The squat is the most powerful, rewarding and difficult of all the exercises you can perform in the gym. It harnesses the greatest number of muscles, requires the highest level of muscular coordination, stimulates your nervous system like nothing else and can reward you with the highest rate of increase in power, strength and size. However, nothing bedevils this exercise more than a lack of awareness as to how to execute it correctly, and one of the most tricky questions that people always ask is how deep should my squat go? In today’s article we’ll seek to answer that question clearly so as to remove all doubt from your mind.

The squat can only be done correctly and safely when it is performed deep, when the hips drop below the level of the patella, allowing your body to work through its full range of motion. When it is done in this manner it is not only the safest of the leg exercises but it is also the singular most rewarding exercise when it comes to improving the strength of your knee. It is crucial however that you exercise your body to its full range of motion.

Any squat that does not go down deep so that the hips drop below the patella is only a partial squat, and this will stress the knee and the quads without activating your hamstrings, glutes, groin and adductors, which only are activated when the hips are stretched to the point of complete flexion, where they basically get to their tightest, which is a deep squat. It is only at the very bottom of the squat that these muscles are truly stretched out, providing a small amount of rebound as you come back up, stretching your body into the correct position and allowing everything to balance everything else out.

In a partial squat you don’t get this balancing effect, forcing instead for your quads and knees to instead take the brunt of reversing the movement, resulting in tendonitis, in knee damage and pain. It is only by going down deep that your hamstrings are truly brought into play, allowing them to stretch out completely and then contract fully when it is time to rise. That is why it is crucial that you drop down as deep as you can so that the hip is lower than the patella.