Do You Need To Squat Deeply?

Deep squats may build thicker legs than shallower squats. Squatting with the knees below parallel with the hips produces a greater knee extensor moment (quad focus), whereas shallower squats tend to use more of the ankle.

Deeper squats also activate more of the gluteus maximus during the concentric portion and more of the vastus medialis and lateralis (quads) during the eccentric.

What this means is that if you want to get the most work from your quads, hit some depth and go slow on the way down to maximize the stress, then explode up without losing your spinal stability to get more from the glutes.

Much of the hesitation to squat deeply is because, well, it’s harder. The ego drives a lot of what we do in the gym, and squatting deeper for the same number of reps typically means stripping 20-40% of the shallow squat weight off the bar.

There’s still a widely held belief among fitness instructors and personal trainers that deep squatting will hurt your knees.

I’ll set it straight: squatting deeply will not hurt your knees; squatting poorly will hurt your knees.

The greatest posterior shear force is in the first 30 degrees of the squatting movement, with a substantial decrease in shear as the knee goes past 90 degrees. This means shallow squatting is worse for your knees (specifically meniscus and ACL) than deep squatting.

Deep squatting has been shown to increase the retropatellar contact area with a larger zone of contact on the femoral condyles than shallower squatting. That means half or quarter squatting increases pressure with a smaller contact area and leads to more wearing away of the sub-patellar cartilage than deep squatting and increases the degenerative changes of the knee.

Source: T-Nation | Do You Need To Squat Deeply?