The Science of Squats
If you ever thought about what is going on when you are performing some squats, here is an interesting article by Greg Nuckols (Stronger by Science) about the subject.
There is quite a bit of information about deep and shallow squats and which muscles are targeted. The overall recap is:
We now have clear evidence that squats target your adductors, which lends further evidence to the notion that the adductor magnus is one of the biggest contributors to a successful squat.
Even though your glutes aren’t a big contributor to strength out of the hole, they can still contribute enough through the sticking point of the squat for the squat to be an effective glute exercise.
Squats aren’t a damn hamstrings exercise. We don’t have to just look at the biomechanical function or EMG; we can see that, even in untrained lifters, squats just don’t cause hardly any hamstrings growth.
Longer ranges of motion are great for growth, but it may not hurt to dabble with partials, as long as you still have plenty of long-ROM training in your program.
Link to original article in Stronger by Science (1 Jul 2019)