes like 5×5 or 3×8. What I do hope I have done is shed some light on some other ways to go about training that can accomplish similar levels of motor unit recruitment without the high loads of traditional methods.   

Ethan