Is everyone able to achieve full squat depth?
The simple but disliked answer is no. If you are an athlete attempting to catch a barbell at the bottom of a snatch then yes it is essential. For the everyday person with back and lower limb pains, it would be lovely but is not necessary.
The video below by Dr. Stuart Mcgill suggests that the hip anatomy of some humans is not designed to allow for a full depth functional squat. Hip angle, shape and alignment vary greatly between humans, dependant on genetic heredity, to the extent that it can alter so called ‘normal human movement patterns.’
This is an interesting point for clinicians and patients attempting to enhance daily movement function. Identification of a patient’s hip characteristics is an area in which chiropractic examination can excel.
How often do you see people at work in an office or school, on public transport, socialising at home or the pub performing a full squat? Not often. What you do see however is hundreds of partial squats from chairs, whilst climbing stairs, getting out of bed or into a car.
The main issue arises when these ‘partial squats’ are dysfunctional. A person’s inability to squat until their thighs are parallel, like when sitting at a desk, is when the real problems occur. This is the area that can really make a difference to patients with painful knees, ankles, hips and lower backs which occur as a result of daily life.
For athletes attempting to enhance sporting performance by utilising the squat it is still not necessary to achieve full depth. As long as your thighs break parallel then correct activation of the gluteal muscles will occur to convey a strength enhancement to your sport. If you are utilising the squat for anything other than strength and power development in a sporting context my advice would be that you could utilise the time to develop sport specific skills and mobility.