The magic of drop squats: Learn the one exercise that will give you great mobility, strength and eliminate knee pain

One of the first exercises everyone learns is the squat. But given the large number of variations, as you progress through your fitness journey, learning new variations becomes a continuous process: front squat, back squat, sumo squat, Bulgarian squat, it’s endless.

When you learn them, they become a part of your muscle memory. However, since people sometimes tend to forget them while chasing more complex exercises, it is important to keep going back to the basics, in order to remind your body of the basic forms of the exercise.

And there is one particular variation that might do that job better than the conventional squat.

This particular version goes by various names—some call it the dumbbell drop squat, others call it the goblet squat (with a slightly different technique of holding weights) and the single-dumbbell sumo squat. Irrespective of the name, the drop squat involves holding a single dumbbell with both hands either between your chest or with your hands, letting the weight drop between both legs. What this does is force the body to create a biomechanical pattern which is the safest and correct form of squatting.

Step one would be to find out exactly how mobile you are, notwithstanding how often you squat. Without weights, get into a deep squat, let the hands fall between the legs and touch the floor, even if just the fingertips, and make sure the soles and the heels of the feet are also flat against the surface. Keep your back straight, not rounded, while you attempt to touch the palms, soles and heels all to the floor. If you can do that, then your range of motion is excellent, and if you can’t, then you need to put in more work into your mobility routine.

However, you don’t necessarily need to achieve prime squat form in order to start working on the dumbbell variations—because the weights will also act as an extension of the arms, along with adding some load to the exercise. The primary usefulness of this kind of squat exercise is that it forces the chest to not collapse like during a barbell squat.

“I don’t care how bad your squat form is, but just putting the dumbbell between your legs and lowering it down to the ground is going to fix how much knee flexion you need for your torso size, how much hip flexion you need for your torso size. It basically creates the biomechanically perfect squat. The hip angle is perfect, the back angle is perfect. It takes you where you need to go because the weight is going straight down,” says Athlean-Xcreator Jeff Cavaliere about the exercise (which he calls the drop squat) in a YouTube video titled How to Fix Knee Pain With Simple Exercise. The video has nearly four million views.

A goblet squat would be done with the weight being held at the chest, but there is another way to get the same advantages of the drop squat without going too deep into the squatting position. For this version, you need a chair or a bench or a box, lighter dumbbells, with one held with the dumbbells lighter and one held in each hand. Keep the bench behind you, hands by the side, and just sit on the bench and get up after contact with it. Over a period of time, work up to the drop squat and progress with heavier weights.

Keeping your back straight and preventing your chest from dropping toward the knees, while performing a squat without weights is not easy, given that there is a reliance on balance. The immediate fix is to hold a counterbalance to help the torso stay upright. This counterbalance can be a a kettlebell or a dumbbell. This might be one of those rare instances of an exercise being easier to do with weights than without.

There is one last variation of this counterbalancing method that could also help. Called the counterbalance squat, you could do this with a plate or a dumbbell and involves holding the weight out in front of the body rather than letting it drop down. This is for people who feel like they are falling behind while doing conventional squats, with the weight acting as a core engagement and counterbalancing the feeling. Tight ankles could be one of the reasons why the body feels like falling behind, and this method is perfect to fix this.

So whether your chest is collapsing, or the ankles giving way as you lower the body in a squat, remember that weights might not always be your enemy—in fact, they could be the key to unlocking your best form.

Pulasta Dhar is a football commentator and writer.