If you’ve trained with me, or had the displeasure of sitting next to me at dinner, you’ll know that one of my favorite exercises is the squat. It’s a total body exercise that works your legs, your core, your upper body (when you add resistance) and gets your heart rate up. And once you get strong enough to do a barbell back squat to proper depth, you pretty much become cooler than all your friends.
Squatting safely isn’t hard, as you’ll see in the technique video here. When done properly, the squat can help strengthen the supporting musculature around your knees, and having strong legs will help you with virtually all your daily activities (sitting down and getting up from a chair, walking up flights of stairs, and so on). As a side benefit, it helps shape and sculpt the glutes and thighs.
In the video, I point out that beginners should perform the exercise with body weight (no added resistance) to master technique and proper range of motion. As you get more confident and comfortable with squatting, you can use bands, dumbbells, medballs, a sandbag, a non-squirmy toddler, or a barbell.
I cover a large variety of at-home squat options in my book, Stay At Home Strong which includes those options in written (with photos) and video format.
Simple at-home squatting tips, are covered in the video above and are described here:
1. Begin the movement by bending your knees forward and shifting your hips back, making sure that the knees track in the same direction as the toes.
2. Keep your weight in your heels; to make sure the knees don’t go excessively forward of the toes. It’s also better for balance (I’ve seen my share of people who start off squatting on their “tippy toes.”)
3. Descend until thighs are just past parallel to floor.
4. Extend knees and hips until legs are straight. Return and repeat.
As with any exercise, use common sense and stop if you feel pain or discomfort. You can always hire a good trainer to help you determine proper foot positioning, depth, tempo, etc as you develop your love of the squat. Give yourself plenty of time to learn to squat with correct technique and be patient.
Beginners will sometimes do better when squatting in front of a mirror if there’s no one around to give you feed back. You’ll want to make sure you’re achieving proper depth, pushing away evenly from the floor with both feet, and rising up without the knees buckling in. Initially, looking at yourself is also useful because it will train you to keep your eyes up and chin up (rather than looking down, which tends to throw balance off for some people).
Remember, when learning a new exercise, slower is better; it gives both your brain and body a chance to get acquainted with moving this way.
As I like to say, when it’s squat day, it’s always a good day. Whether it’s for myself or my clients, I always greet the squat as the biggest, baddest challenge of the workout. A chance to continually make progress and strides, a chance to get stronger and build lean muscle, and to shape a beautiful pair of legs.
See you in the squat rack.
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