King Squat Why we squat the way that we do; and why you should too

Front Squat Perfection and the Grind

Front squat perfection: our athletic lifter exhibits excellent position as she comes erect and encounters the beginning of her squat sticking point. She must power through the sticking point without compromising her position. She purposefully grinds erect, using low-speed torque instead of explosive horsepower.

The rep tempo is even, both ascending and descending. We advocate a full range of motion, purposeful grind speed, and a pause in the bottom. We make the difficult squat more difficult by layering intensity enhancers: precise technique, full ROM, a pause, grind speed, and knees-out squatting.

Empirical experience has shown this approach to be the most efficient way to ingrain proper squat technique and build leg size and leg power. By slowing down the rep speed — barely slowing, not turning the lift into a slow-motion circus — we can consciously ascertain proper position during every inch of descent and ascent. We eliminate uncontrolled freefalling on the descent and sloppy exploding on the ascent. We pause at the bottommost point; it all combines to make the difficult all the more difficult and to make light weights heavy.

The Once and Future King of Progressive Resistance

Why is the squat the King of all exercises? Let me count the ways.

Firstly, when it comes to building leg power, proper squats, upright squats, squats done with a perpendicular torso using the legs to power ponderous poundage erect, were, are and forever shall be unsurpassable for infusing human legs with power, strength, and size.

The proper full squat stimulates an enormous amount of muscle. The truthfulness of that statement hinges on the defining of the word “proper.” Proper means deep and proper means all legs. Proper means the squat is not allowed to devolve into a hip-hinge good morning wearing squat clothing.

No one does proper full squats anymore — or at least very few do. The reasons are numerous. Suffice to say, experts of every type and kind have either damned full squats as dangerous or, worse, championed this superb exercise while teaching some bastardized squat travesty that mocks all that is good, right, and productive about classical, pristine, upright, ultra-deep squatting.

Be it front squatting, back squatting, kettlebell squatting, or no-weight squatting, our core technique for all squat variations is identical. The hardcore squatter’s sound-bite bumper-sticker motto is this: shallow squats are worthless squats. Friends do not let friends squat high.

What “Proper Squat” Means in This System

• The proper squat has a specific technical template: rep after rep, each repetition is perfect and identical to its predecessor and will, in turn, be identical to its successor.
• The upright squatter uses an open stance: knees are forced out on descent and ascent, the torso stays tall, and the movement uses a full, controlled range of motion.
• The squat remains a leg exercise: the lifter does not turn it into an inferior hybrid technique that spreads the effort everywhere except where we want it.
• The lifter controls the whole stroke: no freefall, no panic bounce, no collapsing under the bar.
• The lifter pauses in the bottom: the pause exposes the truth. Either the position is strong or it is not.

The Sticking Point Is the Point

Physiologically, when an athlete squats properly, the athlete attains the ideal balance between technique and payload. All good things spring from the barely completed final reps of limit top sets of proper squats. It is the degree of pure physical effort — intensity — that triggers the adaptive response and sparks muscle hypertrophy. From hypertrophy springs size, strength, and power.

Tangible physiological results require friction, pressure. That pressure turns the lump of coal — the body as it is — into the diamond, the body as you would like it to be. If submaximal effort triggered real results, the world would be overrun with lean, muscled humans.

No matter where we are on the physical feeding chain, exalted or lowly, all that is required to reap maximum results is for us, on an individualized basis, to approach, equal, or exceed current limits in some manner or fashion.

The sticking point is the marrow, the irreducible essence of any result-producing rep. Without struggle there is no meaningful adaptive response. Those in the know understand that the true goal of resistance training is to create opportunities to struggle through sticking points. The hardcore elite understand that how a person conducts himself during the rep struggle determines the degree and depth of results.

The rest of the squat world seeks ways to avoid the squat sticking point, offering tips on how to slip through it or bypass it. We seek out the squat sticking point and then power through it — or not — understanding that struggle, and the barely completed rep, is where the true gains lie.

Why Proper Squats Demand Respect

Done properly, the squat is unquestionably one of the most excruciating of all progressive resistance exercises. There is something inherently serious about having maximum poundage on top of you while you squat up to and past current limits. Complete collapse is possible. It is a dangerous thing to have a barbell heavy enough to hurt you on your back or clavicles as you push your guts out during a limit rep you might miss.

When a lifter misses a squat, the lifter must ride it down to the safety pins in the power rack, or, if lucky enough to have serious training partners, alert spotters will catch the downward barbell. This is not optional. Proper squatting is hard enough without pretending that missed reps never happen.

A limit set of squats activates the entire organism to a greater or lesser degree. The traps contract to hold the bar. The ribcage fights to lift and inhale between back squat reps. The abs brace harder than during 100 effete crunches. The erectors fight to keep the torso upright. Hamstrings and calves fire. Every stabilizer in the body goes to DEFCON 5 during a limit set of ultra-deep squats.

