Q&A: Squat Range Of Motion

Question: How important is it to perform squats over the full range of motion? Do I have to squat from “ass-to-grass” to lockout, or will a partial rep be just as effective? I see a lot of people doing half squats in the gym and a few of them have impressive legs.

Answer: If your primary goal is to stimulate strength and size increases in the hip and thigh musculature it is not necessary to perform squats over the full range of motion (ROM). To increase the difficulty of the exercise and reduce the load required to achieve momentary muscular failure within the desired repetition range I teach clients to perform only the bottom half to two-thirds of the movement, squatting down until their thighs are parallel with the ground then only coming back up about forty five to sixty degrees. You could reduce this ROM even further and squat isometrically using either a static hold or timed static contraction in the mid-range position and it would still be effective. As long as the ROM or position used effectively loads all of the muscles being targeted the strength gains for those muscles will transfer to the full ROM.

As for people with impressive legs half-squatting, keep in mind what Arthur Jones used to often point out; the fact that some result has been achieved by some method is not proof that the same or better results could not have been achieved more quickly, more efficiently, and more safely by other means.

This subject recently came up during an online discussion with Markus Reinhardt. He posted a video of a client performing low partial squats and I meant to only type a short comment but ended up writing several paragraphs. Below are my comments, edited slightly for brevity and clarity, and a screenshot from the video showing her at the top of the ROM used:

“How well you perform an exercise is far more important than how much weight you lift. The goal of exercise isn’t to make weight go up and down, it is to impose a demand on the target muscles to work them with a high intensity of effort and stimulate an adaptive response while minimizing the risk of injury.

Using the lower portion of the ROM of a squat or deadlift and avoiding the top increases the average lever you work against, which makes a weight feel much heavier. This is why most people do the opposite of what they should, squatting only in the top half of the ROM and resting at lockout.

Consider that you can lockout and stand with a very heavy barbell on your back for a long time and even walk around with it, because your knees do not bend much. With the bones of your legs aligned and good posture the lever your muscles work against to stand with a barbell on your back is minimal.

If you squat down to parallel (but do not go lower and rest your hamstrings on your calves) and try to hold that position with the same weight you won’t be able to for even a small fraction of the time you can stand with it.

The weight is the same in both instances, but it feels much heavier as your thighs approach parallel because of the difference in leverage. Remember, your muscles work against resistance which is the product of weight, leverage, and other factors, not just the weight.

The difficulty of a full ROM squat is the average of the difficulty of holding the bar in either of these positions. Since standing in lockout is very easy it brings the average difficulty way down. This means you have to use a much heavier weight to place the same demand on the muscles than if you only performed the lower portion of your ROM. You can provide the same average resistance to the target muscles with a shorter average lever and heavier weight or with a longer average lever and lighter weight. It doesn’t make any difference to your muscles but it does to your spine.

If you reduce the ROM to the lower half (thighs from parallel to about 45 degrees relative to the ground) to two-thirds of the movement (to about 60 degrees) the difficulty becomes much greater because both of these positions are a lot harder to hold than lockout.

Then comes the issue of timing. You do not spend an equal amount of time at all positions over your ROM. You must slow down as you come to a stop and then start again at the start/bottom and end/top of the ROM, so you spend more time towards the ends than the middle. How much more slowly you perform these turnarounds, or if you pause at the start or end points how much time you spend holding, also affects the average.

This is why most people stop and rest at lockout when squatting, it makes squatting much easier. If you do the opposite, if you gradually slow to a stop then hold the weight motionless for a few seconds at the start with your thighs parallel then slowly squeeze out of the start (taking a second or two to just move the first few inches) the exercise becomes much harder.”

This applies to many other exercises as well. It is the exact opposite of the “strong-range” partials recommended by Pete Sisco which should not be performed by anyone who values their joints. I cover the application to other exercises in detail in Elements of Form.

What if your goal isn’t just effective exercise and you also want to squat with as heavy a weight as possible? If your primary goal is to perform the squat in powerlifting you should train dynamically going down to the depth required by whatever organization you compete in. For more on squatting for powerlifting read my interview with Doug Holland.