AT A GLANCE: THE BENEFITS OF THE COSSACK SQUAT

Increased mobility and joint health

By practising the cossack squat, we’re boosting the range of motion in our hips, knees and ankles all in one exercise. How do we keep our joints healthy? Simple-by using them across every plane they’re designed to work in, without overstraining them. This variation of the squat doesn’t overload the joints but allows them to experience pressure from multiple angles. In time, and with repeated practice, you’ll see a profound improvement in your comfortable range of motion.

Injury mitigation

How many knees and ankles have been damaged when taken out of their every day, limited planes of movement? You might be able to squat impressive amounts of weight up and down at the gym, but what if you have to get quickly down to one side to fetch a low mark or return a serve? Even in everyday life, you want your body to be able to deal with a sudden loss inbalance, say a slip or a nudge.

The cossack squat helps lower the risk of these kinds of injuries. By training our joints and ligaments to deal with varying forces, again, from all three dimensions, we’re helping to regain full control, taking one step away from avoidable injuries.

Increased flexibility in the hips & hamstrings

Flexibility is not the same as mobility. This is something that not a lot of people fully understand, but think of it like this: Flexibility is passive, whereas mobility is active. 

Here’s a simple explanation: Flexibility involves a muscle, or group of muscles’ability to stretch, or lengthen, in a passive way, for example, being able to touch your toes with a straightened leg. Mobility though involves being able to actively move a part of your body through a range of motion while maintaining muscular control over it. This takes some strength as well as flexibility. We’ve already detailed how the cossack squat leads to increased mobility, but it also stretches and therefore helps improve the flexibility of the glutes, groins, and hamstrings.

Increases basic strength of key lower body muscles

While the cossack squat is primarily used to improve mobility and flexibility, it’s also a brilliant way to begin to build basic strength or to use a more appropriate term; control over muscles which we need to engage if we want to move with more freedom. The adductors and quads of the thighs, glutes, back muscles and hip flexors are all worked during this exercise.

HOW MANY REPS SHOULD I DO?

If you want to work on increasing your mobility, try to do 2 or 3 sets of 5-10 slow, controlled cossack squats. Focus on technique over volume! Over time and with practice, the volume will increase naturally, but proper form and technique is money in the bank for future progress. 

If your mobility and control are already pretty good, you can use the cossack squat as more of a warm-up to get your muscles firing, and as a strength exercise. Do 3 or 4sets of 5-10 reps, but remember to maintain your focus on control. Even for experienced exercisers, this isn’t meant to be done at high speed.

By all means, avoid overburdening yourself with heavyweights. You can increase the weight resistance slightly for a more challenging squat, but don’t prioritize how much you can liftover how well you can move. With too much-added weight, the cossack squat can result in injury, rather than helping you prevent it.

WHAT IF I CAN’T COMPLETE THE COSSACK SQUAT?

Make sure to keep your heel on the floor no matter what: This is key. Raising your heel on the side of the squat makes getting to the bottom easier but doesn’t help to increase your ankle mobility. In essence, it defeats the purpose of the exercise.

You’re far better off getting only halfway down into the squat with the correct form and control, and then a little bit further in the future, than getting all the way down with compromised form. Here’s why:

Your goal in attempting this isn’t just to complete the movement, it’s to have better mobility than you did beforehand. When you do complete the squat, it’ll be proof of how your mobility has increased.