Squat Exercise and Variations – How To Do Squats

What are the benefits of squat exercise and how to do it properly?

SQUAT EXERCISE – Squatting is an easy and popular exercise as it does not require complicated equipment and here are some of its variations.

Cardiovascular and strength exercises can generally help a person improve their overall health. These exercises aim to strengthen and improve certain muscles for a more flexible movement and to prevent injury.

Squat Exercise
Photo lifted from Runner’s World

Squatting, for one, is an example and this is so easy to do.

Here are its benefits:

  • strengthen lower body such as leg and back muscles
  • burn more calories
  • to correct form, balance, mobility, and posture

This exercise also improves core strength and strengthens the lower back. One of its disadvantages includes knee pain. This happens if this particular exercise is not executed correctly and properly.

Check out a few variations based on a post from Healthline below:

  1. Basic squat
    (legs apart at shoulder width, gesture as if you’re sitting down while maintaining your straight back and your arms raised in front of you as you go down then push through your heels to return to position)
  2. Wall squat
    (this is basically just doing the basic squat with the wall at the back for extra support)
  3. Side squat
    (with your feet shoulder-width apart, step your right foot to one side then bend your knee until your thigh becomes parallel to the floor then stand up by stepping your left foot in to meet your right foot)
  4. Pistol squat
    (stand with feet altogether then lift one leg in front of you and squat down through the support of the other leg and stand up then do it with the other one)
  5. Plié squat
    (legs wider than shoulder width and toes facing out on either side, bend knees until thighs get parallel to the floor)
  6. Side-kick squat
    (drop to do the basic one then kick on one side as you come up)
  7. Curtsy squat
    (as the name implies, do a squat as you put your one leg across to the other side like doing a curtsy)
  8. Squat walk
    (go down to basic squat position then walk without having to lift yourself up)
  9. Squat jacks
    (put hands behind the head then jump down to a squat and jump back in to return to the first position)

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