Band above the knees, squat and fight the cave.
Don't let the band pull your knees inward, keep them tracking over your toes.
The squat mechanics are untouched, quads and glutes lowering you to parallel and driving you back up. What the band adds is a constant inward pull on the knees, so the outer hips must work the entire rep to keep the knees pushed out over the toes. That running feedback is why coaches reach for it, the band tells you instantly, on every rep, whether your knees are doing their job.
Both. The abductors genuinely work harder against the pull, but the bigger win is the feedback, the band exposes knee cave the moment it happens so you can fix it before loading a bar.
Yes, a set or two works brilliantly as activation. It wakes up the outer glutes and rehearses knee position so the pattern carries into your working sets.
Slow the descent, lighten the depth slightly, and push the knees out from the first inch of the rep rather than rescuing them at the bottom. If they still dive in, add lateral walks and clams to build the hips up.
