Descent, eccentricBalanced over midfoot
Side view
Drag to orbit, pinch or scroll to zoom

Kettlebell overhead squat

One 12 kg bell locked out overhead in the right hand while squatting to about parallel; the left arm reaches out for balance. Needs an upright trunk and a stable shoulder.

-1°Ankle dorsiflexion
2°Knee flexion
12°Hip flexion
2°Trunk from vertical
172°Arm to trunk
20°Elbow flexion
52Ankle spacing, cm
77Hand spacing, cm
-8Knee outside ankle, cm
–Knee cave, ° inside toe line
47 / 53Load left / right, %
0Pelvis drop, cm

Load and joint demand

Load in the model: 12 kg. Balance and joint demand re-solve as you change it.

Lower back
8 / 132
Hip extensors
5 / 84
Knee extensors
14 / 65
Calves
29 / 29

N·m now / peak over the rep.

Faults

Faults grow with knee bend and apply to lifts standing on the floor. The fault check flags a knee caving more than 10° inside the line of the toes and a load split beyond 60/40. Knee cave shows best in the front camera.

Body

Femur changes keep standing height fixed by shortening or lengthening the torso. Longer femurs force more forward lean in any squat.

Muscles worked

Quads
100 pts
Glutes
82 pts
Shoulders
64 pts
Abs and core
46 pts
Upper back
35 pts

Effort and your quota

7.5/10 effort7.8fatigue per set

Your quota per set: 10 reps at 12 kg, stopping 2 reps short of failure.

One hard set earns 182 legs points, 64 push points, 35 pull points, 46 core points.

Prime movers

Quadriceps, gluteus maximus, deltoids, obliques, upper back.

What to look for

  • Arm stays vertical; the bell stays over the foot.
  • Eyes on the bell or straight ahead.
  • Only as deep as the arm stays locked.
How the model works, and its limits

One 3D skeleton drives both views. Segment lengths and widths are Winter's anthropometric ratios of height; segment masses and centre-of-mass positions follow Dempster's data. For free-standing lifts the whole-body angle is found numerically so the combined centre of mass of lifter and load sits over the middle of the foot. Arms and legs use two-link inverse kinematics with a pole direction. Rep timing follows a minimum-jerk profile.

Balance is quasi-static, so ballistic lifts are shown slowed down. Cable pull and pad support forces are not modelled. The spine is one rigid segment and joints have no range-of-motion limits or muscle forces.