There are squats of all kinds; with a high bar, with a low bar, front, rear, goblet, sissy, pistol … And in this article, we will evaluate the high squat since it is a tool that can really come in handy especially to a particular group of people.
High squat: why carry it out
The high squat allows us to recruit different motor units to those recruited by the conventional squat. In this way, in the beginning, we may not feel completely comfortable with the technique or with the sensations that this exercise causes us, but we must not discard it.
Since the separation of the legs increases considerably in this exercise, for the eccentric phase to occur the knee requires a lower degree of flexion, and therefore it makes sense that we use the high squat to design the workouts of people who have poor mobility knee.
Anyway, it is not necessary for you to have knee problems to include this exercise because thanks to the movement pattern of this squat, the vast internal quadriceps, the adductors, and the buttocks increase their involvement in front of the conventional squat, and doing a high squat We can benefit from a more specific work of these muscles.
How to properly run the high squat
To perform a high squat we will place our feet far apart; something further than our acromial width (the width of our shoulders).
In this case, the feet will be open at an angle of 45º with respect to our torso, but as in any other type of squat, the rest of the leg will follow the direction of the foot to prevent the knee from collapsing inwards (valgo) or outward (varus).
This opening of the legs will reduce the range of travel of this movement and allow us to execute this squat even though the ankle, knee, and hip have a lower degree of mobility.
For this reason, this exercise can be useful for people with compromised mobility in these joints, or for people who have just started training and it is not convenient for them to perform a deep conventional squat due to its greater technical complication.