Bodyweight Squat

Execution

1. Inhale, brace your belly as if someone were about to nudge you, and spread your weight across the whole foot.
2. Send your hips back first, then let your knees bend, lowering as if sitting onto a low chair behind you.
3. Go down until your hip crease is level with your knee, or to the deepest point where your lower back still stays flat.
4. Keep your knees pointing the same way as your toes and your heels down through the whole rep.
5. Exhale, press the whole foot into the floor and stand up, chest and hips rising together.
6. Stand all the way tall at the top, squeeze your glutes for one beat, then start the next rep.

Quick cues

• Hips back before the knees bend.
• Push your knees out.
• Press your whole foot down.
• Stop before your back rounds.
• Lift chest and hips together.

Common faults

• Fault: Knees collapsing inward on the way up

  Fix: Loop a resistance band above your knees and press out against it on every rep up.

• Fault: Heels lifting off the floor at the bottom

  Fix: Put a 2 cm wedge under your heels and add the knee-to-wall ankle drill to your warm-up.

• Fault: Hips shooting up first while the chest folds down

  Fix: Slow the descent to 3 seconds and think about driving your shoulders up at the same speed as your hips.

• Fault: Only getting one quarter of the way down

  Fix: Put a chair behind you, tap it lightly with your hips and stand back up, then lower the chair week by week.