Squat with Plate Movers

🎯 Quadriceps🏋️ BarbellIntermediateCompoundAbductors (2°)Adductors (2°)Calves (2°)Glutes (2°)Hamstrings (2°)

How to do the squat with plate movers

  1. To begin, first set the bar on a rack to just below shoulder level. Position a weight plate on the ground a couple feet back from the rack. Once the bar is loaded, step under it and place the back of your shoulders across it.
  2. Hold on to the bar with both hands and lift it off the rack by first pushing with your legs and at the same time straighten your torso.
  3. Step away from the rack and adopt a wide stance with the toes slightly pointed out, with one foot on the weight plate. Keep your head up at all times. This will be your starting position.
  4. Begin to slowly lower the bar by bending the knees and hips. Continue down until the angle between the upper leg and the calves becomes slightly less than 90-degrees.
  5. Raise the bar as you exhale by pushing the floor with the heels of your feet as you extend the hips and knees.
  6. At the top of the movement, side step, bringing your feet together on the opposite side of the plate.
  7. Using your inside foot, push the weight plate, sliding it across the floor to where you were just standing.
  8. Place your inside foot on the weight plate, adopting a wide stance for the next repetition.

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 abductors stop the knee collapsing inward and hold the pelvis square; the adductors steady the thigh against the pull away from the midline; the calves control the ankle and hold the heel position.

The glutes and hamstrings take a share of the work as well.

Every exercise for:QuadricepsAbductorsAdductorsCalvesGlutes

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:

Difficulty

Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.

Of the 173 quadriceps exercises in this database, 62 are listed at intermediate level.

Related exercises

Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →

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