Posted on April 12, 2016 by Jenny Cromack
Its being a while since I’ve written a blog like this. It should really be titled 10 reasons why you should squat, and squat well! Quarter squats from now on termed ‘Ego Squats’ and should be deemed as a sin… unless of course they are required for your sport or rehabilitation. So without further rambling here we are, the 10 reasons why you should squat.
1. Trunk Stability – Squats not only strengthen the lower body but also the trunk, there has even been research suggesting that they provide better trunk conditioning than traditional core exercises such as sit ups and planks. So the next time you think you need to spend the last 15 minutes of your workouts doing ‘abs’ think again…..pick up the bar and get squatting!
2. Functional Strength – You don’t need to do anything special to make a squat a functional exercise. The squat carries over into almost all sporting actions and movements. No need for balancing acts, high wire drills or juggling kettlebells, simply SQUAT
3. Posterior chain strength – Most people are weak in the back, hamstrings, glutes, and trunk. Adding squats regularly to your program, helps someway to helping balance out the rigours of day to day life.
4. Anaerobic conditioning – All I’m going to mention is on this, do a set of 15 repetitions at 70% of your 1RM. Let me know how you feel.
5. Joint Stability – Joint weakness at the ankle, knee, and hip is the cause of numerous sprains, strains and niggles. Not only does the squat help strengthen the ligaments, tendons and joint structures, but it can also can assist in application of power movements, including agility, sprinting and jumping.
6. Neural Stimulus – The squat is one of the heaviest lifts most individuals are capable of performing. The high intensity of the exercise places a large demand on the neuromuscular system improving neural drive, firing frequency and recovery.
7. Flexibility – Weightlifting is often associated with stiff immobile individuals, the actual movement of completing full depth squats, requires tremendous levels of flexibility in the hips and lower body. Simply performing squats goes some way to maintaining mobility.
8. Injury Prevention – Squatting can be manipulated to develop, eccentric, concentric, isometric strength at a particular angle, speed of contraction, the list goes on
9. Hormonal Response – Due to the amount of muscle mass involved there is a huge anabolic response to resistance. Especially when you compare it to isolation movements. For the best anabolic response work through sets of 8-12 at loads of 60-80% 1 RM limiting rest to 120s
10. Potentiation – Literature has demonstrated that the squat can be used to potentiate lower body explosive movements such as depth jumps, box jumps and bounding variations.
So there you have it, the 10 reasons why you should squat. The squat is a very effective exercise, the more and more I train people as a personal trainer, the more I see it carrying over to variables I had never considered. Take home message? Quite simply….squat regularly.