Goblet Squat
The Goblet Squat is an excellent, underrated exercise. It is an excellent tool for building leg strength, core strength, work capacity and cardiovascular fitness.
Additionally, it is a self-limiting exercise. You are limited in the amount of weight you can use, making this exercise easy on your joints. This exercise is great as an accessory exercise.
Goblet Squat Muscles Worked
This squat trains a lot of muscles. These include the quads, glutes, lower back, upper back, core and even the biceps to a lesser extent.
Goblet Squat Technique
Start with a dumbbell placed with the head up. You can place this dumbbell on a hip or chest high surface. Assume a squat stance in front of your dumbbell. Squat down so that you can place your hands underneath the head of the dumbbell to cup the weight as if you are holding a wine goblet. Brace your core, pull your shoulders back and down and stand up with the weight.
Step away, and then into your squat stance. Tense core and sit down into your squat position. Once your hip joints have descended below knee height, stand back up. Take a breath and then continue the set.
Aim for 6-15 repetitions per set, and perform 2-4 total sets.
Goblet Squat for Beginners
The Goblet Squat is actually a great exercise and teaching tool for beginners.
This type of squats can help reinforce good posture. A weight can be used as a counterbalance to help improve both stability and mobility in the squat.
For beginners, I would recommend starting with about 10 to 15 pounds and progressing from there.
Goblet Squat for Mass
The Goblet squat can work as a tool for muscle mass. However, I would suggest using it as an assistance exercise after heavier loaded exercises like barbell back squats.
This squat works well for mass when it is performed for multiple sets of 8-15 reps. Make sure you use a weight that challenges you.
Don’t be afraid to use heavy loads for goblet squats. Men should aim to work up to about 75 percent of their body weight, where women can aim to use about 50 to 75 percent of their body weight.
How to Make Goblet Squats Harder
Like I mentioned before, you can make goblet squats harder by using heavy loads that really challenge you. You can also aim to take short rest periods of 30 seconds to 1 minute between sets.
Another way you can make this exercise harder is to use blood flow restriction.
You can use tourniquets, bands or cloth bandages to wrap tightly around the top of your quads right below your hips.
Then perform goblet squats using a Blood Flow Restriction or BFR protocol. You want to aim for 30 reps in the first set, and then 15 reps in the subsequent 3 sets. This is a great way to make this exercise harder even with light loads.
What are Goblet Squats Good For?
As I mentioned before, goblet squats are great for building leg mass, leg strength, upper back strength, core stability and improving your squat technique.
This type of squats can help to reinforce good squat motion patterns without more sets under a heavy barbell.
And when used with moderate rest times and challenging loads, goblet squats can also help improve your work capacity, cardiac output and anaerobic endurance.
Goblet Squat Disadvantages
While goblet squats are great, they have a few disadvantages. One disadvantage is that you will be limited in the total load you can use. However, this might also be an advantage for injured athletes and those with bad backs or knees.
With that in mind, you can overcome this disadvantage by using goblet squats primarily as an accessory exercise for mass and torso stability rather than as a top end strength exercise. Barbell back squats would be a better choice for top end maximal strength.
The goblet squat may also be painful for those with bad wrists. You can overcome this by using one or two kettlebells and a straight wrist position.
Goblet Squat with a Kettlebell
You can perform goblet squats with a kettlebell. You can hold the kettlebell with straight wrists against your body.
You can also perform this type of squat with two kettlebells. To do this, you will need to learn how to clean two kettlebells into the rack position. Once you clean the bells, focus on keeping them close to your body. Tighten your core, pull the bells down, shoulders back and down, and sit down into the squat. Once your hip crease has dropped below your knees, you can stand up and straighten your legs to complete one rep.
Goblet Squat Versus Sumo Squat
The goblet squat and the sumo squat can both be performed with the same dumbbell style loading in the front of the body.
However, the sumo squat employs a wider stance. This allows you to train your adductors and abductors a lot harder than the traditional goblet squat.
However, the goblet squat will hit your quads harder than the sumo squat.
Both types of squats are good, but they have a different emphasis. You can include both in your program, depending on your goals.
Final Thoughts
The Goblet Squat is an excellent exercise to put into your training program. Please let me know how you like this exercise in the comment section below.
