Hack Squat Without a Machine: Free Weight Only Hack Squat

If you’re exploring the wonderful world of hack squats, you may be wondering: “Can I hack squat without a machine?”

After all, there are many creative types of machines that you can add to your workouts to switch up your hack squat routine.

Smith machine hack squats to grow quads fast, V-squats, or leg presses can all be great stand-ins for a regular hack squat machine.

This article will walk you through a few hack squat alternatives you can try, machine-free! Plus, get to know the benefits of hack squats and what muscles are working in your body during the exercise.

Hack Squats— Benefits

First off, let’s get to know why you should be hack squatting in the first place.

Quad Isolation

No matter which hack squat variation you prefer, this exercise is meant to help target and isolate your quadriceps.

If you love aesthetic workouts and are focused on getting a better-looking physique, specifically, it can help to isolate the quads. You may also want to try a hack squat if you have stubborn quads that won’t grow.

What hack squats do best is help you train for hypertrophy or an increase in muscle size.

You can learn all about working toward muscle hypertrophy here: Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods.

Hack squats are also beneficial for injuries or weakness. If your glutes or hamstring muscles aren’t carrying their fair share of the load due to prior injuries, hack squats (vs. barbell squats) can be a better option, since they won’t overload your other leg muscles as much.

Less Stress on Hip Joints

Experiencing hips that hurt during squats is something most of us want to avoid in the gym.

If you tend to get achy hips after a heavy lift on the squat rack, hack squats or Smith machine workouts could benefit you over a barbell squat or V-squat.

Chronic hip pain in adults is difficult to diagnose. Often, we mistake it for knee pain or back pain. Joints don’t operate in a vacuum. Your lower body joints, including knees, ankles, hips, and lower back can have chain reactions. Sometimes when one is impacted, they all are!

If one of these joints feels off, your other nearby joints are forced to overcompensate. This can create a whole new host of joint problems if your ankle, for example, is working harder than it should to correct a bad hip.

It’s important to think about how you treat your joints before problems arise. This will help you carry healthier joints into the future.

In a hack squat, you keep your back against a pad. This position doesn’t let you hinge as deeply from your hips. They don’t need to flex as deeply as they would in a barbell squat.

When studying improving function in people with hip-related pain, researchers found hip-related pain to be a leading cause of disability.

It was especially common in people who were active or played sports.

You can have hip pain from femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) syndrome, and acetabular dysplasia. But it can also simply crop up from lifestyle factors. Think sedentary lifestyles and sports injuries.

Hack Squats— Disadvantages

Less Functional

Hack squat machines don’t quite prepare you for real-world movements or athletics as well as a barbell back squat would do.

When you hack squat with a machine, it follows a strict path of motion. Although it’s a great way to work your quads to the limit, there’s no outside scenario where you’d be performing the same path of motion as you do in hack squats.

Because barbell squats don’t follow a guided path, they’re more natural for weightlifters and help replicate situations and positions you may find yourself in while playing sports.

For machine-free hack squats, you may have more room to engage your stabilizer muscles, but not to the degree that you could in a barbell squat.

Are Barbell Squats Better Than Linear Hack Squats?

If you’re exploring, you’ve probably also asked yourself this question: Is a hack squat or squat better for strong legs?

They don’t call the barbell squat the “king of exercises” for nothing. Let’s take a look at a few advantages of traditional barbell squats and see why some find them preferable to hack squats.

Stability

Compared to a hack squat machine the barbell back squat requires extra stability. Because your body is unsupported, most people will require stronger stabilizer muscles to perform this squat variation.

Strength

The barbell back squat is one of the most well-rounded squat progression exercises.

And if you’re looking to train for overall strength gains, we recommend the barbell back squat over the hack squat machine.

Why? Hack squats are a more specialized form of training. They serve a specific purpose that some people with targeted goals in the gym are looking for: attaining quad hypertrophy.

This can be useful if you suffer from slow-growing quads. People with muscular imbalances in the legs may benefit from a more quad-dominant approach to hack squat training like the Smith machine hack squat, barbell hack squat or machine hack squat.

