Hey, everyone, it’s Jennifer. And today I want to go over a squat setup.

A squat is one of the most basic movements you can do. But I find that a lot of people have questions about what exactly is the right setup. So it’s gonna depend a little bit on your anatomy and how you’re put together. But in general, here are some good guidelines.

The first thing is: how wide should your feet be? So some people are going pretty narrow and some people stand super wide. A good rule of thumb, to start, is shoulder-ish, width with your feet. So a little bit wider than the hips in the ballpark of your shoulder width.

Most people will feel a little bit more comfortable with a slight toe out as well. So not like Mary Poppins, just a little bit of a toe out and shoulder width. Your weight is over the midfoot. So you’re not trying to hang out on your heels, you’re not going over your toes, just midfoot. 

Sometimes you’ll see people squatting and they really sit the hips back. Or people are squatting and their knees kind of go forward. We want a happy medium. So you want your knees to start translating forward when your hips go backwards. It’s both at the same time.

And then, the last point of performance is just keeping your chest up as much as you can. Again, try not to really drop forward.

So just to recap shoulder-ish width feet with a slight toe out, hips and knees moves together, chest up, weight is over the middle of your foot. I hope that helps answer some questions and clear up some fuzziness on squat setup. Give it a try and let us know what you think.