maratoolSquat Jerk
How to do the squat jerk
- Standing with the weight racked on the front of the shoulders, begin with the dip. With your feet directly under your hips, flex the knees without moving the hips backward. Go down only slightly, and reverse direction as powerfully as possible. Drive through the heels create as much speed and force as possible, and be sure to move your head out of the way as the bar leaves the shoulders.
- At this moment as the feet leave the floor, the feet must be placed into the receiving position as quickly as possible. In the brief moment the feet are not actively driving against the platform, the athlete's effort to push the bar up will drive them down. The feet should move forcefully to just outside the hips, turned out as necessary. Receive the bar with your body in a full squat and the arms fully extended overhead.
- Keeping the bar aligned over the front of the heels, your head and chest up, drive throught heels of the feet to move to a standing position. Carefully return the weight to floor.
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 calves control the ankle and hold the heel position; the glutes finish hip extension; the hamstrings assist hip extension and slow the knee down.
The shoulders and triceps take a share of the work as well.
Every exercise for:QuadricepsCalvesGlutesHamstringsShoulders
How this movement works
The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
A barbell locks both hands to one bar, so neither side can drift and the load climbs in plate-sized steps. That makes it the simplest way to add weight and the least forgiving thing to bail out of.
Every exercise using:Barbell
These train the quadriceps too, using equipment this one does not:
- Squat to Bench with Dumbbellsdumbbell
- Squats with Exercise Bandsband
- Stairmastermachine
- Standing Long Jumpbody only
- Cable Deadliftscable
Difficulty
Listed at expert level. It asks for range, stability or speed that takes time to build, and it punishes a rushed set-up much harder than an easier movement would.
Of the 173 quadriceps exercises in this database, 18 are listed at expert level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.