But if you want all-around strong and balanced legs, the barbell back squat lets you pay equal attention to all your leg muscles to help get them toned and feeling stronger.

Balance

Barbell squats require you to hold yourself up using your balance. The stabilizer muscles of your core and legs help you stay upright so you don’t fall over.

Barbell Squats— Disadvantages

On the other hand, hack squat machines often have improved safety features and a few other advantages over squatting with a barbell.

The downsides to barbells include:

Injury Risk

Barbell squats put you at a higher risk of injury than squatting with a machine.

This apparatus requires you to squat unsupported unless you are squatting with a spotter.

So for safety reasons, it may be more advantageous to try out a linear hack squat machine. Get to know the safety features of the linear hack squat machine at your local gym.

Before using any piece of equipment, it’s a good idea to understand the ins and outs of its performance.

That way you set yourself up for successful squatting even before you touch the machine. By preventing injuries, you’ll allow yourself to get more days in the gym.

More injury-free reps and energy to work out will usually mean faster progress and improved ability to see results, whether you are looking to build lean muscle, bulk up, or lose weight during your workouts.

Muscles Worked

Linear hack squats and barbell squats work the same muscles but in different proportions.

Hack squats target your quadriceps muscles. Although they do work the other muscles in your legs, the hack squat is a great way to train if you’re hoping to isolate your quads.

During hack squats, the working muscles include:

Quadriceps

Your quadriceps femoris muscles (aka, the “quads”) flex your knees. When you get to the bottom of your squats, you’ll need a deep bend in the knees to help your body descend into the squat.

The quads are a muscle group that is made up of four separate muscles: the rectus femoris, the vastus lateralis, the vastus intermedius, and the vastus medialis. Engaging your quadriceps will help you get down into a deep barbell squat or linear hack squat, so it’s important to make sure to strengthen them.

Hamstrings

These are the muscles at the backs of your thighs. Your hamstrings extend your hips at the top of a squat. They also help with knee flexion when you descend.

Although they’re a key component to your squat, hamstrings are very easy to injure. Because the hamstrings serve a double purpose of hip extension and knee flexion, they’re extra susceptible to injuries. Especially in athletes, any movement where you run or lengthen your hamstrings can cause an injury.

But oftentimes, hamstring issues simply crop up from chronic overuse. You can learn more here: Hamstring Injuries in the Athlete: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Return to Play.

Always stretch your hamstrings after you squat. It’s a good idea to warm them up too.

Active workouts like high knees or leg swings will help prepare these leg muscles for healthy hack squats. Many of us have tight hamstrings from sitting down all day.

Lifestyles where we’re desk-bound working from home and constantly driving the car to work aren’t so great for healthy hamstrings. The effect of hamstring tightness includes inhibiting your stability and agility, so make sure to keep them limber.

Always stretch and make sure your muscles are ready to go before you get your hamstrings into deep squat positions.

Glutes

The gluteal muscles or glutes (your butt!) help keep the pace of your squats as you drive and come back up in your squats. Strong glutes give a new meaning to “ass to grass” and let you drop it low when you squat.

This muscle group is made up of three muscles: the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus.

These are some of your strongest lower body muscles. When we think of activities like running and jumping, much of your driving force comes from the glutes. Make sure to engage your glutes at the top of a squat. This helps you squat with proper form and is one of the best exercises for a round butt.

Calves

The calf, made up of the soleus muscle and the gastrocnemius, helps you to plantarflex your foot (point your toes downward).

After you come to the bottom of your squat, your calves will engage to help you drive up through the heels and feet to bring yourself back up to a standing position. These can be considered a secondary muscle worked in a squat.

Now that you understand the benefits of hack squatting without a machine, here are some variations you can try.

Landmine Hack Squat

The landmine is a piece of floor workout equipment. One end anchors to the floor. The other end holds a weighted plate that you hold and manipulate depending on your workout.

This resistance training tool allows you to train both strength and coordination.

To do a landmine hack squat:

• Set-Up: Load up your landmine barbell with comfortable squat weight. Make sure you don’t go too heavy too quickly. This could cause injuries.

