Fitness planner | How to do perfect squats

Coaches and fitness experts stress upon achieving correct form before adding weights or attempting variations like jump squats. (Image: Matt Moloney/StockSnap)

Six movements form the foundation of all exercises. These are squats, push-ups, pull-ups, sit-ups, planks and deadlifts.

These are functional movements which humans perform several times a day without even realizing it. For example, when you lift your laptop or shopping bag off the floor, you're performing a version of the deadlift.

Over the next few weeks, we'll examine the benefits and correct form for each of these. Let’s start with the squat.

Benefits of squats

Squats are used extensively in strength conditioning, fitness programmes, physical therapy and rehabilitation, according to a 2010 paper published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

They are the basic movement upon which advanced complex exercises such as back, front, overhead and sumo squats, squat cleans, pistols, deadlifts, Olympic lifting and more are based.

In 2014, a paper published the International Journal of Exercise Science found that squats not only strengthen the leg muscles but also our hips and back. This strength leads to improved performance in sports.

Squats and sports

In cricket, the player who performs the most squats is perhaps the wicketkeeper. M.S. Dhoni and Rishabh Pant are among the strongest and fittest in the Indian team, partly because they have to perform 100-500 squats a day depending on the format of the game. The fielders in slips and in catching positions near the batsman also have to squat for every delivery.

Goalies in sports like football and hockey are always on their toes, ready to perform a half squat in order to launch themselves or lunge in the direction of the ball to stop it.

Tennis players perform a partial squat while serving in order to meet the ball at a point where they can generate maximum power with control.

When someone walks into former cricketer and golf coach Ranadeep Moitra’s gyms in Kolkata, the first movement he makes them perform is the squat. For Moitra and his team, the squat is a test of the person’s mobility, range of movement, flexibility and balance.

The challenges

It is a movement most people struggle with these days, says Sandeep Sachdev, coach, nutritionist and co-founder of EasyHuman fitness studio and café in Mumbai.

“It is a basic foundational movement, no matter who you are. It is not easy to get the form correct or achieve the full range of motion at the first go because of our sedentary lifestyles,” Sachdev explains. “Because we spend most of our times in front of the computer or working while seated, we don’t end up flexing our ankles, knees or hips as much as we should. This makes the muscles around our joints weak or stiff and the joints a bit rusty. That makes squat an extremely challenging exercise for anyone starting out.”

There are many variations of squats: weighted squats, jumping squats, box jumps, goblet squats, squat hold, and tempo squats, etc. Before progressing to these, though, it is crucial to do the regular squat with correct form.

Correct form

The first thing you must do is prepare yourself mentally to work as hard as needed, including working on your mobility and flexibility, to get the correct form and full range of motion for the squat. It isn’t easy but the rewards are wonderful—you become stronger, have more energy, will be able to perform tasks that you once found difficult and also be able to play sports a lot better.

Your first aim should be to stop performing incomplete squats and lower yourself enough to have your butt either parallel to the floor without lifting the heels off the floor or pushing your knees forward.

The correct form demands that

- Your knees are behind your toes, pushed outwards to the side

- Back straight

- Chest up

- Core engaged

- Glutes loaded

- Heels dug into the floor at the bottom of the squat

With sufficient practice and proper guidance, the squat can be learned quite quickly, provided you don’t have any mobility or other issues.

(Graphic by Upnesh Rawal/Moneycontrol)