How to build massive quads with squatting? (2022 science explained)

The squat is often nicknamed the king of all the exercises, and I agree with that statement. It will jam muscles onto your legs like no other, but if you are reading this article for a quick way to make your quads grow, you are in the wrong place, here you won’t find such a cheat code.

All adaptations take time, so the most important part of achieving your goals is patience and not giving up.

But with that out of the way, there are some ways to optimize the squat for better quad development. They are not magical but can make a meaningful difference. For a better reading experience, this post will be broken down into three main points.

1. Everything about programming (rep ranges, tempo, relative intensity)

2. Bar position on your back (low-bar vs. high-bar)

3. Range of motion, Stance width

I will also assume that you have mastered the basic squat technique, if not I highly recommend learning it first. However, you can still gain some knowledge from this article.

Squat anatomy and basics

Before we jump into the world of programming (which is the art of designing a training plan), we have to first understand what muscles and joints are involved. The two most important actions that happen during a squat are knee extension and hip extension.

There is also an aspect of lumbar isometric extension (basically, your spinal erectors extend your lumbar spine to keep you from flexing over) but it won’t be important for now. Just make sure your spinal erector and core strength are sufficient for stabilizing the weight that your legs are capable of lifting. If that’s not the case, continue squatting but strengthen your spinal erectors with other exercises. Anyway, I digress.

Knee extension is predominantly performed by the quadriceps femoris, widely known as quads. From this statement, we can deduce the first principle of quad training. The more you flex your knee, the more work will then be put into extending it by the quadriceps, it will experience more mechanical tension and grow at a faster rate. For more information on quad anatomy, you can go to kenhub

The hip extension will be mainly handled by the glutes as well as the adductor magnus. A common myth is that hamstrings are highly active in a squat, which is just not true. Yes, they perform hip extension but also knee flexion, so they would be actively resisting your quads in extending the knee.

As you may have already noticed, squats involve a massive volume of overall musculature and a few different joints, which classifies them as a multi-joint movement. Because of this fact, many people can squat absolutely astronomical weights (take a look at some squat specialist powerlifters, for example, Ray Williams), because of this weight potential, squats are very conducive to progressive overload. Also as a consequence, it is hard to feel one specific muscle working in a squat, so don’t worry about “squeezing your quads” as some say. Just focus on moving the weight with good technique and the gains will come.

Programming considerations

Rep ranges

We can break down the best squat rep range based on your goals:

• Strength 3-6 reps

Most of our time in the off-season should be spent in this rep range, anything over 6 reps will probably not be specific enough to 1rm (however reps above 6 can still sometimes be used) and reps below 3 are more a way of expressing strength than building it

• Hypertrophy 5-10 reps

Anything above 10 reps might cause your cardiovascular system to give out before your leg musculature which can result in sloppy technique and lack of quad gains, while reps below 5 will not provide an optimal amount of mechanical tension for best growth.

Relative intensity

Relative intensity is basically how hard we go. We again have to consider that squats are a multi-joint movement, so they carry a lot of fatigue. Training too heavy too often can lead to plateaus or even injuries. My best practical recommendation for relative intensity is to stay between 1-3 reps in reserve for hypertrophy and even further from failure for strength training. It is not the best idea to squat to failure all the time, but it sometimes can be done. We can derive the best absolute intensity (% 1rm)for squats from rep ranges that I laid out above, so I won’t be going over that.

Tempo

I usually recommend a controlled eccentric phase, short pause or rebound out of the bottom, doing a concentric phase as fast as possible, and then resting at lockout for as long as you need. Again, you shouldn’t try to feel your quads, so don’t exaggerate the tempo on the way down or up. The only instance where I would deviate from this rule is if somebody is struggling with control when they are squatting, then I might use a slow descent. I can’t think of any occasion where I would program a slow concentric tempo.

Volume

This depends on numerous factors, for example how much other quad work are you doing, your genetics, age, training age, weight, and so on. For this part, you will have to do your own research and find what works best for you. A general recommendation is that you should do 8-20 sets a week for your quad training, how much of that comes from squatting is up to you.

