What is the Hack squat?
The hack squat is a weight training exercise that aims to build up the inner thighs on a guided load machine. It is specially designed to build up the legs. The glutes and quadriceps will be solicited during the execution. These muscles of the body are a very difficult part to work. The quadriceps is made up of 4 muscle groups: rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis and adductor.
The Hack squat is a good alternative to the classic barbell squat. It is an exercise of body-building which targets mainly the muscles of the thighs and the glutei with a stronger request of the quadriceps compared to the squat. It is thus a poly-articular exercise which has all its place in a program of musculation. Allowing to develop and muscularize the legs and especially for the people who feel much more the gluteal muscles during the exercises of squat or inclined press. Moreover the Hack squat allows a greater safety of share the fact that the back is plated against the back of the machine. You will have the possibility of blocking the plate as with the press at any time and thus to be able to work heavier even with the failure.
Before positioning yourself on the machine, choose the load. Then adjust the height of the plate and the backrest according to your morphology. Place yourself against the backrest with your back straight. Your lumbar region should be well supported and your shoulders should be supported under the backrest. The feet should be positioned with the toes slightly outwards with a distance of the width of the shoulders or more.
Making the right move:
Put your back against the back of the machine by bending your knees to 90 degrees. Keep your spine pressed against the seat until your legs are parallel to the plate or slightly below it as in a squat. Grab the handles and begin the hack squat. Push up by contracting your thighs and glutes until your legs are almost straight but without locking your knees. (do not extend the legs completely) to keep a direct voltage and not hurt yourself. Then, go back down to finish the movement and so on until the end of your series.
CAUTION: The Hack squat is a fairly safe exercise since it is done on a guided machine. This one which makes it possible to reduce the risks of wounds on the level of the spinal column. It could be appropriate for those whose morphology does not allow to make squats. Do not pull the knees in during the push but rather towards the outside, in the line of the knees. Finally, do not lift your lumbar vertebrae off the backrest.
Tips
- Inhale as you bend your knees and blow out as you come up.
- Do not extend the legs completely at the top of the movement in order to keep a continuous muscular tension and allow a better efficiency of the exercise and especially to avoid an injury.
- Do not jerk or lunge at the bottom of the movement in order to avoid the risk of injury but also to keep the muscle tension.
- Your knees should not extend beyond your feet like the classic squat.
Variants
- We will be able to solicit different parts of the thighs and buttocks by varying the position and the spacing of the feet just like for the inclined press or the the squat With the feet wide apart and turned outwards, the inner thighs (vastus medialis) and adductors will be targeted more, whereas with the feet tightly together, the abductor muscles and the outer thighs (vastus lateralis) will be more solicited.
- We will be able to bring variations according to the height of the feet on the plate: positioned rather towards the bottom of the plate, we will target more the quadriceps whereas if they are placed towards the top of the plate, the glutei and ischios will be solicited more.
- If your gym doesn't have a Hack Squat, you can do a guided barbell squat and position your feet forward so that your thighs are perpendicular to your legs (thighs parallel to the floor) on the way down.
- It is also possible to perform a Hack squat with a bar behind your back. Start with an empty bar to learn the movement. Hold a barbell with your arms stretched behind your back at the level of your buttocks, then bend your legs as if you wanted to put the barbell on the ground, then come back up by contracting your quadriceps and glutes.
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