What is the key to avoid injury when squatting with your body weight? - Project Sports
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What is the key to avoid injury when squatting with your body weight?

4 min read

Asked by: Julie Peterson

How do you avoid injury when squatting?

Try to keep your shins vertical and don’t overextend your lumbar spine. Once you go further down into your squat, you’ll start to become aware of any issues with range of motion you might have. Keep going down pushing your knees outward while holding your abs tight, back flat and shins vertical.

What are some of the keys to performing a proper squat?

The four key components to a perfect squat

  1. Start with your hips. The first movement of a squat should always be pushing your hips back behind you. …
  2. Knees over ankles. In a perfect squat, your shins should stay near vertical and ankles should move very little. …
  3. Keep your low back neutral. …
  4. Maintain width between your knees.


What are the 3 keys to proper squat technique?

The Details: How to Do a Squat Correctly Every Time, Step by Step

  1. Step 1: Stand straight with feet hip-width apart. …
  2. Step 2: Tighten your stomach muscles. …
  3. Step 3: Lower down, as if sitting in an invisible chair. …
  4. Step 4: Straighten your legs to lift back up. …
  5. Step 5: Repeat the movement.


How should you hold your weight when squatting?

Start with your feet shoulder width apart and place the dumbbells on your shoulders, holding the weights in place with your hands. Keep the weights steady on your shoulders as you lower into a squat and return to starting position. Holding dumbbells by your sides.

What can you injure while squatting?

Injuries from squatting



Increased pressure and tension can compress the spinal joints. Eventually, this tension will become painful and some of the spinal structures (like the discs or facet joints) can become strained, inflamed and irritated.

What are the 3 common mistakes made when performing a squat?

9 mistakes you’re making when doing squats

  • Knee Overhang. Letting your knees go too far forward in a squat on a regular basis is not good for the joints. …
  • Curving Forward. …
  • Lifting Your Heels. …
  • Wandering Eyes. …
  • Placing Your Feet Incorrectly. …
  • Ignoring the Abs. …
  • Not Pushing Yourself. …
  • Not Using Other Exercises to Progress.


Do squats make your butt bigger?

Squats work all of the glute muscles in one movement. When you strategically recruit and tax these muscles, you can trigger hypertrophy (or muscle size growth). So, yes, squats can help you build bigger glutes.

How do you do squats for beginners?

Straight. Forward shoulders width apart you're going to push your hips back and slowly sit into your chair. Press off the floor standing up nice and tall. Again drop down sit into the chair.

How do you do squats without weights?

In fact one of the best ways to do bodyweight. Squats is to set a timer i got a little stopwatch. Here and to try to do as many reps as you can do for time that is a killer way to burn a ton of fat.

Why do squats with weights?

One of the main benefits of squats with weights is to add strength to your glutes, helping to tone and tighten your glute muscles. That’s why many do squat exercises in order to work on their shape.

How do you hold weights?

I go up and I keep it neutral you're not getting that full contractile force that you want out of that muscle. So make sure you supinate. And turn it all the way out.

What is it called when you squat with weights?

Weighted squats. By adding dumbbells, a barbell, or a kettlebell to your squats, you’ll challenge yourself with more resistance.

What muscles are used when squatting?

In a standard bodyweight squat, the following muscles are targeted:

  • quadriceps.
  • hamstrings.
  • glutes.
  • abdominals.
  • calves.


What joint action is a squat?

Although the squat is a compound, multijoint exercise that strengthens the entire body, it principally works the hip, knee and ankle joints. Squats target the muscles that extend those joints, including the glutes, hamstrings, quadriceps and calves.

What is responsible for knee flexion when squatting?

Park et al. showed that the muscle activation of the biceps femoris, vastus medialis, vastus lateralis, gastrocnemius, and tibialis anterior increased as the knee flexion angle increased by 45°, 60°, and 90° when squatting against the wall.

What part of the body is the main contributor to the squat?

The quads are the primary muscles used to extend the knee. At the deepest range in the squat, the quads will be working the hardest in order to extend the knees out of the bottom.

What is basic squat?

The squat is a knee-dominant movement that involves deep flexion in the knees and hips. Exercises that fit in this category work the quadriceps and erector spinae to a high degree. Contrary to popular belief, however, squats are not necessarily the best for building the glutes.