No other progressive resistance exercise triggers the primal, fight-or-flight psychological response to the degree limit squats do. Limit squatting feels dangerous because, done hard and heavy, it is serious business.

Make Light Weights Heavy

Why would we take the world’s most excruciating exercise and multiply the degree of difficulty? Why require the squatter to descend to ass-on-heels depth on every rep of every set? Why add a purposeful pause at the bottom of each super-deep rep?

Because we strengthen the squatter over every inch of the range of motion. No Achilles heel. No zone of zero strength.

Strict technique limits poundage-handling ability. That is the point. We obtain more using less. Minimal payloads can reap maximum physiological results when the lifter controls the descent, pauses in the bottom, stays upright, and grinds erect without cheating.

Deep double kettlebell squat with upright torso and bottom-position control.

After sinking as low as possible while maintaining a bolt-upright torso, the squatter pauses a beat before ascending. How the lifter arises from a paused, upright, ultra-deep squat determines the amount of benefit derived.

The double-kettlebell squatter pictured is exhibiting good bottom position. His depth is maximal, his torso is upright, and now he needs to engage his GRIND gear and slowly — but not too slowly, barely slow — torque himself erect using legs and legs alone.

When he encounters maximum resistance deep within the sticking point, he forces his knees out maximally. All subsequent squat variations are built upon this excruciating core technique. This man will fail with integrity rather than perform some trick to slide through the sticking point. True squatters embrace the struggle. They understand that results occur only when fighting through growth-producing sticking points.

Never Let the Tailbone Shoot Up

Key technical point: never let the tailbone shoot upward at the instant the ascent begins. The natural inclination is to make it easier on the legs coming out of the bottommost squat position. The tailbone shoots upward, allowing the legs to telescope and extend, putting them in a much more favorable push position. It is a devil’s bargain.

Letting the tailbone shoot up causes the squat bar to drift forward, in front of the feet. Now the spinal column must be derricked erect using the hip hinge. This turns an upright squat into a tortured back-hinge finish.

The proper procedure is to sink to the bottommost position under control. As the squatter descends below parallel, where the rest of the squat world reverses gears and heads upward, the lifter stays braced and allows the poundage to push the body downward into the bottommost position. Maintain the upright torso. Maintain control. Do not collapse.

When descending, the best way to attain a vertical torso is to push the glutes rearward as you descend on each and every rep. Establish and maintain the vertical torso on the descent. While sitting erect in the bottom position, inhale, brace, and grind erect using a purposefully slowed rep speed — not too slow, barely slow.

The key is to use light poundage or no poundage initially and ingrain proper technique each step of the way. We make squat haste slowly and never sacrifice technique for poundage. The purposeful grind speed is an expression of low-end torque. Think of explosiveness as high-end horsepower.

The actual speed of the grind rep should never be radically slowed. That is the fatal mistake made by slow-rep proponents and adherents: they slow rep speed to such a degree that it destroys poundage-handling ability. Strength plummets to an unacceptable degree. The preferred grind speed is barely slowed. The ascent, the upward motor pathway of the leg push, is a mirror image of the precise lowering that preceded it.

Paused high-bar back squat: the lifter must keep the hips under the shoulders and grind erect.

Now GRIND erect. This lifter demonstrates good bottom position in the paused high-bar back squat. Her knees are a little too far forward, attributable to her pinched stance, but other than that, she is ready to grind erect. During the ascent, her hips need to stay under her shoulders. No forward lean. The femurs move upward to power her from bottom to lockout. Knees are forced out on both descent and ascent. The trick is not to let the tailbone shoot upward when the ascent starts.

Those who embrace the hard start are rewarded with an easy squat finish. The sloppy squatter grabs the low-hanging fruit of the easy squat start and allows the tailbone to shoot upward. Now the payload is way forward and the lifter is confronted with the agony of a spine-busting finish. The barbell is badly out of position and must be back-hinged to lockout.

The Squat Zone of No Strength and No Protection

We make light weights heavy by layering intensity boosters atop full range-of-motion squats. We add pauses atop grind rep speed. We create the ultimate in excruciating exercise. Repeatedly grinding full-ROM paused squats ingrains proper technique in a way like no other. We create a rock-solid foundation for all future squat and deadlift efforts.

Perhaps the single most identifiable characteristic that defines our squat technique is depth. We want squat trainees to travel over the longest pain-free, technically controlled range of motion they can own on each and every squat rep. This approach, maximal squat depth, is oddly controversial in the mainstream athletic, strength-training, and power-sport world.

We do not arbitrarily shorten stroke length on other exercises. Why should we on squats? If an exercise has a definable and doable range of motion, why purposefully limit the rep stroke and shorten the ROM?

