If You Physically Can't Squat...

...then your mobility probably sucks. What this means is, your body is not flexible enough to perform the squat correctly, so you physically cannot perform the squat with proper form. The reason for this is most likely due to your lifestyle, if you spend a majority of your time sitting down for instance.

For the low bar squat, the three most common areas (from what I have seen) where people have mobility issues are in:

• the hips
• the shoulders
• the ankles

If you are teaching someone to squat correctly, the first thing you should do is use coaching cues to try to get the lifter to use proper form; e.g. "knees out", "chest up", etc. If this does not work, the following sections may be of use.

Mobility issues don't only apply to new lifters. For instance in my case, my knees only buckled in during heavier weights, so I didn't know for a long time that I needed to work on my hip mobility.

Hip Mobility

A person with tight hips will have trouble keeping their knees shoved out on the squat (demonstrated on the left in the figure below):

An example of knees buckled inwards vs. knees shoved out on the squat

 Having the knees shoved out in the squat (shown right in the above image) is important because:

1. It pushes your legs out of the way and gives space for your body, making it easier to hit depth.
2. It ensures optimal distribution of forces through your knee. If your knees are inside of your feet instead of pointed directly over your feet, there is more torque on the knee.
3. It's prettier to look at

Seriously though, squatting with the knees shoved out is important in keeping the movement as safe as possible. So what if you absolutely cannot shove the knees out?

There is a great drill you can perform daily in order to improve your hip mobility shown below:

http://www.mobilitywod.com/2012/01/episode-363-pre-squat-hip-opener-mob-rx.html

The above drill should be performed after all your training sessions, as well as every night before you go to bed. You will notice an improvement in your hips (and subsequently your squatting) after about two weeks or so.

The below stretch is also worth doing before you start doing squats in your training session. Hold the stretch for about 30 seconds, and take the same foot stance that you squat with. Also keep your chest up.

 

Squat stretch

Shoulder Mobility

Basically, your shoulder mobility needs improving  if you are unable to put the bar in this low bar position:

The low bar position

The low bar position will initially feel quite uncomfortable. Your wrists may also not be as straight as in the above figure (that is, they will be very bent). Your body will get used to this position over time, you may also want to try shoulder dislocations to help open up the shoulders. 

Also when getting into the low bar position, you may need to jam your body into place, and it may take a few pushes with your body until you can get the bar low enough. You can see me doing this here.

Ankle Mobility

Poor ankle mobility can be in different forms. One case is shown in the left in the below figure, where you can see the feet caving inwards in the bottom of the squat position:

  A comparison of poor vs. adequate ankle mobility. Yes I edited this in Paint.

 

The second case is harder to identify, and is basically when your ankles are so stiff, you literally cannot hit depth without rounding your lower back. This is sort of shown on the right in the figure below:

Just imagine that the lower the man squats, the more his lower back rounds, because his stiff ankles do not permit his knees to track forward (the ability for his knees to track forward is shown on the left figure).

In order to identify this ankle issue, stand with the balls of your feet on the edge of a box, and basically perform the negative portion of a standing calf raise. In other words, you want to place your ankles into dorsiflexion. If you cannot get much dorsiflexion in your ankles, you will need to stretch them out. 

A good ankle stretch you can do will involve you getting into this position, and try to get your knee as close to the wall as possible (don't go too overboard with this). You can do this stretch for both ankles in between all your squat sets. You may also wish to try out this ankle stretch too.

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Hopefully you squatters out there will find this post useful. Individuals will have varying levels of mobility in their hips, shoulders and ankles based on their lifestyle and how long they have been living this way. If your mobility is absolutely shocking, you may need to do further research into how to further improve on your mobility outside of the drills that are shown in this post, and it may take longer to be able to squat properly. Don't give up however, it'll be worth it in the end.