Bodyweight Squat

Secondary muscles
Quads, Glutes
Body part
Core
Position
Standing
Laterality
Bilateral (both sides together)
Category
Strength

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No load means the limiting factor is the pattern itself: stance, depth, and keeping your weight over mid-foot rep after rep. Own 15-20 clean reps here before reaching for a goblet weight, and keep it around afterward as a warm-up filler or high-rep finisher on lower body days.

How to do the Bodyweight Squat

  1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, toes pointing slightly outward.
  2. Lower your body down by bending your knees and pushing your hips back as if you were sitting on a chair.
  3. Keep your chest up and your back straight throughout the movement.
  4. Lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the ground or as low as you can comfortably go.
  5. Pause for a moment at the bottom, then push through your heels to return to the starting position.
  6. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.

Tip: Screw the feet into the floor and spread it apart to keep the knees out and the arch of the foot from collapsing.

Muscles worked

Primary

Abs · Core

The abs and obliques brace the trunk under the bar and should feel tight through the whole rep, not just on the way down.

Secondary

  • Quads — The quads extend the knee and drive you out of the bottom, and front squats and close stance variations put more on them.
  • Glutes — The glutes extend the hip on the way up and take more of the load the deeper you go and the wider your stance.

Common mistakes

  • Knees caving inward — push the knees out over the toes on the way up, especially out of the bottom where they most want to collapse.
  • Hips shooting up first — if the hips rise faster than the chest on the way up, you turn the squat into a good morning; drive the chest and hips up together.
  • Cutting the depth — get the hip crease below the top of the knee on every rep unless mobility genuinely stops you, in which case work on it.
  • Losing the brace — take a big breath into the belly before each rep and hold it through the sticking point, then exhale on the way up.

Where it fits in a workout

Squats go first in a lower body session when you are freshest. Follow them with Romanian deadlifts or leg press, or superset lighter sets with pull-ups to use the same rack.

How many sets, how heavy and how hard: see what the ACSM position stands support.

Variations and alternatives

Similar exercises

When to talk to someone

  • Chest discomfort, feeling faint or lightheaded, or trouble breathing during or after exercise can be signs of a heart attack. In the US, call 911 right away; elsewhere, call your local emergency number.
  • Heart, metabolic or kidney disease, or symptoms like these when you are active: talk to your doctor before you start or step up training.
  • Pregnant: ask your obstetric care provider which exercise suits you.

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More exercises

Sources

  1. ACSM position stand on exercise quantity and quality (Garber et al., 2011)
  2. ACSM preparticipation health screening (Riebe et al., 2015)
  3. ACOG Committee Opinion No. 804 on exercise in pregnancy (2020)
  4. CDC: About Heart Attack Symptoms, Risk, and Recovery (2024)

Sources checked on October 17, 2026. Full citations are in the exercise library.

Animation and exercise data: ExerciseDB, licensed to SetGrip. General information, not medical or coaching advice.