before everything, I need to say that squat is one of the most complicated exercises and is really not possible to talk about all the details in 30 minutes, but I tried to cover as much as possible here. in the future, there are going to be more videos about this workout and we are going to talk about more details later.
feet positioning is the key decision in this exercise. there are lots of variables that you must consider before doing your first rep, the most important one are:
1_tightness of the calf muscles: if you have tight calves, it is hard to squat with a narrow stance or narrow feet positioning. the wider you go, the easier on the calves.
2_bone restriction in the ankle: if you have restriction in your talus bone(in your ankle area), you are not able to bring your knees forward enough(dorsi flexion). again the wider the stance is, the easier on your ankle.
3_tightness of adductor muscles: the wider stance you take, the more stretch there is on your adductor muscles(muscles inside your legs that bring the leg close to your center of the body or median line).
4_balance: the narrower your are, the harder it is to balance the weight moving to sides. also the wider you go, you have more stability from the gluteus as well.
5_height: if you have long femur bones(thigh bone) compared to your torso(which lots of tall people do), in order to balance the weight and perform the exercise correctly, your back is going to be bent from the hip a lot and that puts lots of pressure on your back. in order to ease the tension on lower back, you can widen the stance.
these were the main factors that you should consider while training. although some may say the stance should be based on the muscle you want to train, you need to consider that training the muscle does not matter if you are compromising the health of your bones and joints with a form that is not good for you.
after you are done with the feet positioning and learned which position is best for you, you should consider a few other things:
1_make sure your knees and hip both bend not just one(do not keep the knee straight and bend from the hip or bend the knee and keep the hip straight)
2_make sure your knees are always aligned with your toes during the squat.
3_do not go lower than you can. make sure your hip is neutral and does not go into posterior pelvic tilt during the exercise(that is reliant on your flexibility and your anatomy).
4_make sure you stretch your chest before performing the exercise.
5_do not bend the neck and wrist. you do not need to look in front of yourself in the mirror and also you must not let the bar roll back to your fingers.
6_make sure you keep the core tight and avoid breathing in the middle of the rep.
7_make sure you push with both sides and there are no imbalance with your force generation.
8_try recording yourself and asking PTs to check your form from time to time since it really is hard to see whether you are doing it right by yourself.