Barbell squats - bar behind shoulders

Squats with a barbell on your shoulders - a basic weightlifting exercise focused primarily on development thigh muscles. When performing it, other muscle groups are also involved in the work, to a greater extent - back muscles.

How to properly perform squats with a barbell on your shoulders?

1. Due to the great risk of injury, never begin exercises of this class without proper thorough warm-up and stretching of the legs and back.
2. Never start squats with heavy weights “cold” - you need to thoroughly warm up and prepare your heart, breathing, and blood pressure for the upcoming stress. A great option is a short jog, a bike ride, or 10 minutes on any cardio machine.
3. Always use for this exercise: chalk or chalk, a weightlifting waist belt, special shoes.

1. Go to the barbell rack
2. Leaning slightly, bring your head behind the barbell so that it is on your shoulders,
3. The grip of the hands is comfortable, but much wider than the shoulders.
4. Remove the bar from the racks,
5. To avoid possible back injury, it is recommended to hold the bar not directly on your shoulders, but a little lower - in fact, already on your back.
6. Leading experts recommend keeping your legs slightly bent and 30-40 centimeters wide. At the same time, some famous athletes (such as Frank Zane, Sergi Nubret) perform this exercise literally from a ballet position: “heels together, toes apart.”
7. While inhaling gradually, perform a squat.
8. After holding at the bottom point for a couple of seconds, exhale as you rise to the starting position.
9. Bodybuilding champions recommend doing deep squats - a maximum descent down to the stop. However, if a possible enlargement of the pelvis is not part of your plans, perform a partial squat, lowering only until the front of the thigh is parallel to the floor. It is not recommended for you to squat deeper.
10. In your workouts, depending on the weight of the load, vary the number of repetitions: from a minimum of 3-4 times to a maximum of 20 times per approach.
11. For convenience, some athletes place a beam up to 5 centimeters high under their heels.