Bar placement

High-bar vs. Low-bar is an eternal debate among many bodybuilders and powerlifters. Which of these two is better for quad hypertrophy ultimately comes down to which can take the quads through a longer range of motion and subject them to more mechanical tension. When we are squatting, we always want to keep the bar above the mid-foot. To achieve this with a low bar position we have to be more bend over, so the hip flexion increases but because of that knee flexion decreases

However, I think the most important point in this debate is often missed. In both versions, the quads will be the limiting factor. Hip extensors don’t need to produce above 90% of their maximum force potential even in low-bar squats. This means that regardless of which way you squat, the quads will get the most stimulus out of all leg muscles. Furthermore, you could make an argument that the extra weight that comes from squatting low-bar will make up for less ROM.

This is reflected in EMG data, where one study found that activation of almost every muscle measured was greater in LB than in HB. The only muscle that high-bar was measurably better at targeting was the rectus femoris(RF), which is a head of the quadriceps. [1]

EMG data showing the level of activation of different muscles, in each phase of a squat

On the other side, LB also has its drawbacks, it is a lot more fatiguing for your nervous system (because most people can handle greater loads with it) and from my experience, I can say that it tends to feel less natural and beat up people’s joints more than HB.

So, if we assume that less range of motion and more weight on LB cancels out, and it has the same stimulus for quads as HB per set, then the high-bar squat comes as a clear winner because for the same amount of stimulus you get less fatigued. Hence you can do more sets. It is important to point out that the difference between these squat variations is not as big as people make it out to be. Usually, your LB and HB squats won’t be vastly different.

Range of motion

Lastly, we have two topics that people love to argue about. ” Half squats are better than full squats ” is a claim believed in by many people. What does science have to say about that?

First, we will look at ROM, in this article I stated that quads are responsible for extending the knee so the more we bend it, the more stimulus our quads get. This would suggest that going atg (ass to grass) will be better for growing quads than parallel squats.

In a 2012 study, Bryanton and colleagues found that relative muscular effort on knee extensors and hip extensors became greater as squat depth increased from parallel to full squat. This would suggest that greater squat depths engage knee and hip extensors more. [2]

Another study by Bloomquist and colleagues examined the effect of deep squats vs. shallow squats on muscle and tendon adaptations. The main finding was that deep squat training resulted in superior increases in front thigh muscle CSA (4–7 %) compared to shallow squat training. A superior increase in isometric knee extension strength, knee flexion, and squat-jump performance (15 ± 3 %) was also observed in the deep squat group. [3]

So, how do we interpret these findings? From current research we can clearly see that deeper squat depths are superior at targeting the quad muscles, however, this can be taken too far. If you try to squat atg but don’t have the mobility, you will end up compensating in your lumbar spine by flexing your lower back. This won’t produce any more quad growth than if you stopped a couple of inches earlier.

My best practical recommendation for squat depth is: Go as deep as your hip and ankle mobility allows you, don’t go any deeper than that.

Stance width.

Another popular claim is that narrow squats target the quads more, while wide squats are better for the glutes and adductors. Is that true? We will see soon. I wasn’t able to find any studies examining a long-term effect on hypertrophy on narrow vs. wide squats. All we have at this point is EMG data. The best study we got so far researched how different stance widths (75% vs. 140% of shoulder width) affect the activity of six thigh muscles (3 heads of quadriceps, adductors, glute max, and hamstrings).

The squats were done to parallel and no significant difference was observed in quad activation, glutes and adductors were more active in the wide squats. This might be explained by the standardized depth, the main benefit of a slightly narrower stance on squats is the possibility of going deeper. So from this study, we can conclude that as long as your stance width is not limiting your range of motion, it won’t significantly impact quad hypertrophy. So, the claim about narrow vs. wide squats is partially true, but again, people will make far too big of a deal about this small difference. [4]

I hope this article was helpful in answering some of your questions regarding the biomechanics of a squat and the best ways to optimize the squat for better quad growth.