8 Reasons To Do Squats

If you are not doing squats, you are missing a powerful way to boost your overall fitness. Squats can also give you fast results. This is one exercise that should be a part of virtually everyone’s routine. Squats are relatively simple to perform, require no equipment and can be done just about anywhere.

Squats are often regarded as “leg” exercises, but they actually offer benefits throughout your entire body, including deep within your core…

The Top 8 Benefits of Squats:

1. Builds Muscle in Your Entire Body - Squats help to build your leg muscles, including your quadriceps, hamstrings, and calves, but they also create an anabolic environment, which promotes body-wide muscle building. Squats trigger the release of testosterone and human growth hormone in your body, which are vital for muscle growth and will also help to improve muscle mass when you train other areas of your body aside from your legs. So squats can actually help you improve both your upper and lower body strength.

2. Functional Exercise Makes Real-Life Activities Easier - Functional exercises are those that help your body to perform real-life activities, as opposed to simply being able to operate pieces of gym equipment. Squats are one of the best functional exercises out there, as humans have been squatting since the hunter-gatherer days. When you perform squats, you build muscle and help your muscles work more efficiently, as well as promote mobility and balance. All of these benefits translate into your body moving more efficiently in the real world too.

3. Burn More Fat - One of the most time-efficient ways to burn more calories is actually to gain more muscle! For every pound of additional muscle you gain, your body will burn an additional 50-70 calories per day. So, if you gain 10 pounds of muscle, you will automatically burn 500-700 more calories per day than you did before.

4. Maintain Mobility and Balance - Strong legs are crucial for staying mobile. This becomes more important as you get older. They also work out your core and stabilizing muscles, which will help you to maintain balance, while also improving the communication between your brain and your muscle groups, which will help to prevent falls.

5. Prevent Injuries - Most athletic injuries involve weak stabilizer muscles, ligaments and connective tissues, which squats help strengthen. They also help prevent injury by improving your flexibility, by improving the ranges of motion in your ankles and hips, as well as balance, as noted above.

6. Boost Your Sports Performance -- Jump Higher and Run Faster - Whether you’re a weekend warrior or a mom who chases after a toddler, you’ll be interested to know that studies have linked squatting strength with athletic ability. Squatting helps athletes to run faster and jump higher, which is why this exercise is part of virtually every professional athlete’s training program.

7. Tone Your Backside, Abs and Entire Body - Few exercises work as many muscles as squats do. Squats can help you to look better in your jeans, by toning and tightening your buttocks, abs and legs. Furthermore, building muscle aids in the regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism, as well as insulin sensitivity. This helps to protect you against obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

8. Help with Waste Removal - Squats improve the pumping of body fluids, aiding in removal of waste and delivery of nutrition to all tissues, including organs and glands. They’re also useful for improved movement of waste through your colon and more regular bowel movements.

What’s the Proper Way to Perform a Squat?

Squats have long been criticized for being destructive to your knees, but research shows that when done properly, squats actually improve knee stability and strengthen connective tissue.

These are some tips:

1. Warm up first
2. Stand with your feet just over shoulder width apart
3. Keep your back in a neutral position, and keep your knees centered over your feet
4. Slowly bend your knees, hips and ankles, lowering until you reach a 90-degree angle
5. Try to keep the base of your skull over the base of your spine and try not to lean forward.
6. Return to starting position.
7. Breathe in as you lower, breathe out as you return to starting position
8. You can do 15-20 reps and 2-3 sets for beginners, about 2-3 times a week.

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