Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and toes pointed straight ahead or slightly outward (this will help you balance). Put your hands on your hips (or press them against a wall for support), lift your chest high, and bend your knees.
Lower yourself until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Pause, then push up through your heels to return to starting position.
Squats can be performed with or without added weight
To keep the bar from sliding off the shoulders, use a combination of shoulder blades and lats as you push your chest high and drive your head through at the top.
You can cross your arms across your chest, hold them out to the sides (just make sure you don’t lose balance), or lock them behind your head.
You must keep the bar against your shoulders and upper back as you lower yourself down into a squat position. This might be a bit difficult at first, but as you get better at it, this becomes second nature.
Do not push the squat to failure, this will only cause bad form and potential injuries.
Each repetition should be very slow and controlled down into the bottom of the squat before explosively driving back up to starting position. Do not rebound out of your squat to get back to the starting position.
Keep good form and only squat as low as you can without compromising your form.
Food that is good for squats includes:
-Eggs
-Beans
-Chicken
-Turkey
-Fish
-Nuts
-Fruits and Vegetables (berries, apples, sweet potatoes)
-Oatmeal
-Brown Rice
-Wheat Bread
-Spinach
Squats help to strengthen your legs and improve your cardiovascular endurance.
It’s a great lower body workout for both men and women.
The most popular squat is the barbell back squat.
It has been estimated that to squat 500 lbs for reps takes approximately 600,000 muscles fibers doing work! Even if you only work out every other day, this muscle group is getting worked twice a week!
The squat also works your core and stabilizing muscles as well to help stabilize the weight during the movement.
If you choose to squat with weight, the barbell is the most common. It can occur either on your back, front of the body (as shown in the video), dumbbells in each hand, kettlebells, or goblet style as seen in the picture.
The key is to keep control of the weight
The key is to keep control of the weight once you have it on your shoulders.
Squats are a very good all-over-body workout that can help keep your weight in control as well as offer other health benefits such as improved flexibility and coordination, cardiovascular fitness, muscle mass gains, balance and stability, bone density, and mental focus.
The key to squatting is to find out what works for you. If bodyweight squats are your goal, practice proper form and slowly add weight as needed.
If you want to squat with added weights, go slow and master the technique first before adding any additional weight.
