How to Perform the Bodyweight Squat for Maximum Results
The squat is one of the best exercises for toning and building your glutes, aka your "booty." It's also one of the all-time best resistance exercises for building your cardiometabolic health.
When performed correctly, squats target all the major muscles in your butt, also known as the "booty," including the gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus. In addition, squats work your hamstrings and quads – your large leg muscles.
Most people don't realize this, but when you do squats correctly, they provide an excellent workout for your abs, -especially as you add weight.
Add planks to your 20-minute resistance training workouts, and you build a fantastic body stabilizing -core -and even six-pack abs with a proper body re-composition diet.
The squat is also one of the most high-value resistance training exercises for maximizing cardio-metabolic health.
A recent study found that breaking up your sitting with (i.e. 100-minute walks) every 30 minutes can significantly boost your metabolic health. It can prevent or assist with diabetes prevention or reversal and help you live longer.
The study found that those who took regular super-short micro-movement breaks every 30 minutes had lower plasma glucose and insulin levels than those who sat continuously. They also had lower blood sugar than those who exercised for just one typical workout.
It's believed that this is because frequent bouts of low-intensity micro-exercise help to increase muscle permeability and keep GLUT4 ready for transporting glucose to fuel our cells.
In other words, your muscles are better able to absorb excess glucose from your bloodstream when you move more frequently. This is true even though those movement periods are very short.
Not only that, but those short movement breaks are even better for your health if you've built larger, stronger lower body muscles.
The bigger and stronger your glutes, leg muscles and core are from your 15-20 minute weighted resistance training bouts (2-4 times per week), the more you'll benefit from your frequent (as few as 100 steps) micro-movement breaks throughout the day, as those already large muscles become even bigger, stronger and leaner.
So when you take short movement breaks and go for post-meal walks, you activate more muscle and metabolize more glucose just by walking.
The squat is a Very Complex Skill -Practice and Use Visualization to Master it.
It is critical to first spend a few weeks mastering proper form and technique when it comes to foundational resistance training exercises like the squat and the deadlift. This increases your chances of avoiding injury and enables you to maximize the incredible health benefits of resistance training by more safely and quickly adding resistance.
You need to build a solid neuro-muscular foundation before adding resistance. As an instructor stated in one of my 2 personal trainer certifications:
"You can't fire a cannon from a canoe."
(I believe quoting famous strength coach Charles Polequin)
It's essential to think of the squat (and many other resistance training exercises) as a complex task or skill, like learning a new dance step.
You want to practice and visualize doing squats daily (i.e. proprioceptive/interoceptive visualization and postural self-correction throughout the day) even while taking breaks.
Always Start By Engaging Your Core – A Protective Weight Belt Built Right into Your Body:
Establishing a neutral lower (lumbar) spine position is critical for preventing injury and for building muscle mass and strength faster and more efficiently.
A neutral lower spine means ensuring your spine is not pushed too far forward or backward or too far toward either side. You want your lumbar spine and hips right in the center. This is because the spine is far more injury-prone when in a flexed vs neutral position.
It's good to practice establishing a neutral spine and engaging your core throughout your day until you can do it quickly and almost automatically. You always want to engage your core before starting each resistance training exercise. Engaging your core when lifting heavy objects in your day-to-day life is also essential.
Here's How to Establish a Neutral Spine and Engage Your Core:
Whether sitting or standing, take a few minutes to start building greater interoceptive awareness of your lower back and pelvic region.
Tilt your pelvis forward gently but thoroughly. Arch your lower back and thrust your hips forward slowly. That's too far forward for when you're doing your squat exercise.
Now push your lower spine away from the front of your body, gently straitening it backward away from the forward hip thrust position. This is too far back for when you're doing your squat exercise.
Now move your lower spine to the middle between the forward and backward pelvic thrust positions.
Next, slowly but gently move your hips from the neutral, center position to the right and then carefully to the left. Moving your hips and lumbar spine too far to the left or right during compound exercises like the squat is a standard error that can lead to injury.
Now center your lower back and hips right to the middle position - not too far to the front, back or sides - right in the center.
Now fully engage your core by pulling your belly button toward your spine, but not so tight that you can't breathe with your diaphragm.
There's also more advanced core engagement. Once you've pulled your belly button toward your spine and your muscles are tightened slightly - try pushing your abs out, slightly and slowly, but with your core muscles engaged.
Heavy lifters often use this advanced core engagement while wearing a lifting belt around their waste. They then push out slightly against the extra support of the weight belt.
Properly engaging your core is like putting on a weight belt that protects your lower back from entering a flexed state. This protects your lower back and other body parts from injury.
In fact, the "transversus abdominis," one of your crucial core muscles, actually wraps around a large part of your midsection in much the same way you would position a weight belt for heavier exercises.
Here's How to Do a Proper Body-Weight Squat Safely and Effectively:
Start with your feet shoulder-width apart. Place your hands behind your head or in front of you for balance. You can also extend your arms outward and upward slightly.
Keeping your upper back straight and core engaged, bend your knees, and lower your hips until your thighs are parallel to the ground.
Move your shoulders back and slightly down. Engage your core and breathe slowly but firmly through your nose.
Begin the movement:
Go all the way down slowly, but don't rest on your laurels - you want to keep an optimal state of lower body and core muscle tension, especially in the lower part of the squat movement where your glutes are most engaged.
Make sure to keep your shoulders straight and your knees pointing in the same direction as your feet, which can be pointed slightly outward if that's more comfortable for you.
Pause for a moment in this low squat position and do a quick body scan to ensure you're maintaining proper body posture, including a neutral spine with core engagement, then press through the center points of your feet to return to the starting upward position.