Imagine a man bench pressing with an 18-inch chest-to-lockout stroke. He begins doing half bench presses, lowering the barbell only nine inches. By shortening the rep stroke, he can handle more poundage. Over time, ego causes him to shorten this already shortened rep stroke further. Now he lowers the barbell a mere six inches before reversing direction.

He becomes capable of handling 315 for 8 reps in the six-inch bench press, but his dirty little secret is this: if he accidentally goes one inch below his six-inch ingrained power stroke, he has no strength. None. The barbell collapses on him like a building in an earthquake.

Because our six-inch rep-stroke bench presser has never trained outside his personal zone of strength, if he experiences a lapse in concentration and lowers 315 eight inches, his arms collapse and the 315 crashes down on his chest. That is a surefire rib-breaker. From a muscle- and strength-building perspective, partial reps often yield partial results unless they are deliberately programmed for a specific purpose.

We have the identical situation in squatting. We somehow have been talked into the weird equivalent of not lowering the bench press bar all the way down to the chest. Why would we not squat all the way down when the athlete can do so with control, position, and no pain?

When we champion maximum range-of-motion squats, we are accused of resistance-training instructional malpractice. The deep squat doomsayers warn that a full squat will blow out the knees and ruin the lifter. We disagree. Deep squats are not automatically dangerous. They also are not automatically right for every body on every day with every load. Pain, structure, mobility, equipment, coaching, and control matter.

The proper lesson is not “everyone must squat ass-on-heels under any condition.” The proper lesson is this: do not fear depth when depth is pain-free, technically controlled, progressively loaded, and appropriate to the athlete.

Beginner Squat Cycle: Thirteen Weeks to the First Report Card

Deep squatters using periodized squat routines can experience radical increases in skill, leg strength, and useful muscle. The hardcore squat elite use periodized templates. They set realistic goals and work backward, reverse-engineering to a starting point weeks before the report-card effort.

We take elite methods, detune them, dilute them and make them user friendly while retaining the core essence of the methodology.

This beginner cycle is not a dare. It is a technical apprenticeship. The empty-bar work matters. The bodyweight work matters. The controlled descent, the pause, the knees-out ascent, and the no-tailbone-shoot rule all matter. The goal is to own the movement before chasing poundage.

Equipment Notes for King Squat Training

King Squat training requires simple tools, but those tools must be trustworthy. A lifter needs a dependable barbell, secure plates, collars, a rack with safeties, and enough space to miss a lift without disaster.

For barbell-based squat training, lifters and facilities can compare Olympic weightlifting bars, weight plates, and barbell collars. Serious squat setups should also include properly selected power cages and platform racks.

A rack such as the Arsenal Alpha-11 Power Rack, a general-purpose bar such as the Body-Solid black oxide Olympic weightlifting bar, and durable loading such as Troy interlocking urethane grip plates can support hard squat training when matched to the lifter, room, and intended use.

An IRON COMPANY leather lever powerlifting belt can support a trained lifter who already understands bracing. A belt does not replace technique. It does not fix collapsing posture. It does not make a dangerous squat safe.

Safety Note for Deep Squats, Missed Reps, and Beginner Progression

Deep squats should be earned. Use a pain-free range of motion, conservative progression, stable footwear or appropriate lifting shoes, clear floor space, secure collars, and rack safeties set to the correct height. Beginners should learn unloaded and empty-bar squats before adding meaningful load.

Stop or scale back for sharp knee, hip, back, ankle or foot pain; dizziness; numbness; loss of position; tailbone shooting up repeatedly; uncontrolled descent; or any rep that becomes a different lift than the one being trained.

Heavy squats require competent spotters or properly set safety pins. This article preserves Marty Gallagher’s RAW squat philosophy and coaching language. It is not individualized medical, rehabilitation, or programming advice.

Related Squat Reading

For a deeper companion piece on Marty Gallagher’s world-champion squat technique, read KING SQUAT! A Signature Squat Technique Used By World Champions. For an Olympic-lifting squat-power profile, read Ed Schock Olympic Weightlifting Squat Power.

RAW with Marty Gallagher, J.P. Brice, and Jim Steel Podcast.

About the Author: Marty Gallagher

As an athlete Marty Gallagher is a national and world champion in Olympic lifting and powerlifting. He was a world champion team coach in 1991 and coached Black's Gym to five national team titles. He's also coached some of the strongest men on the planet including Kirk Karwoski when he completed his world record 1,003 lb. squat. Today he teaches the US Secret Service and Tier 1 Spec Ops on how to maximize their strength in minimal time. As a writer since 1978 he’s written for Powerlifting USA, Milo, Flex Magazine, Muscle & Fitness, Prime Fitness, Washington Post, Dragon Door and now IRON COMPANY. He’s also the author of multiple books including Purposeful Primitive, Strong Medicine, Ed Coan’s book Coan, The Man, the Myth, the Method and numerous others. Read the Marty Gallagher biography here.