How to Squat Properly: Anatomical Analysis

See exactly what each muscle contributes to the execution of a squat, in spectacular 3D

Squats are a favorite functional exercise. This is because the simple movement can have so many benefits for full-body strength and health.

Watch this video to fully understand the anatomy of a squat. See which muscles are used and when you understand better, you can explain and teach better too!

Which Muscles work in the squat? How does the body move?

Let’s examine this together.

If we try to perform the squat without an active muscle system, the body will collapse as we can see right at the beginning of the video.

So which muscles must we add to the skeleton in order to get it back up to standing position?

The first muscle we connect to the bones is the quadriceps femoris.

One side connects to the tibia and the other to the femur and the pelvis.

Now, let’s activate the muscle and see what happens –

The muscle extends the knee and the leg straightens.

What do we do now?

The leg straightened, but the body is still leaning forward.

How will we lift the trunk?

How will we straighten the trunk from a position of flexion to extension?

Let’s try to connect another muscle to it-

Where one end is connected to the pelvis and the other to the femur.

This muscle is the gluteus maximus.

In addition, we will add another muscle to help us lift the trunk.

We’ll connect one side to the lower part of the pelvis and the other side to the tibia.

These are the hamstrings.

Now, let’s activate the muscles and see what happens-

The muscles pull the pelvis and the trunk lifts.

We see that the whole movement is performed through the hip joint – hip extension.

Now, how can we stabilize the spine?

The spine is not stable.

This is the time to strengthen & stabilize it.

This muscle belt is the spinal erectors.

In addition, we will wrap the abdomen in a belt that maintains intra-abdominal pressure.

This is the transversus abdominis.

Now we’ll try to get the knees that collapsed forward back into place.

Contraction of the gastrocnemius and Soleus will pull the tibia backward and prevent the knee from collapsing forward.

In this video, we clarified the main muscles that are active when performing the squat. Of course, there are other synergists and stabilizing muscles that we did not present in this video. We’ll show them in other videos.

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