The squat is the king of all lifts. I fell in love with the squat the first time I placed the bar on my back. Now many people have issues with it. One difficulty of the squat is it is a complex movement, which means multiple joints are needed to be moving in a synchronized movement. In this article, I won't talk about the entire lift. To ensure you follow the proper synchronized movement, first starts with how you approach the bar, grip the bar, and how it has been placed on your back. If this is done wrong, you are already setting yourself up for failure. 

When looking at the bar and how it is placed on the back Dave Tate of Elitefts says you need four contact points. When each point of contact is placed on the bar, the athlete's back will be tighter and stronger. When you are missing one of the four points of contact, it is like a chain of effects, and this where we start to fill the real pain in the back because you will lose the common phrase tightness with the bar.

The four points of contact with the bar are the shoulders, the traps, the neck, and the Rhomboids (major and minor). When grabbing the bar, your hands should be placed right around the benchmark, about 81 cm. It will be the circle on the bar. There will be one on each side of the bar. When placing your shoulders under the bar, you will need to pinch your shoulder blades as tight as possible together. This will push your chest forward. While keeping the shoulder blades pinched and having your chest pushed forward, place your traps on the bar and last push your neck against the bar. At this point, you have created your four points of contact.

While performing the squat in the lift's eccentric and concentric phases, the key is to keep these points of contact. Before having the traps on the bar, Fill your diaphragm with air and hold your breath until you reach the toughest area of the concentric area of the lift (the upwards movement). Another key to ensuring you are keeping the four parts of contact is making sure your head does not look down; once you do that, you lose a point of contact. 

This is the start of having great form in the squat. Master this area, and you can move forward on fixing the eccentric phase (downward area of the lift) of the lift. It takes one step at a time to create correct motor pathways, and perfecting the setup is the first step.