Posted on August 13, 2012 by Jenny Cromack

If You Don’t Squat, You Ain’t Squat!

I still find it hilarious looking at the physique of some gym goes, they spend their life developing these gorilla arms and neglect their legs. They shall for the purpose of this blog be referred to as wedges! Developing an amazing strong upper body is pointless and dysfunctional if the force cannot be transferred through the legs. Now if you are happy been a wedge with the lower body strength of a 3 year old girl that’s fine…..stop reading now. But if you want to develop whole body strength and power read on.

The squat is king, it works the WHOLE body and here is why it is so good:

1. It develops functional strength of the whole body! This is great for sports people, I guarantee developing great leg strength will transfer into the majority of upper body movements.

2. Squats improve speed, acceleration and jump height, all great characteristics if your involved in any type of sport, from running to team sports such as basketball, football or rugby.

3. Gain flexibility- due to the constant flexion of the knee in today’s lifestyle (I.e. you spend your day sat in a chair) most people have shortened hamstring muscles, full range squats actually improve the range of motion in the legs. Who said weight training made you inflexible!

4. Strengthen your knees- ignorant foolish people will tell you deep squats are bad for your knees, this is absolute tosh providing correct form is adhered to. There is no evidence that squatting below parallel is bad for the knee joint. In fact research is showing that squatting can remove knee pain when completed correctly, by strengthening the tendons, ligaments around the knee.

5. Create a strong core, deep squats really work the core, especially if you include the overhead and the front squat. But that’s another story for another day.

Even if you are only interested in how you look in the mirror, the heavy squat improves testosterone levels which in turn will help you build your arms much bigger! So include squat variations twice a week and watch your body gain strength like The Hulk!

 

Chris Baird