How to Do the Sissy Squat

How to do it

1. Stand with your feet roughly hip-width apart and find something sturdy to lightly hold for balance, like a squat rack upright or a doorframe, keeping only fingertip contact so you are not using your arms to pull yourself up.
2. Raise your heels off the floor by coming up onto the balls of your feet, and maintain that heel elevation for the entire set so the calf position stays consistent.
3. Begin the descent by letting your knees travel forward and your hips begin to lower, simultaneously leaning your torso back so that your body from knees to shoulders stays roughly in one rigid, diagonal line, like a plank tilted backward.
4. Continue lowering until your knees are deeply bent and your torso is nearly parallel to the floor or as low as your flexibility and knee tolerance allow, resisting the urge to break at the hips and sit back.
5. Pause for one count at the bottom to prevent bouncing out of the stretched position, which would rob the quads of the tension that makes this exercise valuable.
6. Drive through the balls of your feet and contract the quads to push your knees back and your body upward, maintaining that same rigid torso-to-thigh angle on the way up rather than hinging at the hip early.
7. Return to the fully upright position and actively squeeze the quads at the top before beginning the next rep, treating the lockout as part of the exercise rather than a rest point.
8. Keep every rep controlled at the same tempo rather than grinding out the first few quickly and collapsing on the last ones, because form degradation here loads the patellar tendon unevenly.

Form cues

• Body is one rigid plank from knee to shoulder, not a folded lawn chair.
• Heels stay up the entire set, no cheating them down mid-rep.
• Knees track over the pinky-toe side of the foot, not caving inward.
• Control the descent, do not drop into the bottom.
• Squeeze hard at the top, that last inch is quad work too.

Common mistakes

• Hinging at the hips on the way down: when the hips break backward, the glutes load up and the torso drops separately from the thighs, turning the movement into a confused hybrid squat that defeats the isolation purpose; keep the hip angle fixed so torso and thighs move as one unit.
• Letting the heels touch the floor mid-set: dropping the heels shifts the load toward the posterior chain and mechanically shortens the range of motion at the knee, reducing quad stretch; consciously cue the heels up at the start of each rep if they keep drifting down.
• Using the balance hold to assist the pull: gripping the rack tightly and using the arms to tug the body upward lets the quads off the hook at the hardest part of the rep; the hand contact should be purely for stability, like resting fingertips on a wall.
• Rushing through the bottom position: bouncing out of the deep stretch uses stored elastic energy instead of quad strength and puts a sharp impulsive load on the patellar tendon; a one-second pause at the bottom eliminates the bounce and keeps tension honest.
• Going too deep before the knees are ready: the knee joint under this specific loading pattern can be aggressive for people with existing patellar tendinopathy; starting with a partial range of motion and building depth over weeks is a smarter approach than forcing full depth from day one.

Why do the Sissy Squat?

• The rectus femoris, which crosses both the hip and the knee, gets fully stretched at the hip while being loaded at the knee simultaneously, a dual-stretch position that standard squats never create and that is associated with greater muscle growth stimulus in that specific head of the quad.
• Because there is no barbell compressing the spine and no hip hinge demanding posterior chain involvement, the sissy squat lets lifters accumulate high quad volume with minimal systemic fatigue, making it practical to add at the end of a session without wrecking recovery.
• The deep terminal knee flexion and the sustained patellar tendon loading, when introduced gradually, can serve as tendon conditioning work, and many athletes who have rehabbed patellar tendinopathy under guidance incorporate controlled sissy squat variations as a progressive loading tool.
• The lower quad sweep, specifically the teardrop shape just above the knee, responds well to the unique angle of this exercise compared to leg presses or hack squats, which is why bodybuilders and physique athletes have kept it in their programs despite the availability of machine alternatives.

Sissy Squat variations

Assisted Sissy Squat (Box or Band Support)

Holding a resistance band anchored above or lightly sitting the glutes back to a box at the bottom makes the movement accessible to beginners building the knee flexion range and quad strength needed for the full version.

Partial Sissy Squat

Limiting depth to roughly 45 degrees of knee travel lets people with patellar sensitivity or limited ankle mobility get quad work in the sissy squat pattern without the stress of full depth, making it a useful starting point before progressing.

Weighted Sissy Squat (Plate or Dumbbell)

Holding a weight plate against the chest increases the load on the quads without changing the mechanics, and is the most common progression once bodyweight reps become too easy for the target rep range.

Sissy Squat on a Sissy Squat Bench

A dedicated sissy squat machine anchors the heels and shins, removing the balance challenge entirely and allowing heavier loading or more attention to the eccentric, which is useful for lifters specifically chasing hypertrophy rather than training the balance component.

How to program it

The sissy squat shows up most often at the end of a lower-body session as a quad finisher, after compound work like squats or leg presses has already been done, because the patellar tendon fatigue it creates would compromise heavier lifts if it were placed first. Many lifters and bodybuilders use it in the 10 to 20 rep range, prioritizing slow eccentrics and the deep stretched position over heavy loads. As a bodyweight movement it lends itself to higher rep work or extended holds, and some programs pair it with leg extensions in a superset to fully exhaust the quads with minimal additional equipment. People rehabbing quad tendon issues under professional supervision sometimes use very low rep, very slow tempo versions as tendon loading work, but that context is quite different from general strength training use.

Sissy Squat alternatives

Leg Extension

Machine · Isolation

Bulgarian Split Squat

Dumbbell · Compound

Goblet Squat

Dumbbell · Compound

Hack Squat

Machine · Compound

Pendulum Squat

Machine · Compound

Jump Squat

Bodyweight · Compound