Braced Squat
oec:braced-squat
A squat variation performed while holding a weight plate straight out in front of the chest to challenge anterior core stability and provide a counterbalance.
Generated by gemini-3.8-flash from the sources below. No person has checked this record. Don't rely on it for safety.
Also called: Counterbalance Squat, Plate Squat, Plate Counterbalance Squat
How to do it
Setup
- Stand tall with feet approximately shoulder-width apart and toes angled slightly outward.
- Grip the sides of a weight plate with both hands and extend your arms straight out in front of your chest at shoulder height.
- Engage your core and set your shoulder blades down and back.
Movement
- Initiate the movement by unlocking the hips and knees simultaneously, sitting back and down while keeping your arms extended.
- Descend until your thighs reach at least parallel to the floor, maintaining an upright torso with the plate acting as a counterbalance.
- Pause briefly in the hole without losing tension.
- Drive through your midfoot and heels to reverse the movement and stand back up to full hip and knee extension.
Breathing
Inhale and brace your midsection before descending, hold during the descent, and exhale forcefully as you drive out of the bottom.
Cues
- Reach the plate forward as you sit back.
- Chest tall, arms parallel to the floor.
- Spread the floor with your feet.
Common faults
- Allowing the arms to drop toward the hips during the squat.
- Maintain the plate actively elevated at shoulder level throughout the entire repetition.
- Knees caving inward (valgus collapse) during the ascent.
- Actively track knees over your middle toes as you descend and push back up.
- Using excessively heavy weight that causes shoulder fatigue or spinal flexion.
- Use a light-to-moderate plate; the load is intended to provide balance and core bracing, not to max out arm strength.
Safety
- Select a load light enough that you can hold it horizontally with extended arms for the full duration of the set without shoulder strain.
Muscles
Joints
- Hip: Flexion, Extension
- Knee: Flexion, Extension
- Ankle: Dorsiflexion, Plantarflexion
- Shoulder: Isometric stabilization
- Lumbar spine: Isometric stabilization
Details
- Movement
- Squat
- Modality
- Strength, Hypertrophy
- Mechanics
- compound
- Force
- push
- Laterality
- bilateral
- Kinetic chain
- closed
- Level
- beginner
- Equipment
- Weight plate or Dumbbell
- Record
- Repetitions and Load
- Load
- external, total
Related
- substitute for Dumbbell Goblet Squat
- variation of Bodyweight Squat
Sources
- wger: Braced Squat, by sevae (CC-BY-SA-4.0)
This record: CC-BY-SA-4.0.