The Impact of Stance Width on Kinematics and Kinetics During Maximum Back Squats

Larsen, S, Zee, Md, and Tillaar, Rvd. The impact of stance width on kinematics and kinetics during maximum back squats. J Strength Cond Res 39(1): 1-9, 2025-This study compared the lower extremity peak net joint moments (NJMs) and muscle forces between wide and narrow stance widths defined as 1.7 and 0.7 acromion width in the last repetition of the concentric phase in 3 repetition maximum back squats. Twelve recreationally trained men (age:25.3 +/- 2.9 years, height:179 +/- 7.7 cm, body mass:82.8 +/- 6.9 kg) volunteered for the study. The NJMs were estimated using inverse dynamics and individual muscle forces with static optimization. The main findings of interest were that the wide stance resulted in statistically smaller knee flexion angles (Cohen's d: 0.9; 95% confidence interval [CI]: -17.96 to -3.18 degrees), knee extension NJMs [d: 1.45; 95% CI: -1.56 to -0.61 Nm<middle dot>kg(-1)], and vastii forces [d: 1.3; 95% CI: -27.7 to -0.9.5 N<middle dot>kg(-1)] compared with the narrow stance. Moreover, we observed significantly larger hip abduction angles [d: 3.8; 95% CI: 12.04 to 16.86 degrees] for the wide stance. Hence, we suggest that recreationally trained men aiming to optimize muscle forces in the vastii muscles during maximum back squat training should consider adopting a narrow stance.