Just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, life has a way of cutting you down to size. That’s how I felt at last week’s IPL Drug Tested North American Championships in St. Louis. We took six lifters to this national-level meet and had a great showing, coming in second place in the team standings while setting four Massachusetts state records, one national record and taking two individual gold medals for weight class and age division. However, despite my best coaching efforts to have my lifters bury all their squats in training, squat depth standards were exceptionally high (or low in this case?) to the point where we missed a few would-be personal records due to depth. This was a terrible feeling for both the lifters and me, and I don’t want to feel that way again.
The USPA rulebook states:
“Upon receiving the head referee’s signal, the lifter must bend the knees and lower the body until the top surface of the legs at the hip joint is lower than the top of the knees.”
The top surface of the legs at the hip joint is often interpreted as the crease of the hip that begins to develop as the lifter squats down. This crease needs to convincingly pass below the top of the knee. Plus, it’s all being judged in real time by human beings who sometimes make mistakes. I’m convinced the best thing we can do as lifters is squat deep all the time so it’s a non-issue.
Here’s an example of a squat that’s too high:
And one that’s to competition squat depth:
With plenty of time to reflect on the plane ride home, I got to thinking about how we can consistently have our lifters squat deeper to avoid red lights in the future. Here are five ways we can all improve our squat depth:
Find Your Ideal Stance
Everybody is different. We all have slightly different anatomy, from limb length, to torso length, to hip socket depth, etc. This affects the way each lifter should approach the squat. When it comes to achieving proper depth, you have to experiment with stance width to see what allows you to break parallel consistently.
This often comes down to how much hip internal rotation a lifter has. In order to squat deep, a lifter must display a good degree of hip internal rotation. If your stance is too wide for your own hip anatomy, you’ll likely max out your ability to internally rotate your hips and get stuck above parallel.
Here’s a solid video from physical therapist Zac Cupples on hip rotation during the squat:
We find ourselves coaching more lifters into a narrower stance with a heel-elevated shoe (more on this next) in order to reliably hit depth. There’s the rare exception, usually for lifters who have very long legs and a short torso, who do better with a wider stance, but they’re few and far between.
A simple way to figure out your ideal squat stance: mess around with different stances and load placements during your warm-up. This video shows you exactly how we do that in our group training warm-ups so I can see what stance fits each lifter the best:
Brace Better
Closely related to the previous point, learning to brace effectively allows lifters to squat deep without their technique falling apart. Bracing is multi-faceted and includes:
- Creating intraabdominal pressure to brace the core
- Rooting the feet into the ground so the ankles can move
- Tightening the upper back to keep the torso in place
If any of these things fall apart, your depth will likely be compromised.
The most common bracing error we see is related to the core and over-arching the lower back. This positions the pelvis in such a way that hip internal rotation is limited, again leading to getting “stuck” above parallel. Here’s a quick video from our Optimizing the Big 3 powerlifting course explaining pelvis position during the squat:
But wait – there’s more! If your feet aren’t well-rooted, your weight will likely shift to the insides of your feet, leading to your knees caving in and, once again, getting stuck above parallel. And finally, if your upper back isn’t tight, the bar will begin to roll forward as you squat down, causing your torso to lean too far forward. This creates the illusion of squatting lower without the hips actually sitting lower.
To hit depth consistently, you need to brace hard from head to toe, specifically via core bracing, foot rooting and a tight upper back.
Squat with Elevated Heels
When I first started powerlifting, I ate up everything ever written by Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell. Everything said you needed to squat in a flat-soled shoe like Chuck Taylors and sit back on your heels to engage your posterior chain. While this may be the optimal approach for a multiply powerlifter who weighs over 300 pounds and competes in a federation that doesn’t have strict squat depth standards, it’s not applicable to raw powerlifters who need to sink their squats in competition. Rather, using a squat shoe with an elevated heel makes it substantially easier to hit depth.
Squat shoes help lifters find their balance while squatting by shifting their weight forward at the start of the lift. You’re basically up on your tiptoes, so when you start your squat, you’re able to shift your weight backward while also driving the knees forward more than you would with your feet flat on the ground. This shifting of one’s center of mass lets you squat deeper with a more upright torso, keeping the bar over the midfoot for deep and balanced squats.
Here’s a quick video on squat footwear and how it affects overall squat mechanics:
Use Environmental Constraints
I talked a lot about using constraints-based coaching in my recent post, 10 Lessons from 10 Years of Coaching. Changing the environment is the fastest way to teach a lifter about technique and to help them retain that information. When it comes to squatting deeper, it’s not as simple as saying, “Squat deeper!” You have to help the lifter feel what proper depth is so they can repeatedly achieve it.
We do this via a variety of supplementary exercises, including:
- Box squats
- Squat to pins
- Squats to a medicine ball
- Pause squats
- Tempo squats
Squatting to an object like pins or a box gives tactile feedback so the lifters knows exactly when they’re low enough. This is useful at times, but can sometimes backfire because occasionally, the lifter will struggle to hit depth once the object is taken away. In that case, we’ll resort to movements like pause squats and tempo squats where we simply spend more time at the bottom of the squat, allowing the lifter to internalize what it feels like to achieve depth.
Film Yourself from the Side
Visual feedback is one of the most valuable teaching tools in existence. After a decade of coaching, I can confidently say that most lifters are primarily visual learners. By filming our lifts and watching the video shortly after the set is done, we can objectively evaluate our technique and make on-the-fly adjustments to improve it. I talk about this strategy in depth in this video:
When filming your squats, place the camera directly to the side and at hip height. This is the exact spot that a powerlifting side judge watches from in order to see depth. Filming from the front or from a 45-degree angle doesn’t give you a good look at depth, so keep yourself honest and film from the side.
Get Low
There are few things at heartbreaking as squatting down and standing up with a new PR, only to see multiple red lights for depth. Hold yourself accountable and use these strategies to ensure that you’re squatting low enough in training and in competition.
