Hack Squat Machine

🎯 Quadriceps🏋️ MachineCompoundHamstrings (2°)Calves (2°)

How to do the hack squat machine

  1. This exercise is a variation of the Squat which uses a machine.  This exercise may be preferred by beginners.
  2. Lie face up on a Hack Squat machine with your shoulders against the pad.
  3. Place your feet facing forward at slightly less than shoulder width apart with your toes point slightly outward.
  4. Release the dock levers and place your hands on the hand grips.
  5. Drawing your abs in, extend your body standing upright.
  6. Lower your body to a squatting position so you knees are bent as if you were sitting down.
  7. Return to the starting position.

Muscles worked

The prime movers are the quadriceps across the front of the thigh, which straighten the knee and, just as importantly, control it on the way back down.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down; the calves control the ankle and hold the heel position.

Every exercise for:QuadricepsHamstringsCalves

How this movement works

Several joints move together, so effort spreads across a chain rather than concentrating in one place. Coordination is part of the difficulty: the movement is only as good as its weakest link, and improving it often means fixing a position somewhere other than the muscle you meant to train.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

The machine fixes the path, removing the balance demand and letting you train close to failure without a spotter. The cost is the stabilising work a free weight would have made you do.

Every exercise using:Machine

These train the quadriceps too, using equipment this one does not:

Related exercises

Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →

ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.