Originally posted by superbeast
For quads I do a narrow stance and I never go below parallel. Forget that basement crap. It puts a lot more load on the quads to stop at 90 degrees. When you go deeper, you are putting the emphasis on the glutes and hams and the momentum coming back up actually cheats the quads.
My exact reason for going to the basement on my squats is this. I also believe that it is difficult to obtain optimum energy at the end of a leg w/o for hams, that is why I practice this. I think that if you perform the exercise at full stop at the bottom. The momentum from your hams and gluts can be greatly reduced. As well, on some of my other exercises I will do the same. On leg press, for about half of my sets, I will place my feet further up the sled in order to target gluts and hams. Same with Hack Squats. This way, my hams have at least started to fatigue by the end of my pressing routine. Then I am able to finish them off at the end w/o feeling cheated. So far so good. My leg development is balanced and not small by any means.

BTW
Is one of the reasons for you doing your squats on the smith machine because of the mechanics involved with your height? I used to do the same thing because of the stress it posed on my lower back. Just currious.