Five ways to upgrade your skater squats
There’s more to building strong, powerful legs than traditional barbell squats and deadlifts. Scott Hansen, a San Diego–based strength and conditioning coach, reminds us that single‑leg work is essential for correcting imbalances, improving coordination and balance, boosting athleticism, and reducing injury risk.
Single‑leg work falls into two categories: Supported, such as lunges or rear-foot‑elevated split squats; and Unsupported, like single‑leg deadlifts or skater squats. Both move mainly in the sagittal plane (front to back), but when you work the unsupported variations you must resist movement in the frontal and transverse planes even more. That means you’ll recruit the adductors, gluteus medius and minimus, the intrinsic foot muscles, and the core to a larger degree.
The skater squat is the premier single‑leg exercise. Like any exercise, progressive overload is key. Of all the unsupported single‑leg movements, skater squats offer the greatest range of motion and loading potential. They’re a hybrid—not quite a single‑leg squat, not quite a single‑leg deadlift—that builds lower‑body strength and adds size to the quads and glutes without overloading the back, hips, or knees.
The main reason many people skip skater squats is simple: they take time to learn and they’re tough.
How to master them
1) Use a counterbalance. Hold light weights (2.5 or 5 pounds) in your hands as a counterbalance, and squeeze a tennis ball between your hamstring and calf on the nonworking leg to keep it from drifting into a reverse lunge.
2) The setup and movement. Reach your hands slightly across an imaginary line from the middle toe of the working leg toward the wall in front of you as you lower your back knee to a pad, without letting the back foot touch the ground. Use your hands like ski poles to push down through the front foot and return to the start. Start with a few Airex pads under the back knee and gradually remove them as you gain range of motion. After you’ve built some strength, continue to increase the overload to keep progressing.
Five ways to take them to the next level
1) Torso weighted — add a vest or chains to increase the load.
2) Front loaded — hold a sandbag or weight plate to increase core challenge and emphasize the quads.
3) Angled loading — this variation, popularized by Vernon Griffith, places more stress on the muscles that stabilize you in the frontal plane: the adductors and glute complexes, along with the obliques and QL.
4) From a deficit — elevate the working leg on a plate to increase the range of motion.
5) Eccentric emphasis — use a slow lowering phase (3–8 seconds) to increase time under tension.
Whichever variation you choose, perform 2–4 sets of 5–8 reps as either your primary lower‑body movement or after your heavier bilateral lifts to balance spinal loading.
About the author
Scott Hansen is a Bostonian who moved to Southern California. He’s a strength, fitness, and wrestling coach, educator, part-time surfer, and a devoted New England sports fan. He works with adult athletes and serves as an assistant wrestling coach and strength and conditioning coach for La Costa Canyon High School wrestling in Carlsbad, CA.
Website: www.hansen-performance.com
Instagram: Hansen_performance
Facebook: www.facebook.com/HansenPerformance1
