Bodyweight training for the lower body is often ignored due to the low load placed on the body, but that isn’t to say we shouldn’t do it. Especially if we find ourselves in a situation where we don’t have access to weight training equipment.
The squat movement is unfortunately a movement that is being lost, killed off by sedentary lifestyles and machine based strength training. This is a real shame as it is such a primal movement pattern, vital for maintaining health. Strong legs help with the venous blood flow and also in pumping the lymphatic fluid, full range movements help keep the joint (hip and knee) healthy, and good legs look great in shorts!
Here at Wild Geese bodyweight squats are an essential part of our daily routine, it appears in almost every warm up and many workouts that are performed here. In the warm ups we tend to go fairly easy, it’s a time to check how the body is moving and improve the quality of movement, but in the workout we go nuts either with very high reps or by adding a jump.
Being able to perform a full range squat is an indication of good mobility, if you can’t get down then you need to look at the ankles, knees, hips and thoracic spine, one or all of them is preventing you from doing something that is your birthright to do. We’ll look at these points in future videos.
Here a video of the Bodyweight Squat:
And here’s the Wall Squat which is a training drill to assist in opening the thoracic spine and correcting any poor squat technique:
To train your squat, simply do as twice as many of these as you do Push Ups, or go 1:1 with kettlebell swings.
Regards
