There’s so much confusion around squats – or Barbell Squats to give them their full name.

They’ve got to be one of the most productive exercises for your body and - on paper at least - one of the easiest to perform. All you do is stick a barbell on your back, squat down, stand up then repeat.

Ah, but how far should you squat down? There’s two schools of thought here. Some say you should squat until your thighs are parallel to the floor, others say you should go all the way down. So why all the fuss?

The problem lies in your knees. Folklore has it squatting all the way down can cause damage to the knees, but reputable studies have shown this to be untrue.

The damage isn’t caused by squatting all the way down, but because there’s a tendency to push your knees inwards as you stand up. This causes the damage to the joints and surrounding tissue.

So let’s lay this to rest once and for all. If you have healthy knees and squat correctly, going all the way down is safe - as long as you ensure you don’t push your knees inwards on your way up. One study even showed that squatting all the way down actually improves the stability of your knees.

Sort your technique

Now that’s cleared up, let’s get to the two main problems people have that stop them from squatting all the way down.

First, if you start to lift your heels off the floor as you squat, your ankles won’t be particularly flexible. You can fix this by stretching your calf muscles.

Second, if your lower back starts to round – you’ll notice your hips starting to tuck forward underneath your body – that’s as low as you go.

Rounding your back with big weights on your shoulders seriously increases the stress on your lower vertebrae and should be avoided.

In most cases this can be improved by looking at the strength and flexibility of your glutes and hamstrings. Try adding this good old ‘Sit and reach’ stretch to your routine:

• Sit on the floor with your legs together and toes pointing upwards.

• Keeping your legs straight, reach forward as far as you can to try and touch your toes.

• Hold this position for up to 30 seconds, gradually increasing the stretch as the muscle loosens.

You could also try adding a Stiff Legged Deadlift to your regime to increase the strength of your lower back and the surrounding muscles.

The majority of squatting injuries come from getting the form wrong, not from the fuss over squat depth. So next time you try squatting all the way down and you think you have a problem, don’t automatically cut your squat depth. Instead reduce the amount of weight you’re lifting, then look for an underlying cause like the two above.