Research

Mixed

Hip extensor and ankle plantar flexor relative muscular effort (RME) are primarily driven by increasing barbell load, whereas knee extensor RME is primarily driven by squat depth.

Design your squat program based on your target muscle. If you want to strengthen your glutes and calves, you must use heavy weights (high barbell load), as depth alone won't stimulate them enough. If you want to strengthen your quads, focus on going deep, regardless of the weight. This allows for targeted training where you can prioritize depth for quads and weight for posterior chain.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Barbell load had a greater effect on ankle plantar flexor RME, whereas squat depth influenced the knee extensor RME... Both greater squat depth and barbell load increased hip extensor RME.
Megan A. Bryanton et al. · The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research · 2012

Why this rating

Robust biomechanical methodology with inverse dynamics.

Source

Effect of Squat Depth and Barbell Load on Relative Muscular Effort in Squatting

Megan A. Bryanton et al. · The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research · 2012

DOI 10.1519/jsc.0b013e31826791a7

mechanism_only · n=10Cited 170×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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