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Your Squat Depth Is Limited by Your Ankles

Coaching by Danny Lehr1:41

The fault

Not getting to depth, and blaming the hips for it.

Why it happens

Most people assume depth is a hamstring or glute issue. Very often the actual limiter is the ankle, and no amount of hip work will move a problem that lives further down.

The fix

Address the ankles. If that is where your restriction is, depth improves quickly and the hip work you were doing starts to matter again.

That's one fault. There are sixty-four.

The free fixes assume you already know roughly what you're doing and something specific is going wrong. Find it, fix it, get back to training. That's what they're for and they'll always be here.

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Taught by Danny Lehr. Competed in Olympic weightlifting 2010 to 2019, won the 2019 Masters World Cup. Coached these lifts under Glenn Pendlay and Dave Spitz.

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About this fix

Originally published as "How to Improve Squat Depth", part of The Lifting Fix, the free weekly technique series Danny Lehr started filming over a decade ago. He gave every episode away then, and they are still free here. Danny Lehr competed in Olympic weightlifting from 2010 to 2019 and won the 2019 Masters World Cup. More about Danny Lehr.

Transcript

ankle mobility. A lot of times people are squatting. What we find is that their hips are kind of high. They're telling me to lower.

They can't see because their hips down lower. So a lot of times people have to miss the extension that they tight glutes or hamstrings, low back things. A lot of times actually ankles because your ankles are tight and the feet can't slide forward and that's what causes that high catch. So get your hips down and chest up and work on ankles.

Best way to do that is just take a bar. put it right on top, make sure our feet are relatively straight forward and then kind of hang out in here. Now from this position we can kind of find where we're tight, where the corners are. So you can kind of go to one side a little bit, see how that feels over the other, maybe down the middle, kind of find where you have those corners.

If you find that even in this position you can still, you have to hide. I'm going to be down, a little more. You can slide another bar, how's it going to weight on it? Same thing.

Put around on top of the knees. From here you can see it's kind of pushing my knees down. Great drill for ankle flexibility. side.

The other kind of find where you're tight and you kind of find what you need to work on. You can wear your work those angles. Alright? Mobile ankles, you can look great.

Make sure your heels stay down, push through your heels and stay safe. Only go within the range, then you can go. Alright? Just kind of work around in there.

More squat fixes

Your Elbows Drop and Your Midline Gives

Losing the front rack partway through the squat.

With Tom Kallas

You Move Too Much Setting Up the Back Squat

Excess upper body movement while getting set under the bar.

A Loose Grip Lets Your Upper Back Break

Fingertips only on the bar, which lets the upper back round under load.

Want the rest of this category?

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Plus the snatch pull checklist. One page, nine points, floor to hip.

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