Comments on: Split Squat Technique

By: Rayca

Rayca — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:21:03 +0000

What an informative article on split squats, one of my favorite exercises. I was always told to never have your knee go past (or even with) your toes. HA! All this time, I’ve been working glutes? I must say, my quads are killed on this exercise anyway. I can’t wait to try out the other 2 positions. Thanks again.

By: MadHatter

MadHatter — Tue, 10 May 2011 09:36:41 +0000

Love your articles Lyle very informative…

Any plans for a Squat article?

By: Kyle

Kyle — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:17:36 +0000

I’ve worked with a lot of people with insanely tight hip flexors, then. A small amount of rotation is natural and instinctive, usually easily corrected. But I’ve seen formerly sedentary office workers, rowers, excessive lordosis people, and a couple of martial artists who have difficulty keeping the hips square.

They can do it, but they have to be constantly reminded and sometimes manhandled into position. I guess that’s what we get the big bucks for

By: lylemcd

lylemcd — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:35:29 +0000

While I don’t disagree that the pelvis should stay square and forwards, with the legs in the position I’ve shown above, the back leg hip flexor would have to be insanely tight to cause that problem unless the back leg was either

a. too far back
b. too straight
c. both

That said, I know some who use this type of movement as a way to functionally (ugh) stretch the rear hip flexor. If you actively set the abs and keep the back leg where it should be, assuming it was truly that tight, it would stretch things in that regards.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 02:17:03 +0000

I also find a common error is to rotate the hip in the same direction as the legs are going. Basically, tight hip flexors.

By: lylemcd

lylemcd — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:49:42 +0000

Shawn: Its certainly worth trying.

G: It’s not uncommon for the abs/obliques to thicken a bit with heavy squat/DL work. As the old saying goes “A narrow waist is a weak waist.”

By: P. J. Striet

P. J. Striet — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:16:53 +0000

I use the split squat and it’s variations every day with clients, and this was a very good post Lyle. One note on Boyle’s RFESS: my clients typically complain of foot/ankle discomfort with the back foot being placed on a bench. I’ve modified the movement to where I now have people perform this movement with their back foot elevated on a barbell set up in a power rack (about calf height). This allows the foot to comfortably roll and pivot on the bar throughout the movement and eliminates complaints of discomfort and allows the trainee to work the movement heavier and harder.

By: G

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 14:18:31 +0000

Great article as always !
I have some questions :
I noticed while progressing on my squats that my waist got wider, my abs more protruding and started losing my ‘V’ shape. Is that common ? was I doing something wrong ?
So I decided to replace them by split squats. Are they less hardcore for the waist area?
I use dumbells hanging low, do you think that it could cause traps overtraining (I hate traps) ? Any tip ?

By: Shawn Weldon

Shawn Weldon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:15:09 +0000

I was just diagnosed with osteoarthritis in the right hip. Although I’m still squatting, I worry about long term effects. I was wondering if this would be a better movement to work the legs as opposed to squats since there seems to be less depth and it allows a more upright upper body both of which might reduce the flexion of the hip.

By: lylemcd

lylemcd — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 01:53:38 +0000

Mike: Within the context of how I use split squats and was presenting them in this article, which is to strengthen the legs isolaterally or make ‘em bigger, I consider walking the tightrope a technical error. If you have some other goal (and I’d guess that Nick is using it to challenge balance by decreasing the width of the base of support), it might not be. But in general, as the balance component of a movement goes up, the ability to meaningfully strengthen a muscle goes down because your energy goes into stabilizing instead of moving the iron. Which may be a reasonable tradeoff is that is your explicit goal.

So I wouldn’t consider making the movement less stable a meaningful progression in the context of what I’m presenting: strengthening/embiggening the legs. For a different goal, it might be.

Jared: 6 of one, half a dozen of the other I think. Certainly grip works harder and shoulder girdle might work harder holding the bells, since you can often use heavier weights with a bar, I’m guessing it more or less balances out. In all truth, I rarely do the DB variation with anybody because I would rather them work their legs than worry about holding weights; I was simply presenting it because I’m an obsessive comprehensivist like that.