Devlin Brown at the water cooler: Why social media hype about somersault squats is justified

I understand that the algorithms feed you what you engage with, but it’s as if every new reel I encounter on social media is going on about doing somersault squats. Besides sounding terrifying, do they hold any value?

One of the most endearing, and irritating, traits of the so-called fitness industry is the use of eye-catching names for simple movements and that almost everything eventually goes viral as the next best thing.

About halfway through last year my wife, a personal trainer, told me that her legs feel wobbly after doing somersault squats. I paused briefly, imagining her doing a short run-up and then hurling herself into a somersault, her flailing legs just missing the power rack and landing inches from the dumbbell rack.

I knew it was a “fancy” name for a normal squat variation. I already knew about the sissy squat, Spanish squat, pistol squat, sumo squat, Bulgarian split squat, goblet squat and Zercher squat, so I said I was glad she had a good workout and agreed to look into it.

I forgot about it. I carried on my normal lower body routine that included staples such as the barbell squat, lunges, Romanian deadlifts, hip thrusts, split squats and step-ups. You see, our facility has no machines, only free weights.

Every functional training devotee is celebrating what I just wrote. Real movement. Functional strength. Exercising and living life the way it was intended from the beginning of time. Except, training in a commercial gym with many machines leaves you with a different “feeling”.

The free weight training programme I follow has made me stronger than I was while using machines in the past, and my mobility — while far from perfect — is much better than before. Beyond this, my core is robust. It simply must adjust to stabilising free weights that seem to prefer gravity to my own free will.

The free weight training programme I follow has made me stronger than I was while using machines in the past, and my mobility — while far from perfect — is much better than before. Beyond this, my core is robust.

However, when I visited a commercial gym as a guest and used machines, such as the leg extension (and many more exotic ones since), I developed a burn and “pump”, to use gym jargon, that I simply cannot achieve with free weights.

This is entirely personal and not some coded “gym law”. The reason for this added pump is because the machines isolate the target muscles, whereas on a split squat, for example, I can feel a fiery burn in the quads and glutes, while my lungs also give out from the strain of fighting to stay upright with weights in my hands.

Enter the somersault squat. Invented in 2009 by Joe Daniels as a Smith Machine variation, and adapted the next year to something done with kettlebells, they made their YouTube debut in 2010. Fifteen years later they enjoyed a resurgence in popularity and went viral as a “finisher” exercise or “quad killer”.

You’ll find exercise descriptions all over the internet. Raise your heels off the ground by using squat wedges or simply standing on weight plates with your feet about shoulder-width apart. Hold a kettlebell or dumbbell against your legs just above the knees and lower yourself down into a deep squat. Drive through your heels to extend your legs, sending your posterior into the air while you hold onto the weight (your head will be lower than your hips or, in my case, marginally lower). Repeat in a calm, controlled manner. It looks like the start of a gymnastics somersault roll.

The exercise is clearly designed to isolate the quadriceps by maximising knee flexion while minimising spinal loading. Still, anyone with knee problems should proceed with caution. If you live in South Africa, you’re probably also more highly strung than an amateur’s violin so watch the sacroiliac joint and listen to your body.

It is an incredibly effective “finisher” if you can do it safely and correctly. Talk to a trainer and work with a professional. No doubt there will be a new trendy move in 2026, but I will keep this one in the repertoire. It won’t build strength like a traditional squat, but it certainly reminds you for a few days that you did, in fact, train.