HOW TO SQUAT ON THE SMITH MACHINE

Hey guys, today we'll be walking through how to squat on a Smith machine. As simple as a squat may seem, there are a lot of components that go into a squat. So get your pens and your notebooks ready and get ready to take some notes because we are diving right in. Just so you can get a clearer image of the squatting motion and form without the Smith machine getting in the way, we are going to go over squat form first with just a pre-weighted barbell. The barbell is placed on my traps slash shoulders, not on my neck. My feet are about shoulder width apart and pointed slightly out. My elbows are in line with my spine, not pointed way back. As I go into the squat, I inhale and contract my core. To bring myself back to starting position, I flex my glutes, which automatically pushes my hips forward and I continue to squeeze them until I reach a full lockout and can't flex them anymore. At this point, I exhale and get ready to do another rep by inhaling and contracting my core. Flex glutes to push hips forward and return back to starting position. Exhale, inhale. As said earlier, my feet are about shoulder width apart and pointed slightly out. When I go down into the squat, my knees should be pointing in the same direction as my toes. My knees are stable and not caving in to each other. It's also important to note that your spine should remain neutral throughout the entire movement. As you can see, I can draw a straight line from my neck to the bottom of my back. Maintaining a neutral spine is important to alleviate unnecessary strain on your back and making sure you are contracting your core as you enter the squat helps to keep your spine neutral. Squat form will differ from person to person, so just experiment and see what works for you. At the end of the day, you just want to make sure that your knees aren't caving in too much, your spine remains neutral, and you're breathing correctly. As we move on to the smith machine, form will be exactly the same. We want to make sure that the bar is placed on top or behind our shoulders, not on our neck. Spine remains neutral and we are breathing correctly. Doing squats on the smith machine can be a little tricky because the bar only allows a certain range of motion, but again, just play around with your foot positioning until you find what's comfortable for you. If you're unfamiliar with how to use the smith machine, I'll link my how to use gym equipment video down below for you to check out, but I'll go over some basics here. Every smith machine has safeties, which are the yellow parts here. You can adjust these to whatever height you want, and these are here for if you ever are squatting and are unable to return back to starting position and need to abort the squat. You just drop the bar and it rests on the safeties and then you just play it cool, like you were supposed to do that. For this specific smith machine, to move the safeties, just slide them to your desired height and then twist them around to hook back onto the machine and it's as simple as that. To unrack the bar, twist the bar back towards you and you'll want to keep it in this position while using the smith machine. To re-rack the bar, simply twist the bar forward away from you to hook it back on. We talked a little bit about the position of the bar earlier and I just want to touch base on that again. If you find that the bar is hurting you, it's most likely because you're placing it too high on your neck. To fix this, simply place the bar either on top or behind your shoulders. These areas naturally hold more skin, muscle, and fat than your neck, which is why they're ideal spots to place the barbell on. Also, placing the barbell on your neck instead of your shoulders can easily hurt your form. Often, when the bar is on your neck and causing you pain, your shoulders will automatically shrug up and your head lean back, which makes your spine un-neutral, putting more unnecessary strain on your spine, and it just looks painful to watch. Again, easy fix. Just place the bar a little farther down and not on your neck. When deciding on the bar height, you want to choose a height that is correct for you. As you see here, the bar comes right to the top of my shoulders, which is too high, because once I go to un-rack the bar, I'll have to tiptoe in order to do so, which just makes you have to do extra unnecessary work, and once you move to a free-weight squat rack and are lifting heavier, using the incorrect rack height will make it harder for you. So, what you want to do is to place the bar at a height that comes right under your shoulders, because you should be able to just flex your glutes and have the bar come up high enough to un-rack it. You shouldn't need to tiptoe in order to un-rack the bar. My feet are about shoulder width apart with toes pointed slightly out. My knees should travel in the same direction as my toes are pointing. If you find they're not, play around with your foot positioning until your knees and toes are pointed in the same direction. This might mean that your toes are pointed straight or out. This is different from person to person. Shoes are also going to be an important element when squatting. You'll want to wear shoes that have a flat sole because these will provide you with the most support and stabilization. Squatting in shoes, like running shoes, that have a lot of cushion will not provide your feet with good support. You wouldn't wear cleats to play basketball or heels to go running. Different shoes for different things. I'll leave a list of good squat shoes down below. I'm currently wearing my Nike Romaleos. So let's talk more about form again. Spine should always remain neutral. Make sure to contract your core to help neutralize your spine. A few things to avoid here on the right. Not keeping your spine neutral. Squatting too deep, causing my spine to round. Not keeping my feet flat on the floor and my knees excessively caving. I know you're looking at these mistakes and cringing and wondering why anyone would ever do these things, but I'd encourage you to film yourself squatting because you might find you're one of those people. Practice makes perfect. Let's start again from the top. Place the bar right below your shoulders. You should be able to just squeeze your glutes to unwrap the bar. Twist the bar back and keep it in that position to keep it from hooking back onto the machine in the middle of your squats. Feet about shoulder width apart, bar placed on top or behind your shoulders, not on your neck. Inhale. Contract your core. Go down into the squat. Flex your glutes to bring your hips forward and back to starting position. Block out and exhale. Inhale and repeat. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Keeping spine neutral and feet flat on the floor at all times. When you're done, twist the bar forward and hook it back onto the machine. Thanks for checking this video out. If you found it helpful, make sure to give it a thumbs up and share it with any of your other gym buddies that might also find it helpful. Next week, we'll be going over how to do a Romanian deadlift on the Smith machine, so if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to my channel and turn on that notification bell so you don't miss that video. For daily workouts and fitness tips, make sure to like me on Facebook and follow me on Instagram. I'll see you guys all again next week.