Don't lock your knees out at the top of the movement.
Like establishing a neutral position with your lumbar spine, you also want to develop and maintain a neutral position with your feet.
You don't want to over-press through your heels or lean too far forward onto your toes. Avoid rolling too far into the arches of your feet. And avoid moving toward the outsides of your feet. You want to push through the center of your feet, especially if you're new to resistance training.
Bad foot positioning can result in not getting the full benefit of the exercise. Again, you want the weight to go right through the center of your foot. For instance, wearing shoes with too much arch support can cause the foot to collapse inward and put undue stress on the knee joint.
Proper Breathing is Essential - Here's How:
Make sure to breathe correctly when doing squats and all other resistance training exercises.
When it comes to doing bodyweight or air squats or squats with lighter weights or resistance bands, you want to breathe in slowly on the way down and out on the way up.
This type of breathing is called aerobic respiration, and it's how our body utilizes oxygen to create energy aerobically.
You want to breathe in and out fully here. Still, you must keep your core fully engaged and your feet, knees, spine and shoulders in a neutral position, with proper postural alignment.
However, when you start squatting with heavier resistance bands or with a barbell (for example, anything over 60-70% of your 1 rep-maximum), it is advised to take a large breath starting from the upper position, primarily into your chest while keeping your core engaged - protecting your spine and holding this breath through the entire repetition.
You then blow the air out at the top of when you return to the top of the movement through pursed lips to increase oxygenation when you again breathe in or repeat.
This type of chest breathing enables your lungs, brain, and body to maintain essential oxygenation. At the same time, you shift into "cellular breathing" or anaerobic respiration, which allows your muscle cells to produce energy without using oxygen.
While this type of breathing isn't usually needed for higher repetition sets with low weight, it is crucial when squatting heavy for fewer reps.
Here are Some Common Square Errors You Want to Avoid:
Heels coming off the ground. This significantly increases the risk of ankle sprains or other foot injuries. It can also cause misalignment in other parts of your body.
Allowing the knees to collapse inward. This puts pressure on the inner knee joint and extra stress on the knee's medial (inner) side, which could lead to life-interfering injuries such as ACL tears.
Not keeping the feet in line with the hips/femurs and failure to keep the feet pointing in the same direction as the knees. This puts unnecessary knee strain and can lead to joint pain or instability.
Letting your knees go too far forward (i.e. past your toes), can be bad for the joints. There are some advanced knee over toes exercise protocols. Still, these must be authorized by a medical professional and involve advanced training to do correctly.
Leaning too far forward or backward. This takes the load off the muscles designed to support the spine and can lead to lower back pain.
Not paying attention to where your eyes are focused can cause you to lose balance; you want to keep your eyes looking forward directly in front of you. It's a good idea to have a fixed object or place on the wall to focus your gaze as you perform this exercise.
Another standard error is ignoring the abs muscles or forgetting to engage and maintain core-muscle. Again, think of engaging your core as putting on a weight belt that protects your lumbar spine and many other body parts from injury. You wouldn't want it to fall off during your resistance training. And you would not want it to be on too loosely or too tight.
Letting the hips shift forward during the squat. This causes the lower back to round and strains the spine unnecessarily.
Descend too quickly into the squat. This increases the load on the muscles and connective tissues, leading to injury.
Use excessive weight. When bodyweight squats are done with too much weight, it increases the risk of injury to the knees, lower back, and other joints. Again you want to practice with air squats for the first few weeks, prioritizing mastery of the correct body-mechanics
Not squatting deeply enough. Not squatting low enough means you're not getting the full range of motion. Not getting the range of motion leads to poor large muscle engagement, flexibility loss and improved joint health.
At the same time, don't over squat or rest on your laurels. This can also cause injury and reduces or stops the muscle tension you want to maintain during the exercise, to maximize muscle volume and strength gains.
When practicing proprioceptive awareness of your core and neutral spine, one must remember to distribute weight evenly across both feet. This can only happen by maintaining an even shoulder position which will require some practice!
Repeat for the desired number of reps.
Some Advanced Body Weight Squat Add-Ons for Even More Resistance Training and Cardio-Metabolic Benefits
For an added challenge, you can do very slow, highly controlled pulses (not bounces -which can cause injury) just before the bottom of your squat. This places even more muscle and strength, building resistance on your glutes.
You can also hold your low squat position for a few seconds before returning to your standing position. But pausing in this way should be done if you can do so with proper technique, body mechanics, posture and a fully engaged core.
Once you gain mastery of the basic posture and mechanics of the bodyweight squat, you can add a jump when you reach the top of the movement. This adds a plyometric variation that will increase your heart rate and build your bone density to boot.
read the above content, and then write a deeply inspirational concluding paragraph, then a call to action to work with me as your online fitness coach
The bodyweight squat is a simple yet highly effective exercise that offers many benefits. This exercise can improve your overall fitness level, increase your strength and muscular endurance, and improve your cardiometabolic health. It is also an excellent way to build bone density, especially if you finish 3-5 of them in a row with a solid jump at the end!
And once you've mastered the complex-task structure or skill (including proper form and body mechanics) you can start to add resistance with resistance-bands as you gradually add and master some the other 4 foundational resistance-training exercises for maximum health-optimization.
If you are looking for a challenging and rewarding addition to your workout, I urge you to try the bodyweight squat. And if you want even more benefits, consider working with me as your online fitness coach. I can help you master the proper technique and ensure you get the most out of this excellent exercise and many others. Contact me today to learn more.
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