If you are an athlete looking to increase your 0 - 10 yard running speed, you cannot avoid squat. Of course squat is not the only exercise that you should be doing; however, learning how to squat properly will allows you to move faster and be more efficient on the field.
When you are learning to squat properly, you are automatically acquiring majority of the components that are required for you to move faster. These components include proper upper body posture, ankle and hip mobility, core strength, and gluts loading and engaging.
Squat and upper body posture
Ideally you should be working on variation of squats, mainly front and back squats. This will allow you to work in slightly different posture angle as well as different strength demand.
When you are doing back squat, the upper body will be shifted forward, and with front squat, you will be more upright. This position difference is due to where the weight is set.
This is very important skill to learn because if the upper body posture is weak and not able to sustain the proper posture while you are lifting or running, it will be challenging to properly use your leg strength, which will also lead to deceleration of your speed and agility.
Muscles that need to be pay attention to improve your posture, are the muscles that surrounding the spine and stabilizing the scapula. This is important for squat for safely securing the bar either on your back on in front depending on which squat you are performing. Therefore, upper back exercises are critical for improving squatting as well as sprinting.
Squat and lower body mobility
While it is ideal to squat as low as you can, however, with longer sitting hours from school or work is keeping our gluts to be weak and hips to be less mobile. With tight hip and less active gluts, it is very important to restore those functions if the goal is to improve squatting and sprinting.
Some of the areas you should be looking at are your ankle mobility and hip functioning.
When you go down with bodyweight squats are you able to push your knees over the toes without your heels elevated off the floor? If not you will need to fix your ankle mobility.
When you go down with your squat, are you able to push your knees away from each other? If not you will need to fix your hip mobility and strengthening gluts.
If these are not fixed it is difficult to maximize your running speed. Not to mention you will be doing semi-squat, meaning squat that you don’t go below your knee line.
Squat with gluts loading and engaging
One thing I like about squat is you get to learn how to properly load and engage your gluts. To do this you will have to train to go below your knee line or you will not be able to maximize your loading (1), which is the bottom phase of the squat. With proper loading you can engage your gluts, which is ascending phase, in maximum effort. If you are not training to maximize your gluts loading and engaging, your speed and agility on the field will not improve because this is the part of the running mechanics.
Stop avoiding deep squat
I see too many athletes avoiding going below their knee line with their squats. Major reason is deep squat movement is not required for their sports or don't want to damage their knees. Well, this kind of comment shows that one does not understand the mechanics of squats.
First of all, why would you want to limit the range of movement? I understand not everybody should squat as low as ATG (ass to grass) because of their structure but should have enough hip and ankle mobility to go below knee line. And majority of times if you know how to improve mobility and function of the hips you can go deeper and able to strengthen the hips, knees and ankles.
Second, by performing half-squat only, you are destabilizing your knees because of not able to recruit VMO (vastus medialis oblique). This leads to weakening of knees and lead to possible injuries. Squats are higher in knee torque at bottom of deep squat compared with half-squats. So get your squat low and improve your knee stabilization and prevent knee injuries.
Let me ask you this. If you want to run faster, move quicker and jump higher would you want your hips, knees and ankles to have limited range or have maximum range of motion? And how about stability? Don't limit your physical capability.
Squat does requires pre-work before you can actually start adding more weights such as mobility of hip and ankle. However, once you acquire the skill, it is one of the most effective exercises you can do to improve your sprint and jump. Fix whatever you need to fix, then start adding more load to your squat.
You will enjoy the improvement of your athletic ability.
Reference
Caterisano, A., Moss, R. E., Pellinger, T. K., Woodruff, K., Lewis, V. C., Booth, W., & Khadra, T. (2002). The Effect of Back Squat Depth on the EMG Activity of 4 Superficial Hip and Thigh Muscles. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 16(3), 428-432. doi:10.1519/00124278-200208000-00014
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