I have written before and I am sure I will write again about the amazing advantages to doing compound exercises.
As a reminder, a compound exercise is one where you have many muscles involved in an exercise instead of an isolated exercise. A few examples of compound exercises are squats, bench press, deadlifts. Isolated exercise examples would be tricep push downs, Flyes, and bicep curls.
Squats are A Fantastic Exercise
One of the greatest exercises of them all is the squat. Squats will work your legs obviously but also your butt, your lower back, your abs, and all the connective muscles and ligaments between them.
My wife started a 30 day squat challenge and I decided to join along with her. I always seem to have a Love/Hate relationship with squats, I love to do them, but I always seem to get a lot of lower back pain the next day if I lift too heavy.
Of course, being a deskbound computer guy does not help me, I have a weaker core than my legs so my lower back is the weak point of squats for me. this 30 day challenge should help that.
What is the 30 Day Squat Challenge?
The idea of the 30 day squat challenge is to do a large number of squats over 30 days. The first day only has 30 squats, but the last day has 175 squats.
I am excited with this challenge as instead of doing squats once every few days so probably 5 times in a month or so, this challenge will have us doing squats for 25 days of the 30 days!
This is something that anyone can try and do. As opposed to the squats that I do at the gym with weights these squats are done with no weights so they can be done in your living room or basement and only take a few minutes a day.
The only thing to worry about with squats is that when you are doing squats you are lowering and raising your body in what is nowadays a not very natural manner. Do not worry if you fall over the first couple days trying this squat challenge. Don’t laugh, I was looking around and did it myself.
- The key to doing squats correctly is to do them smoothly.
- keep you arms in front of you, either crossed or straight out and
- lower your body down as if you were going to be sitting in a chair.
- Don’t go too low, only until your upper and lower legs are at a 90-degree bend
- And finally slowly raise yourself straight up. Form is crucial
Here is a great video that will show you how to do a squat correctly so that you have something to go by.
If you notice in the video, Alycia is showing us how to do the squat with the correct form and even talks about breathing correctly. This looks very easy when she is doing it but don’t worry if you have a bit of trouble as you are getting used to the exercise.
So there you have it. a 30 days squat challenge that will take only a few minutes a day, hopefully not break a lot of sweat, but make you feel in better control of your body as you strengthen your legs, back, and core.
