How to Increase Your Squat

How do you increase your squat? Practice the lift itself consistently, since good technique in a compound movement like the squat is built through repetition more than anything else. Fix the specific technique details that are quietly costing you depth or tightness, and add accessory work for whichever muscle group is actually your weak point. A stalled squat is rarely a sign you need a whole new program. It's usually one of these three things.

Here's how to figure out which one applies to you.

How often should you squat?

One to three times a week, depending on how much total volume you're doing and how well you recover from it. Research comparing training frequency has generally found that total weekly volume drives strength gains more than how that volume gets split across sessions, so squatting three times a week isn't automatically better than twice, provided the total sets and effort are similar either way.

What frequency does reliably help with is practice. The squat is a technical lift, bar position, depth, bracing, and timing all improve with repetition, so spreading your squatting across more than one session a week, even at the same total volume, tends to keep your technique sharper than cramming it all into a single heavy day.

Is your technique leaving strength on the table?

Often, and it's usually cheaper to fix than adding more training. A few common leaks:

• Depth. Cutting your squat short, even by a few inches, changes which muscles do the work and can make the lift look stronger than it actually is under a judge's or coach's standard. Consistent depth, at least thighs parallel to the floor, is worth fixing before chasing more weight on a partial range of motion.
• Upper back tightness. A bar that shifts forward mid-set because your upper back rounds forces your hips up first out of the hole, which is a common way squats turn into an awkward good-morning pattern. Actively pulling the bar into your back and keeping your chest up through the whole rep keeps the bar path stable.
• Bracing. A big breath and a tight brace before you unrack the bar gives your spine a stable base to push against. Losing that brace partway through a rep is one of the more common reasons a lift that started strong falls apart near the sticking point.

Filming your squat from the side and front is usually enough to catch these without needing a coach.

What accessory exercises actually help your squat?

Whatever's actually your weak point. If you lose tightness or your trunk collapses under load, more targeted core work and good mornings address that directly. If you're strong out of the bottom but stall partway up, front squats and paused squats build the quad strength and positional control that region of the lift depends on. If one side feels noticeably weaker or your hips shift under load, Bulgarian split squats and hip thrusts build single-leg strength and glute drive that a bilateral squat can mask.

Accessory lifts remove weak links. They don't replace practicing the squat itself. Keep the main lift as the priority and use accessories to support it, not compete with it for your best effort.

How do you know if you need a deload instead of more work?

If your squat has stalled for a couple of weeks and you're also feeling run down, sleeping worse, or your other lifts are sliding too, that points toward fatigue rather than a technique or programming issue. Breaking a strength plateau covers when to back off and let fatigue clear versus when to push through with more volume or a technique fix.

Warming up matters here too. Rushing into your heaviest squat set without enough warm-up volume beforehand means grinding through early reps that should feel easy, using up reps you'd rather spend on your working sets.

Should you max out often to track progress?

No, not more than occasionally. Frequent true one-rep maxes add a lot of fatigue and technical risk relative to what they tell you. Working up to a solid top set for the day, tracked against your estimated max from recent training, gives you a much clearer week-to-week signal without the wear and tear of maxing out constantly.

Knowing whether your squat is actually stuck, or just feels stuck because you're not comparing sessions accurately, depends on having real numbers to look back on. Ori logs your sets and loads automatically, so when your squat plateaus for real, it shows up clearly in your training history instead of you trying to remember what you lifted three weeks ago.

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FAQ

How often should you squat to get stronger? One to three times a week works, depending on the total volume and how well you recover. What matters more than the exact frequency is that you're practicing the squat itself regularly with good technique, since neural adaptation to the specific movement is a big part of early strength gains.

Why has my squat stopped going up? Usually one of three things: you're not squatting often or heavily enough to keep driving adaptation, a technique leak like cutting depth or losing upper back tightness is costing you pounds, or a weak point like your quads, glutes, or trunk hasn't kept pace with the rest of the lift.

What are the best accessory exercises for squats? Front squats and paused squats for quad strength and positional tightness, Bulgarian split squats and hip thrusts for single-leg strength and glute drive, and good mornings or heavy core work for anyone whose trunk collapses under load.

Does squatting more often automatically make it go up faster? Not by itself. Research on training frequency has found that total weekly volume matters more than how that volume is split across sessions, so squatting more often only helps if it lets you handle more total volume without excessive fatigue, not just from adding more days on the calendar.

Should I squat to failure to get stronger faster? Not on most sets. Grinding every set to failure adds fatigue that costs you quality reps on the sets and sessions that follow. Save near-failure effort for a top set once your technique is solid, and leave a rep or two in reserve on the rest of your volume.