Bodyweight Squat

Quote: "Man, the living creature, the creating individual, is always more important than any established style or system." -  Bruce Lee

This is a fantastic exercise to develop cardiovascular fitness, strength and conditioning at the same time.  It is a compound movement, which means that more than one lot of muscles are trained at the same time.  Anyone can perform this movement because we use this movement in our everyday lives by bending over to pick things up.

Bodyweight Squat

The bodyweight squat works the thighs, hamstrings, calves, hips, back and core.

So if you want to get fit and look good for summer, then the body weight squat is the way to go.  There is no excuse for not doing this exercise, you don’t need any equipment and there is no need for a gym. This exercise can be done anywhere anytime.

If you get bored, you can perform variations such as the goblet squat, front squats, back squats, one legged squats and split squats.

Benefits of the Bodyweight Squat

There are many benefits to doing the Bodyweight Squat.  These are health related benefits and performance related benefits.

Health Related Benefits:

  • Fantastic for revving up the metabolic rate and improving conditioning.
  • Improved mobility of the hips.
  • Ability to reduce body fat.
  • Improve strength and balance on the legs to prevent falls from occurring.

Performance Related Benefits:

  • Improves muscular endurance in the legs and heart.
  • Improves performance in other activities and sports that require strong legs such as soccer, football, rugby league/union and track and field.
  • Develop good coordination movement patterns in the legs and hips.

How to do a Bodyweight Squat

  • Stand with your feet pointing out slightly about shoulder width apart. Due to the way people move and issues such as flexibility people will squat with various foot widths.
  • Keep your back straight and in a neutral position.
  • Engage your core.
  • Cross your arms to shift the load onto your hips instead of your knees.
  • Breathe in just before you lower your body.
  • Lower your body to the ground, keep the back straight and let the torso lean forward at about 30 degrees forward and push your knees away from each other.
  • Focus the feeling of the movement onto your glutes, hips, and thighs as opposed to the knees.
  • Lower your body until the tops of your thighs are parallel to the ground.
  • Push your body back up into a standing position.
  • Breathe out at the top.
  • Perform another repetition.

Bodyweight Squat Dos

  • Keep your back straight and in a neutral position.
  • Keep your knees in line with your feet.
  • Focus the movement on the hips and leg muscles.
  • In the standing portion of the movement, keep the hips above and in line with the knees.
  • Engage your core.

Bodyweight Squat Don’ts

  • Rounding of the back.
  • Letting the pelvis tilt too far forward putting stress on the discs of the lower back.
  • Tilt your head to look up, this puts undue stress on the neck.
  • Using momentum and bouncing during the movement.
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