A squat sit, sometimes called a resting squat or deep squat, is exactly what it sounds like: lowering your hips all the way down between your ankles and holding the position. It’s the way most humans sat before chairs existed, and roughly two-thirds of the world’s population still uses it daily for resting, eating, and working. If you grew up in a chair-based culture, getting into a comfortable squat sit takes some practice, but the position is well within your body’s design.
How to Get Into a Squat Sit
Stand with your feet roughly shoulder-width apart. Turn your toes out about 30 degrees. This toe-out angle reduces stress on the inner side of the knee by about 50% compared to pointing your feet straight ahead, and it also increases activation in your glutes, which helps stabilize the whole position.
From here, bend your knees and hips simultaneously and lower yourself straight down, keeping your heels flat on the floor. Let your knees travel forward over your toes and push slightly outward in line with your feet. Your torso will lean forward somewhat, and that’s fine. The goal is to sink your hips as low as they’ll go while keeping your spine in its natural curve, not rounded forward. Once you’re at the bottom, relax. A squat sit isn’t an exercise you’re “holding.” It’s a resting position. Let your weight settle into your heels and breathe normally.
Getting a proper deep squat requires significant ankle flexibility. Research estimates the average person needs about 38 degrees of ankle dorsiflexion (the ability to pull your toes toward your shin) to squat flat-footed. Most adults who spend their days in shoes and chairs fall well short of that number, which is why the position feels impossible at first.
What to Do If You Can’t Get All the Way Down
If your heels pop up, you tip backward, or your lower back rounds aggressively, you’re not doing anything wrong. You just need to work around limited ankle and hip mobility while you build it. A few practical workarounds make the position accessible right away.
Elevate your heels. Place a rolled towel, a thin book, or a wedge under your heels. Even a small lift of 5 to 20 degrees compensates for tight ankles and lets you sit deeper with a more upright torso. A steeper angle (closer to 20 degrees) works best if your hips and ankles are particularly stiff. Over time, reduce the height as your mobility improves.
Hold onto something. Grip a doorframe, a pole, or the edge of a heavy table and lower yourself down. This lets you counterbalance your weight so you don’t fall backward, and it takes some load off joints that aren’t ready for the full range yet. Spend time in the bottom position just hanging out, shifting your weight gently side to side.
Widen your stance. A wider foot position shortens the distance your ankles and hips need to travel. If a narrow squat feels jammed up, try stepping your feet out a few more inches and increasing your toe-out angle slightly.
Why Your Body Resists It at First
A deep squat demands large ranges of motion at the ankle, knee, and hip all at the same time. Research confirms that ankle dorsiflexion is the single biggest limiting factor for most people. If your ankles are stiff, your body compensates by rounding your lower back to get lower, which forces your pelvis to tuck under. That posterior pelvic tilt pulls on the lumbar spine and creates compressive and shear forces that make the position uncomfortable or even painful.
This is why maintaining a neutral spine matters so much. When your back stays in its natural S-curve, the muscles along your spine can distribute compressive loads efficiently. When your lower back rounds, those same forces shift to your discs and ligaments. The fix isn’t to muscle through it. It’s to only go as deep as you can while keeping your spine neutral, then gradually work deeper as your ankle and hip range of motion increases.
How to Build Up to a Comfortable Squat Sit
Treat it like a daily practice rather than an exercise session. Start by accumulating a few minutes per day in the bottom position, using whatever support or heel elevation you need. Break it into short bouts: 30 seconds here, a minute there. Squat while you wait for coffee. Squat while you scroll your phone. The position improves fastest with frequency, not intensity.
As the weeks pass, you’ll notice your heels settle closer to the floor, your torso stays more upright, and the position starts to feel like actual rest instead of a stretch. Most people with no injuries see meaningful improvement in four to six weeks of daily practice. Gently rocking side to side, shifting your weight from one foot to the other, and letting your hips drop a little lower each session all help the tissues adapt.
Benefits of Spending Time in a Deep Squat
Hip and Ankle Mobility
The squat sit is essentially a full-range stretch for the ankles, hips, and lower back simultaneously. Because it loads these joints through their complete range of motion, it maintains and restores flexibility in ways that isolated stretches often can’t match. Populations that squat regularly throughout life tend to retain hip and ankle mobility well into old age.
Easier Bowel Movements
Your body has a natural kink in the rectum called the anorectal angle. When you sit on a standard toilet, this angle is about 80 to 90 degrees, which partially blocks the passage. In a squat, the angle opens to roughly 100 to 110 degrees, straightening the rectum and allowing easier, more complete elimination. This is the same principle behind commercial toilet stools that elevate your feet.
A Marker of Overall Physical Health
The ability to lower yourself to the ground and rise without support is one of the strongest simple predictors of long-term health. A study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology followed over 4,200 adults aged 46 to 75 for a median of 12 years. Participants who could sit and rise from the floor without using their hands or knees for support had a death rate of just 3.7% over the follow-up period. Those who needed the most support had a death rate of 42.1%. After adjusting for age, sex, body mass, and clinical variables, the least capable group had nearly four times the risk of dying from any cause and six times the risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to those who moved independently.
The squat sit doesn’t cause longevity, of course. But the strength, balance, and flexibility required to get into and out of the position are the same physical capacities that keep people independent and healthy as they age. Practicing the squat sit builds all three.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Forcing depth with a rounded back. If your lower back rounds into a C-shape at the bottom, you’ve gone deeper than your current mobility allows. Use a heel lift or reduce your depth until you can maintain a neutral spine.
Letting knees collapse inward. Your knees should track in the same direction as your toes. If they cave inward, widen your stance, increase your toe-out angle, or focus on pressing your knees outward as you lower. Knee collapse increases rotational stress on the joint.
Holding your breath or tensing up. This is a resting position. If you’re white-knuckling it, you’re either going too deep or not using enough support. The goal is to eventually sit here as casually as you’d sit in a chair. Relax your shoulders, breathe through your belly, and let gravity do most of the work.
Going too long too soon. If you haven’t squatted in years, your knees and ankles will let you know if you overdo it. Start with short holds and build gradually. Mild discomfort in your muscles is fine. Sharp pain in a joint is not.