The Spanish squat is a squat performed with a heavy band or strap anchored to a rack at knee height and looped behind the knees. Because the band holds your shins back, you can sit down and back with shins and torso close to vertical, and the band takes the lean.
It is credited to Ángel Basas, a physiotherapist with the Spanish athletics federation. A 2023 case series by his son Carlos Basas and colleagues calls it the Basas Spanish squat and says his protocol was used in Spain to treat athletes with patellar tendinopathy; he died while the paper was being written. Brolic lists it as Spanish Squat (Band), with “Band Spanish Squat” and “Banded Spanish Squat” as aliases, and logs it as an ordinary two-sided exercise.
Muscles worked
Brolic tags the quadriceps as the primary muscle group, with the glutes as secondary. Greg Everett of Catalyst Athletics describes it as loading the quads with reduced force on the knee joint and little from the posterior chain. Tim McGrath, a physiotherapist, keeps the hips tucked and bends the knees toward the toes because, he says, sitting back brings the glutes in.
Three studies found by a PubMed search on October 7, 2026 measure it. Lee and colleagues (2022) recorded thigh muscle activity in 22 people during an ordinary squat, a wall squat and a Spanish squat; the rectus femoris was most active in the Spanish squat. Scattone Silva and colleagues (2024) ranked 35 rehabilitation exercises by patellar tendon load and put the Spanish squat in the middle tier, above a full two-legged squat. The Basas case series measured patellar tendon strain in four healthy people and found it lowest in the Spanish squat without electrical stimulation. These measure activation and tendon load, not growth.
Set up the band
Anchor a heavy band to a rack at knee height and loop it behind the knees. Everett uses one loop around both legs or one per leg; McGrath steps in one leg at a time. The Basas paper places its strap immediately below the knee joint line.
Step back until the band holds you. Everett steps back far enough that you can lean slightly backward and be held up. McGrath picks a band that does not pull too hard across the knee, thinner on a first session.
Keep the shins and trunk vertical. Everett sits back with both shins and trunk as close to vertical as possible, to about a 90° knee angle, then stands, keeping the slight backward lean throughout.
Holds, reps and McGrath’s variant
Holds first, then reps. Everett’s library entry starts with isometric holds of 15 to 45 seconds early in rehabilitation and builds to sets of 8 to 15 squats as pain and strength allow. E3 Rehab’s patellar tendinopathy article prescribes 3 to 5 sets of 45-second holds at about seven out of ten effort. Those are rehabilitation prescriptions by the people cited; whether and how to use them is for whoever is treating you.
McGrath’s version is shallow and slow. In the Physio Network clip, on early rehabilitation after ACL surgery, he does not sit the hips back as in what he calls the classic Spanish squat. He keeps the hips tucked, bends the knees toward the toes through the first 20° or so, and stands again, slowly, 30 seconds on and 30 off, with the cue to push the ground away and keep that pressure as you bend.
If the band is too heavy, you will know. McGrath’s signs are a leg that whips into extension or cuts the range short, or a feeling around the knee; his answer is a lighter band, not a smaller bend.
Beside a wall squat and a bodyweight squat
| Spanish squat | Wall squat | Bodyweight squat | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What holds you up | A band behind the knees | A wall behind the back | Nothing |
| Shins | Vertical (Everett) | Vertical | Travel forward |
| Rectus femoris activity in Lee et al. | Highest of the three | Lower | Lower |
Lee’s study compared exactly these three; the table says nothing about which builds more muscle.
Logging
Brolic logs Spanish Squat (Band) in reps. The band is the load, so write which band you used and how far you stood from the anchor. Write holds in seconds, and any dumbbell or plate you held. The free workout log has room for those notes, and the weekly set tally shows how these sets add to your quadriceps work beside the reverse Nordic curl.
Common questions
Sit back or knees forward? Everett sits back with vertical shins; McGrath bends the knees toward the toes with the hips tucked. They are two exercises with one name; note which you did.
Is it a fix for knee pain? Everett and E3 Rehab list it in patellar tendinopathy rehabilitation, and the Basas protocol was built for it. That is what they say; it is not advice about your knee.
Sources and method
- Catalyst Athletics, Greg Everett: Spanish squat and its video — setup, the 90° knee, vertical shins and trunk, the hold and rep progression.
- Physio Network, Tim McGrath: Spanish squats after ACL surgery — the shallow hips-tucked variant, band choice, the ground cue, the 30-second tempo; automatic captions.
- Basas et al. (2023) — the case series: origin, band placement and tendon strain in four people.
- Lee et al. (2022) — thigh muscle activity in ordinary, wall and Spanish squats.
- Scattone Silva et al. (2024) — patellar tendon loading tiers for 35 rehabilitation exercises.
- E3 Rehab: Patellar tendinopathy — the 45-second hold prescription.
- Brolic catalog — name, aliases, logging mode and muscle tags.
Knee angles, hold times and rep ranges are the cited coaches’ and clinicians’ figures, not optima from a trial; this guide describes the exercise and is not a rehabilitation plan.
