How to do the Machine Hack Squat
Step by step
- Set your shoulders under the pads and your back flat against the machine's backrest.
- Place your feet on the platform about shoulder-width apart.
- Release the safety handles and let your knees bend to lower under control.
- Descend until your thighs are about parallel, tracking knees over toes.
- Press through your feet to return to the start, then re-latch the safeties.
The thing people get wrong
Keep your whole back flat against the pad and let your knees track over your toes - do not let them cave in.
Coaching cue
Sink slowly and go only as deep as you can without your hips curling off the backrest.
Stay safe
Find the safety handles before you start so you can latch them if a rep stalls at the bottom.
Make it easier or harder
- Easier: Use lighter weight and stop above parallel.
- Harder: Pause two seconds at the bottom of every rep.
Muscles worked
- Primary: Quads, Glutes
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.