• Body Position: Lift your bar with your plates loaded and place it onto one shoulder. Face your body away from the landmine pole. Lean back into the plate stack, pressing your back in firmly for support.

• Stance and Foot Placement: Bring your feet hip-width apart. Turn your feet out very slightly to around a 15-degree angle. Make sure your knees are tracking in line with your toes. This position will give you a standard squat form, but there are plenty of other hack squat foot placements you can try, depending on which muscles you want to isolate. Hold the tip of your bar securely. You may use one or both hands, depending on what’s most comfortable for you.

• Squat: Slowly bend your knees and send your hips backward. Keep your back straight and planted against the weight plates. Keep going until the angle between your thighs and calves is at 90 degrees or slightly deeper, depending on your mobility.

• Reverse: Exhale to drive your feet downward and reverse your movement. Push through your heels and straighten your legs to come back to your starting position.

• Reps: For strength, try 5 sets of 4-6 reps with a heavy weight. If you are training for hypertrophy, aim for 4 sets of 8-12 reps with a moderately heavy weight.

Barbell Hack Squat

Here is another example of a machine-free hack squat you can try.

For limited equipment workouts, this hack squat alternative is a good one— all you need is a heavy barbell.

• Set-Up: Grab two weight plates, and place your heels on them so the heels are elevated. Bring a loaded barbell behind your body.

• Squat: Bend your knees to sink your butt down. Grab the barbell with an overhand grip. From here, drive your body up, holding the barbell and lifting it towards the back of your hamstrings near your butt. This is your starting position.

• Reps: Repeat this movement for reps, coming to a 90-degree bend in the knee, or a slightly deeper angle each time you bend.

Barbell hack squats work your muscles the same way as traditional hack squats. Lifting your heels on weight plates and lifting your barbell behind the back towards your butt helps keep this move quad-dominant in the same way that a hack squat machine would be.

This is a great alternative way to train if all the hack squat machines at your gym are taken.

Barbell hack squats let you put far less strain on your spine. A traditional back squat loads weight onto your shoulders and upper back. But since you only lift the weight to underneath your hips in this variation, you have less back strain.

Research on technical factors that limit back squat performance indicates that things like head position and spinal rounding can influence your squat performance.

Wall Hack Squat

You can also do a wall hack squat with a foam roller, medicine ball, or barbell, depending on whether or not you want to work with resistance.

Simply place your equipment of choice between your back and the wall, trapping it securely against your back. If you are using a barbell, plant the edges of your attached weight plates along the wall with the barbell behind your back. Step away from the wall at least one foot and plant your feet in a comfortable stance hip-width apart.

Roll through the roller, ball, or weight plates along the edges of the wall, moving them along your body as you bend into your knees to squat.

You can see a barbell variation on that hack squat variation here:

The Takeaway

Hack squatting is a quick HACK to massive quads.

And even if all the machines in your gym are in use, that shouldn’t stop you from getting a great workout.

The barbell hack squat works great for a behind-the-back lift. It seems tricky at first, but with a little effort, you can master this leg-busting move.

And if you don’t like barbells at all, you can hack squat using dumbbells too.

One or two heavy dumbbells and a weight plate can set you up for a fantastic hack squat alternative that keeps the load in your front body if you have back pain.

If you’re looking for hypertrophy, hack squats, and alternatives are great to throw into your leg day rotation. By alternating between back squats and hack squats, you can set yourself up for some major leg day muscle gains.

References

Krzysztofik, M., Wilk, M., Wojdała, G., & Gołaś, A. (2019). Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), 4897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244897

Myer, G. D., Kushner, A. M., Brent, J. L., Schoenfeld, B. J., Hugentobler, J., Lloyd, R. S., Vermeil, A., Chu, D. A., Harbin, J., & McGill, S. M. (2014). The back squat: A proposed assessment of functional deficits and technical factors that limit performance. Strength and conditioning journal, 36(6), 4–27. https://doi.org/10.1519/SSC.0000000000000103