Feeling squats in my legs

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soccerkon26
soccerkon26 Posts: 596 Member
edited December 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
When I try and squat with a small barbell with fixed weights, I feel like I mainly feel it in my legs. I thought squats were supposed to help with your butt?

Replies

  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,260 Member
    Squats are a compound exercise and work your quads, calves, glutes, and hamstrings. You're going to feel them in any or all of those muscles, depending on your form and how well you activate your muscles. A lot of people have terrible glute activation when first starting out.
  • soccerkon26
    soccerkon26 Posts: 596 Member
    jemhh wrote: »
    Squats are a compound exercise and work your quads, calves, glutes, and hamstrings. You're going to feel them in any or all of those muscles, depending on your form and how well you activate your muscles. A lot of people have terrible glute activation when first starting out.

    How do I activate my glutes more? Any tips?
  • peaceout_aly
    peaceout_aly Posts: 2,018 Member
    soccerkon26 wrote: »
    When I try and squat with a small barbell with fixed weights, I feel like I mainly feel it in my legs. I thought squats were supposed to help with your butt?

    Squats work EVERYTHING. Balance incorporates your core, and the squat motion activates everything from glutes to calves and quads. Different stances will activate different muscles more so than others. I suggest doing hip thrusts or bridges before squatting in order to get your glutes warmed up and then tighten them while you are squatting. Use the Smith machine and place your feet in front of you, close stance, and squat (it will appear as if you are about to sit in a seat) until parallel. This really hits the hamstrings and glutes, and for me has built my booty significantly.
  • soccerkon26
    soccerkon26 Posts: 596 Member
    peaceout_aly wrote: »
    soccerkon26 wrote: »
    When I try and squat with a small barbell with fixed weights, I feel like I mainly feel it in my legs. I thought squats were supposed to help with your butt?

    Squats work EVERYTHING. Balance incorporates your core, and the squat motion activates everything from glutes to calves and quads. Different stances will activate different muscles more so than others. I suggest doing hip thrusts or bridges before squatting in order to get your glutes warmed up and then tighten them while you are squatting. Use the Smith machine and place your feet in front of you, close stance, and squat (it will appear as if you are about to sit in a seat) until parallel. This really hits the hamstrings and glutes, and for me has built my booty significantly.

    I'm definitely going to try hip thrusts or bridges before squatting now!

    I used to use the smith machine but people on here freak out when you mention it. I guess it's not good for form?
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    On a side note, if you want a better glute workout, do something designed to work the glutes.
  • peaceout_aly
    peaceout_aly Posts: 2,018 Member
    soccerkon26 wrote: »
    peaceout_aly wrote: »
    soccerkon26 wrote: »
    When I try and squat with a small barbell with fixed weights, I feel like I mainly feel it in my legs. I thought squats were supposed to help with your butt?

    Squats work EVERYTHING. Balance incorporates your core, and the squat motion activates everything from glutes to calves and quads. Different stances will activate different muscles more so than others. I suggest doing hip thrusts or bridges before squatting in order to get your glutes warmed up and then tighten them while you are squatting. Use the Smith machine and place your feet in front of you, close stance, and squat (it will appear as if you are about to sit in a seat) until parallel. This really hits the hamstrings and glutes, and for me has built my booty significantly.

    I'm definitely going to try hip thrusts or bridges before squatting now!

    I used to use the smith machine but people on here freak out when you mention it. I guess it's not good for form?

    For the particular exercise that I mentioned, it would be near impossible to do using a regular barbell unless your balance is insanely on point. The Smith machine is good for hip thrusts, too. For actual squats, along with split (or Bulgarian) squats, sumo squats, etc. it is more ideal to use the barbell because the fact that you have to balance the bar incorporates more muscles and forces them to activate and it's also MUCH better for form.

    That being said, I ONLY use the Smith machine due to extremely bad feet injuries that make my balance absolute crap. If I want to put any sort of weight on, I have to use the Smith or I risk my ankles giving out on me. I've gotten just as good results, although I always wonder if my progress would sky rocket if I were able to use the barbell squat rack.
  • jemhh
    jemhh Posts: 14,260 Member
    edited May 2016
    jacksonpt wrote: »
    On a side note, if you want a better glute workout, do something designed to work the glutes.

    Yes, this. I got pulled away while answering the first time. I was going to say that while many people recommend squats for glutes, they aren't the end all be all of glute development. If you're really interested in developing your lower body and glutes in particular, I'd suggest looking into a glute focused program like Strong Curves. It's actually 4 different programs, 3 of which are full body. Your core glute exercises are going to be hip thrust/glute bridge variations, but you'll also be doing various squat and deadlift variations. Your other posts mentions that you're doing SL5x5. That's a good strength program but it's not optimized for glute development. (Cue the SL5x5 devotees...)
  • hill8570
    hill8570 Posts: 1,466 Member
    soccerkon26 wrote: »
    jemhh wrote: »
    Squats are a compound exercise and work your quads, calves, glutes, and hamstrings. You're going to feel them in any or all of those muscles, depending on your form and how well you activate your muscles. A lot of people have terrible glute activation when first starting out.

    How do I activate my glutes more? Any tips?

    Paused box squats are decent for this. Teaches you to get your butt back on the squat and to use your posterior chain to get out of the hole.

    If you don't already have it, check out the book "Strong Curves" -- a lot of the initial bodyweight work (before you hit the weights) revolves around things like glute activation.
  • soccerkon26
    soccerkon26 Posts: 596 Member
    Thanks everyone! I'll check out strong curves as well :)
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