Whether you’re an advanced or beginner lifter, it’s very normal to have a love-hate relationship with leg day. But whether you love it or hate it, it is important that you have an effective lower body regime to keep you strong and functional. Common areas of weakness or injury in the lower body include the hips and the knees. Enter the Sissy Squat.

What is a Sissy Squat?

The Sissy Squat is an anteriorly dominant squat pattern that uses a Sissy Squat Bench to anchor your shins into a vertical position, from which you can squat back, targeting the legs, without the higher technical demands of a traditional squat.

Sissy Squat Benefits

Stronger Knees

The sissy squat is great for exposing the knees, particularly the ligaments in the knee, like the ACL, to high amounts of sheer load. When used in a progressive and scaled fashion (e.g. you may start with only a few unweighted sissy squats and progress to more reps and eventually add extra weight to the movement), this is great for making the knees stronger and more resilient to injury.

Stronger Hips

If performed with an upright torso, the Sissy Squat is great for targeting the rectus femoris, a part of the quadricep that is heavily involved in hip flexion, thus strengthening the function of the hip.

Easy to Perform

The technique requirements of the sissy squat are fairly low, because of the strong base of support created by the foot anchor. This makes it a great exercise for loading the knees and hips if you struggle with technique on other lower body exercises.

Common Sissy Squat Mistakes

Leaning Forwards Too Much

If you wish to target the rectus femoris, then stretching across both the knee joint and the hip joint is really helpful, since the muscle is biarticular (it works across two major joints). So, sitting back and having a more upright torso is beneficial because it opens the hips up more, stretching the rectus femoris more.

Taking it Too Easy

As with any exercise, progressive overload is key for long-term progress. It is therefore important that, once accustomed to Sissy Squats, we make them harder. This can be done by increasing the volume, by performing more reps, or by increasing the intensity, by adding external load to the movement.

How to Make Sissy Squats Harder

Add Dumbbells

Hold a Dumbbell in either hand to load up the movement once bodyweight Sissy Squats become too easy.

Hold a Power Bag

Hold a Power Bag in front of your body, similar to a Zercher squat rack position. This is good because it gives you a counterweight to make it slightly easier on the way up, if you find the dumbbell loading too difficult.

Apply Resistance Bands

These are great for applying variable resistance. The Resistance Band increases in tension as it is stretched, thus making the movement difficult towards the top of the rep, where it would usually be getting easier.

Combine the Above

Why stick to one method? You can use a combination of Resistance Bands and traditional loading strategies, like Dumbbells or a Power Bag, if you want to maximise muscle damage and gains. The dumbbells will allow you to increase the intensity at the bottom of the rep, where the band tension is low, while the resistance band increases the intensity as you stand up. A real quad burner!

Whether you want an alternative to a knee extension machine, or just an extra exercise to make your next leg session extra tough, the Sissy Squat is a great addition. Give it a go next time you are at the gym, progressively making it harder over time, using our advice above!

Written by guest author Ewan Hammond.

For more content, follow us on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and on our official Mirafit Facebook page.

Tags: Exercise Type > Strength