Wide Stance Barbell Squat
Trains the Quads.
- Equipment
- A barbell and a rack
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Rack a barbell across your upper back and step back.
- Set your feet much wider than shoulder-width with the toes turned out.
- Brace your stomach and set your chest up.
- Squat down by pushing the hips back and letting the knees track out over the toes.
- Go down until the thighs reach at least parallel, or as far as a flat back allows.
- Drive back up by pushing the floor apart with your feet.
Common mistakes
- Turning the toes out further than the hips can follow. The knee tracks the direction the foot points, and a stance whose feet point further out than the hips rotate puts a twist through the knee.
- Letting the knees fall inward on the way up. Pushing the floor apart is the cue, and a wide stance makes the fault both more likely and more visible.
- Expecting a narrow squat's depth. A wide stance runs out of hip range sooner; depth is where the flat back ends, and that is higher here for most people.
- Treating it as an inner-thigh exercise. A wide stance brings the adductors in more than a narrow one, and it is still a squat the quadriceps and glutes lead.