Kneeling Squat
Also works: Abdominals · Hamstrings · Lower Back
A back squat performed from the knees: bar across the shoulders, shins on the floor, sitting back until your hips touch your calves and driving up to a tall kneeling lockout. Taking the ankles and most of the knee out of the pattern leaves the hips to do the work, with no way to cheat with quads or calf drive.
Own the movement
Set up first, then execute. Every cue below is something you can check on your next set.
Before the first rep
- Set the rack hooks at roughly the height of your shoulders when kneeling tall — you will need to drop the pins several holes from your standing squat.
- Put a folded mat or pad under your knees. Bare knees on a platform end the set before the glutes do.
- Kneel with knees hip-width apart, shins flat, toes either pointed back or tucked under — pick one and keep it for the set.
- Slide under the bar and rack it across your rear delts with your shoulder blades pulled together and tight.
- Take a big breath, brace hard, and unrack with a small hip extension rather than a lean.
Every rep
Breathing & tempo — One breath per rep: in and braced at the top, held through the sit-back and the drive, out once you are tall again. Two seconds down, a brief touch at the bottom, fast and controlled up.
Before you load it
- Set the rack safeties just below your bottom position. Bailing from your knees is clumsier than bailing from standing, so give yourself somewhere to dump the bar.
- If you have had a knee-cap injury or a meniscus repair, load the shins gradually and stop if the pressure produces pain in the joint rather than the skin.
Sets, reps & load
Where to start, and what to change when it stops being hard.
Start with an empty 20 kg bar even if you squat heavy standing — the balance is new and the fall is short but awkward. Expect a working weight around 30-50% of your back squat. Add 2.5-5 kg when you can touch your calves and lock out tall with ribs down on every rep of every set, not when the last rep merely moves.
What goes wrong
The errors that show up most often, and the cue that fixes each one.
Cue chest up and hips back at the same time, and drop the weight until the bar stays stacked over your knees for the whole rep. Film one set from the side to check.
Lock out by squeezing your glutes with your ribs pulled down. Tall kneeling means ribs over pelvis — anything beyond that is spinal extension, not hip extension.
Start with the empty bar. Expect to work with roughly a third to a half of your back squat here; the range is short but the leverage is unforgiving and there is no leg drive to help.
Fold a mat double, or kneel on a pair of stacked airex pads. What limits most people in this movement is knee-cap pressure, and it is entirely a padding problem.
Why bother
Kneeling removes two joints from the chain. Your ankles cannot contribute, your knee angle barely changes, and your base of support is your shins. What is left is hip extension against a vertically loaded torso, so the glutes have nowhere to hide behind quad drive the way they do in a standing squat.
It also punishes any tendency to finish a hip extension with your spine. Standing, you can arch your way to a lockout that looks finished. Kneeling with a bar on your back, an arch is immediately obvious as a rib flare, and the load stays over the hips only if you stack ribs above pelvis.
Where it fits
As accessory work after your main squat or deadlift, three to four sets of 6-10. It is a useful choice when your ankles or knees are irritated and a standing squat is off the table, and for anyone whose deadlift dies at the lockout rather than off the floor. Once a week is enough.
If this one isn't it
No kit, too hard, or too easy — here's where to go instead.
Same job, different kit
Start here instead
When this gets easy
Asked and answered
How much weight should I use compared with my back squat?
Plan on 30-50%. The range is much shorter, but you have no ankle contribution, no leg drive out of the hole, and a narrower base, so the bar feels considerably heavier than the number suggests. Anyone loading this near their standing squat is almost certainly cutting the bottom off the rep.
Should my toes be tucked under or pointed back?
Either works — pick one and stay consistent so your reps are comparable. Toes pointed back gives a slightly longer range and a flatter shin contact; toes tucked under keeps your ankles in dorsiflexion and gives some people a more secure base. Do not switch mid-set.
Is this better than a hip thrust for glutes?
Not better, different. A hip thrust loads the glutes hardest at lockout with a horizontal force. A kneeling squat loads them under a vertical bar through a deeper hip flexion, and demands trunk bracing the thrust does not. If your goal is maximum glute load, thrust. If your goal is hip extension that carries over to a standing lift, kneel.
Can I do this in a Smith machine?
Yes, and it is a reasonable place to learn it — the fixed path removes the balance problem while you get used to the bottom position. Move to a free bar once you can touch your calves and lock out tall without wobbling, because the trunk bracing is half of what this movement is worth.