5 Squat Mistakes You Should Stop Making Now

Squat is a king of exercise. Or at least that’s what they keep saying. But all in all, squat is a great leg exrecise that builds strong quads and works glutes and hammies. The only problem though is that it’s a challenging move for many people, especially those who sit all day at the office. Shortened tight muscles don’t allow them to control their body properly, which results in awkward movement and a lot of mistakes that create room for injury.

Squat as any exercise really requires a perfect technique. Here are the 5 mistakes that are common for not only novices but also experienced gym goers and even athletes.

Squat Mistakes To Avoid

Round Back

Most of the time you back should be in neutral position during an exercise. This keeps any motion-related injury to a minimum and ensures long happy years of squatting, deadlifting, and whatever else you like doing in the gym, which is pretty much anything. Rounding your back in a squat is apparently a no-no that might be an indication that you need more technique practice before you load up.

Butt Wink

Butt wink is the thing I see in Youtube workout tutorials all the time. Why does it happen? It is because people who shouldn’t ‘go all the way down’ do precisely that because they’re told they absolutely have to. But in case of butt wink their anatomy won’t let them. Since each persons’s hip joint is built differently each person has a limit of how deep they can squat safely for their back. Stretching out those spinal discs is no joke and can lead to back problems further down the line.

Collapsing Knees

Collapsing knees is a rookie mistake. It may even occur without your knowledge but that’s where you should really work on form before taking any weight. Loading up knees like that can lead to injury.

Goblet squat is a great beginner exercise for perfecting technique

Lifting the heels

Lifting with your toes can’t be safe neither for your knees nor in general, having such a load on your shoulders. Driving weight through the heels will not only take the load off knees but will also make glutes work harder. If you have a problem of lifting heels while squatting, put the weight down and work on it, probably ankle stretches would help as well.

Overextension of Spine

Overextending the spine by sticking out the bum or tilting youor pelvis forward at the end of the squat is a dangerous mistake that is akin to butt wink. Remember that spine should always be stable and neutral in order to stay healthy.

It goes without saying that knees tracking forward is one of the biggest and most talked about squat mistakes you should watch out for when taking up the load to squat. Also if you noticed that it’s hard for you to keep your torso upright and move your hips and shoulders up at the same time you’re probably lifting more weight than you are able.

Going all the way down and collapsing knees may have place in Olympic lifting but for lay gym goers it’s much more important to learn all the basics and keep themselves injury-free rather than squat like an Olympic athlete.