You are doing a powerlifting squat if you place the bar lower down your back- below your deltoids and across your rhomboid. Your stance should be shoulder width and a little bit wider. Due to the shift in your center of gravity your torso lean will be more pronounced. This exercise places less stress on your knees and more stress on your lower back.

Think of it as if you were sitting down in a chair, and let your body put itself into the proper range of motion. It is ideal if you can be parallel, just do not do more than what your body wants you to. If your ankle flexibility, strength of your lower back or any other physical factors keep you from having full range of motion, then it will be necessary for you to abbreviate your range until your supporting muscles are flexible and strong.

Athletic Squat
This exercise is kind of a mixture between stress on the lower back and stress on the knee joint. This is an excellent movement to use in various phases of training.

The Sumo
In order to perform this exercise, you must take an extraordinarily wide stance. Never keep your legs pointed forward during this movement. If you do try to do this, you will twist at the knee joint. This will not only put stress on your knees, but it will also stretch and possible injure your ligaments.

Your feet need to point farther out than your natural stance. This way your legs will bend at an angle that will not allow the knee to twist or torque. The sumo will use more muscles on the inner thigh than a traditional exercise.

The Box
This is another variation of the traditional exercise. With this movement, you move down until you are sitting on a box or a platform. This will usually be placed just at or above parallel. You have to transfer all of your weight to the platform and then pause. Then you push upward. This technique will work your weakest range of motion by making you have a cold start from the platform. Squeeze your glute muscles to push upward while keeping your torso as vertical as you can.

The Ski
When you go down against the wall, this is known as the ski. You start by stepping about 2 feet away from a wall and assuming a natural stance. You then lean back into the wall. Hold this for roughly 20-60 seconds. You should work this movement in all areas, since you will only improve your strength in the areas that you are working.

A lot of people hold the start position, and then they slide down the wall several inches and hold this position for around 20-60 seconds. Then they slide down again until you finish the last rep either at parallel or even below.

There are many different variations on the squat, and each one of them has many benefits to help you reach your personal exercise goals!

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