Tutorial: Banded TKE Squats

Many of my clients are still training at home (whether by choice or not). Some have smaller gyms without much equipment. When I want to put in a leg press exercise for quad work, I usually have to come up with an alternative. Enter the Banded TKE Squat. You can do these unloaded or loaded with some weight in the goblet position. But the reason I wanted to do this post is because I wanted to show how I execute them to really make the quads light on fire. Watch the video below. You'll notice that I'm not sitting back, nor am I squeezing my glutes. I'm actually allowing the knee to travel forward a bit. Then on the way up, I think about pushing the back of my knee into the band. So don't think about getting back up by way of squatting, think about getting back up by quad flexion. Yeah... that's weird to think about. But for the sake of the exercise, give it a shot. This can be a helpful tool for those that have a tendency to sit too far back and utilize the quads in the squat. Maybe you "twerk" squat (hips rising first)... try these!