3 Exercises to Improve Your Squat

The squat is a fundamental position that everyone should be able to perform. It’s arguably one of the most functional movements. The problem is, chairs have conditioned us to only have to squat to partial depth. I spent a few months in the Philippines and it was common to see older folks sitting in a deep squat to eat their lunch. If we all did this more often, we likely have healthy ankles, knees, and hips. 

The majority of issues I see around a deep squat start at the ankles. For normal walking, you need about 10 degrees of dorsiflexion, but for squatting, it’s closer to 20 degrees and very few people I treat have that much range of motion. Dorsiflexion is the motion of bringing your feet upward, the opposite of stepping on a gas pedal. 

Here’s a great way to fix that:

You also need a fair amount of rotation of the hip. Probably the best way to fix this is with the following exercise:

Lastly, the adductors (groin muscles) can be a limiting factor in a deep squat. I love this exercise for the adductors:

If you feel like you are going to fall backwards when you squat, that is because your ankles are missing range of motion. There is nothing wrong with squatting with your feet turned out or your heels elevated to make up for the missing range of motion. However, I do think it’s a good idea to continue to improve your available range of motion and aim for squatting without those compensations in the future.