Sumo Squat Floor Touch
Reviewed by Dylan Maurick, Physiotherapist
The Sumo Squat Floor Touch is a wide-stance squat that builds lower-body strength while improving hip mobility and control.
Sumo Squat Floor Touch
Muscles Worked: Sumo Squat Floor Touch
The Sumo Squat Floor Touch mainly works your quads and glutes. Your quads straighten your knees as you stand, while your glutes drive your hips up from the bottom. Your hamstrings and inner thighs help control the drop, keep your knees tracking well, and add power as you come back up. Because this move uses a deep squat position, you should feel your thighs and glutes working hard through the full rep, and deeper squat work has been shown to build more size in key leg muscles than shallow squats (Kubo et al., 2019).
Technique and form
How to perform the Sumo Squat Floor Touch
- Stand with your feet wider than shoulder-width apart, with toes pointed outward at a 45-degree angle.
- Engage your core and maintain a neutral spine as you hinge your hips back, keeping your chest up and shoulders retracted.
- Bend your knees to lower your body into a deep squat position, tracking your knees in line with your toes.
- As you descend, exhale and reach both hands down toward the floor between your feet, maintaining a flat back.
- Touch the floor lightly with both hands while keeping your weight in your heels and midfoot.
- Inhale as you drive through your heels and engage your glutes to return to the starting position.
- As you rise, bring your arms back to your sides, keeping your chest lifted and spine neutral throughout the movement.
- Fully extend your hips and knees at the top position before beginning your next repetition.
Important information
- Keep your back flat throughout the movement—avoid rounding your spine when reaching for the floor.
- Make sure your knees track in the same direction as your toes to prevent knee strain.
- If you can't touch the floor comfortably, only go as low as your mobility allows or touch your shins instead.
- Maintain tension in your core throughout the exercise to protect your lower back.
Is the Sumo Squat Floor Touch good for muscle growth?
Yes. The Sumo Squat Floor Touch can be very good for muscle growth in your quads and glutes because it combines a wide stance with a deep squat, which keeps those muscles working through a long range of motion. Research on squat depth shows that deeper squat training can lead to greater growth in parts of the glutes and quads than partial squats, which supports using this movement when you can keep good form (Kubo et al., 2019).
- Deep bottom position — Touching the floor usually means you sit lower than in a normal bodyweight squat. That extra depth makes your quads and glutes work harder at the hardest part of the rep, especially when you stay balanced and do not rush the bottom.
- Wide-stance glute focus — The sumo stance shifts more of the work toward your glutes and inner thighs while still training your quads hard. If regular squats mostly hit your front thighs, this version often helps you feel your hips doing more of the work.
- Easy overload options — Beginners can start with bodyweight, then hold a dumbbell once sets get too easy. That makes it a smooth step between a basic squat pattern and loaded options like the dumbbell goblet squat or dumbbell deadlift.
- Mobility plus tension — Reaching toward the floor encourages you to use the range of motion you already have in your hips, knees, and ankles while building strength there. That matters because deeper squat training does more than improve skill alone; it can also drive more lower-body muscle growth when repeated over time (Kubo et al., 2019).
Programming for muscle growth
Do 3-4 sets of 8-15 reps with 60-90 seconds rest. Train it 2-3 times per week. Use the higher end of the rep range for bodyweight sets, and add a dumbbell or slow the lowering phase once you can do 15 clean reps easily. Keep every rep deep and balanced, because the main benefit of this exercise comes from owning the bottom position instead of cutting it short.
Sumo Squat Floor Touch Variations
Alternative Exercises
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FAQ - Sumo Squat Floor Touch
The Sumo Squat Floor Touch primarily targets the quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes while significantly engaging the inner thighs (adductors) due to the wide stance position. Your core muscles are also heavily activated throughout the movement to maintain stability, especially during the floor touch portion.
The most common mistakes include allowing the knees to collapse inward, rounding the lower back during the floor touch, and not maintaining proper weight distribution through the heels and midfoot. Always keep your chest up, knees tracking over toes, and maintain a neutral spine even at the bottom of the movement.
If you're a beginner, start with a regular sumo squat without the floor touch, or only go down as far as your mobility allows. You can also elevate the touch target by using a yoga block or small platform instead of reaching all the way to the floor, gradually working toward greater depth as flexibility improves.
Incorporate this exercise 2-3 times weekly with at least one day of recovery between sessions to allow your lower body muscles to recover properly. This exercise works well as part of a leg day routine or as a compound movement in a full-body workout, typically performing 3-4 sets of 10-15 repetitions.
To increase difficulty, add resistance with dumbbells or kettlebells held at your sides, incorporate a pulse at the bottom position, or increase time under tension by slowing the eccentric (lowering) phase to 3-4 seconds. For an advanced challenge, perform the movement on an unstable surface or add a jump as you return to the standing position.
Workouts with Sumo Squat Floor Touch
Scientific References
Effects of squat training with different depths on lower limb muscle volumes.
Kubo K, Ikebukuro T, Yata H · European journal of applied physiology (2019)
Sources are peer-reviewed academic publications from PubMed.
Sumo Squat Floor Touch
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