How to do the Barbell Back Squat
Step by step
- Set the bar across your upper back (on the muscle, not your neck) and grip it firmly.
- Unrack, step back, and set feet a bit wider than shoulders, toes slightly out.
- Take a big breath and brace your core hard before you descend.
- Push your hips back and sit down between your feet, keeping your whole foot planted.
- Drive the floor away through your whole foot and stand back up tall.
The thing people get wrong
Always squat inside a rack with safety pins set, or use a spotter, near your working weight. Brace before every rep, not on the way down.
Coaching cue
Drive your whole foot into the floor and keep your chest and hips rising together out of the bottom.
Stay safe
Do not let your lower back round at the bottom; stop the descent where you can still keep your back flat.
Make it easier or harder
- Easier: Swap to a goblet squat holding one dumbbell at your chest.
- Harder: Pause for two seconds at the bottom of every rep.
Muscles worked
- Primary: Quads, Glutes
- Secondary: Hamstrings, Core
What to do instead
Same job, different movement — useful if you don't have the equipment or it doesn't feel right today.
Daily Coach builds this into a real weekly plan. It picks the exercises for your equipment and experience, swaps around injuries you tell it about, and tracks what you actually lifted.