Unlock the Power of Slant Board Squats

Perfect Your Form and Progress with Slant Board Squats

Slant board squats are one of the best exercises for building strong, powerful legs, particularly your quads. What makes them unique is how easily you can adjust the movement to match your ability and how versatile they are for scaling difficulty.

Adjusting Foot Placement for Comfort and Strength

One of the key benefits of slant board squats is the ability to modify foot placement to suit your needs:

Having a slant board makes it easy for you to do these squats even without olympic lifting shoes, which elevate your heels. As long as you keep your feet shoulder width apart, keep your torso upright, then go down on a squating position, expecting a knee over toe positioning. The slant board squat is excellent in relieving knee pain even when you have limited ankle mobility. Unlike the split squats, keeping an upright torso on the entire squat depth is very essential to maintaining a greater range of motion. This exercise is also great if you're recovering from lower leg injuries. It's actually one of the most doable squat variations when you're dealing with knee pain. Make sure you add this on your fitness routine, especially if you're in no shape to do split squats.

Easier Variation: Walk your feet down the slant board so more of your foot hangs off. If only your heels are on the board, the movement becomes less intense on your quads and easier to perform. This is particularly helpful if you experience knee discomfort.

Increased Challenge: Position your entire foot on the slant board. The more elevated your heels are, the greater the demand on your quads.

Progressions for Adding Challenge

This exercises, along with calf raises can really reduce the injury risk, which can be helpful especially if you've been dealing with pain on your achilles tendon and other lower body muscle groups.

As you build strength and confidence, here are four ways to make slant board squats more challenging:

Isometric Holds

Pause at the bottom of the squat and hold for time. This builds endurance and strengthens your quads in the position where they work hardest.

Bodyweight Squats

Perform a full range of motion with just your body weight. Focus on control and depth to maximize quad activation.

Banded Squats

Use a resistance band for added tension. This increases the challenge, especially at the top of the movement, where bands provide the most resistance.

Weighted Squats

Add a dumbbell or kettlebell to load the movement and further strengthen your legs. Adjust the weight to match your ability and goals.

Why Slant Board Squats Matter

Slant board squats target your quads like no other exercise while also engaging your glutes, hamstrings, and core. They’re a staple in many of my programs because they’re effective for building leg strength and functional movement patterns.

Start with a comfortable foot position and progress through the levels as you build strength and stability. Whether you’re looking to strengthen your legs or enhance your overall fitness, slant board squats are a must-have in your routine.