Wide stance, side to side. Hips and inner thighs lit up.
Sit back into the working hip and keep that knee tracking over your foot.
The lateral squat plants you in one wide stance and shifts your weight side to side, so each rep is a deep single-hip squat for the quads while the glutes control the sit-back. The non-working leg stays long, which means every shift doubles as an inner-thigh stretch, strength on one side, mobility on the other. It's a favourite for building comfortable width and depth for sumo stances, skating patterns and change of direction.
Depth. The lateral squat works to around parallel with the straight-leg foot flat, while a Cossack drops all the way down with the straight leg's toes pointing up. Master the lateral squat first, it builds the strength and adductor range the Cossack demands.
You're shifting your weight forward instead of back. Sit into the hip like you're reaching for a chair behind you, and keep the pressure through the mid-foot and heel of the working leg.
Both. Bodyweight sets make an excellent squat-day warm-up, but pushed deep and slow for higher reps they're a legitimate quad and glute builder in their own right, especially if your training is all sagittal plane.
