Steps
- To begin, first set the bar to a position that best matches your height. Once the bar is loaded, step under it and position it across the back of your shoulders.
- Take the bar with your hands facing forward, unlock it and lift it off the rack by extending your legs.
- Move your feet forward about 18 inches in front of the bar. Position your legs using a shoulder width stance with the toes slightly pointed out. Look forward at all times and maintain a neutral or slightly arched spine. This will be your starting position.
- Slowly lower the bar by bending the knees as you maintain a straight posture with the head up. Continue down until the angle between the upper and lower leg breaks 90 degrees.
- Begin to raise the bar as you exhale by pushing the floor with the heels of your feet, extending the knees and returning to the starting position.
- Repeat for the recommended amount of repetitions.
Tracking it in OneRep
Add the chair squat to a routine and your previous weight and reps sit beside every set, so the decision to add load is made by what is already on the screen rather than by memory. Exercise history and volume trends are one tap away, and logging works offline for the gyms where signal does not reach.
Because OneRep tracks food on the same timeline, a stall on this lift can be read against what you were actually eating that month — which is the difference between a programming problem and an eating one. More on that in tracking progressive overload without a spreadsheet.
Where the instructions come from
The steps above come from free-exercise-db, a public-domain exercise dataset. They are general guidance, not coaching for your body: if a movement hurts, stop and get someone qualified to look at it.