What type of squats benefits will you see if you do them on a regular basis? Squats are one of the best lower body leg exercises that you can use to keep your leg muscles strong, tone your butt, and help stabilize your joints as you age. They are easy to do and the great thing about squats, you don’t need a bunch of fancy gym equipment or a gym membership. So whether you are suffering from low back pain, want a better booty, strengthen weak muscles, recover from an injury, or want to make some serious gains to boost your fitness level, you should consider adding squats to your routine.
Humans were born to squat and with today’s lifestyle, many of us can no longer maintain the squatting position for long periods of time. Just take a look at a toddler, they often squat while playing and can stay in that position for a long time. But as you have noticed many of us are unable to do a deep squat like a toddler. According to Sarah Zhang, staff writer at the Atlantic, body shape does play a factor in your ability to do a deep squat, aka Asian squat. She discovered that people with shorter limbs, big heads, and long torsos were able to do a deep squat because their body type made it easier to balance.
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Love them or hate them, squats are considered a great part of any exercise routine. Despite feeling like you are using mostly your leg muscles to do squats, it is beneficial for your whole body. Let’s take a look at the benefits of squats.
Turn Your Body Into a Fat-Burning Machine
Whether you are looking to lose weight or prevent weight gain, it is proven that squats are one of the most efficient ways to burn extra calories. Squats target and strength the large muscles in your lower trunk and legs. Strong muscles naturally burn more calories so when you implement squats into your fitness routine you can easily burn an additional 50 to 70 calories per pound of muscle you gain. This can easily add up over time and help increase your calorie deficit.
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Functional Workout Routine
When you do full-body exercises like squats, it will help you be able to do basic daily activities easier. Squats have been around for several thousand years, so it is a natural exercise that you developed when you were about a year old through the end of your toddler years at least. As we age, we get out of the habit of squatting when we rest and rely on sitting instead.
Again, you don’t need any fancy gym equipment to add it to your fitness routine. Many physical therapists and rehab clinics have patients who are recovering from surgeries, injuries, back pain, or other ailments, perform squats. When I was in physical therapy after I had a spinal fusion, the therapist started me off on a machine that activates the same muscles as doing a squat. If you are at the gym and there is a leg press available, it can off the same benefits too.
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Benefit from a Full Body Workout
Squats target your hamstrings, quadriceps, glutes primarily; however, it also engages your core, low back, and calf muscles. When you build muscle in your large muscles, your body starts creating an anabolic environment and triggers the release of more growth hormones in your body. Growth hormones are needed in order for your muscles to grow.
But before starting this great full-body workout, you should always speak to your doctor if you have any ailments that might make implementing squats into your exercise routine. Form is super important when your doing squats and if you aren’t doing them correctly you could injure yourself. But with certain ailments even doing squats with proper form can aggravate knee issues. Your doctor can send you to physical therapy to help you build strong muscles around the joints that give you trouble.
Back to form, it is important that you maintain proper form when performing squats.
Improve Balance and Mobility
Doing squats is one of the best ways to improve your leg strength. If you use proper form, it helps build your core muscles, lower back, and stabilizes your hip joints, which is needed to help maintain good balance. Aging causes you to naturally lose muscle tone and stability in your joints.
Squats can help prevent your muscles from losing their tone and keep them strong to stabilize your joints. Losing muscle and joint instability can lead to balance or mobility problems, but doing squats can prevent this problem before it starts or improve any current problems.
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Prevent Injuries
Like I already mentioned above, when you have weak muscles and joints, you are more prone to injuries resulting from falls, muscle skeleton problems, brittle bones, tendons, ligaments, and nerves. The best squats benefits require you to keep your muscles strong, flexible, and maintain proper balance. All of these activities come into play on a daily basis and maintaining a squat exercise routine can help greatly reduce your risk of injuring yourself.
Boost Performance
Whether you are a newbie or a fitness guru, squats help boost your overall performance. Maintaining a strong core and leg muscles makes it easier to activate the muscles that are needed for running, jumping, making quick movements, pushing off the ground, etc.
This is why many professional athletes, including powerlifters, benefit from implementing a squat exercise routine. Keep in mind that just by doing squats alone, it won’t make you a star athlete so you still need to train to maintain your skills. It also won’t fix bad form or poor technique.
Tone Your Backside
Most of us long for a better booty and will do what it takes to achieve it. Squats benefits can help you on your way to a better booty. As I mentioned earlier, squats target your glutes. No one necessarily wants to do a million basics squats but you can give these 16 variations a try if you want to tone your backside.
Squats benefits can help improve your overall health and it is one of the best lower body workouts that you can do. Not only will you notice a difference in your day-to-day life but we mentioned several other squats benefits. The great thing about squats, you don’t need fancy equipment or a gym membership to start reaping the benefits.
You can do them in the comfort of your own home and eventually you can add weights or increase your reps as you get stronger. It is best to start with 3 reps of 10 squats each. Do make sure that you follow proper form while doing them to avoid injury.
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