{"id":13852,"date":"2019-02-04T14:09:09","date_gmt":"2019-02-04T22:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeandhealth.wordifysites.com\/?p=13852"},"modified":"2019-02-14T11:39:39","modified_gmt":"2019-02-14T19:39:39","slug":"the-top-5-reasons-to-squat-every-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/fitness\/the-top-5-reasons-to-squat-every-day\/1413852.html","title":{"rendered":"The Top 5 Reasons to Squat Every Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever gone to the gym and thought, what am I supposed to do?<\/em> We get it. The gym \u2013 the people, machines, and a multitude of options \u2013 can make \u201cbeing fit\u201d all too intimidating and therefore, it\u2019s easy to give up.<\/p>\n

But, here\u2019s some good news: there\u2019s one exercise that can you can make your default movement any and every day of the week. That movement is the glorious squat. I personally believe that there is no better movement than the squat (unless it\u2019s something combined with a squat).<\/p>\n

(Heads up: This article will primarily discuss doing squats with your own body weight, which are sometimes called \u201cair squats\u201d. However, the following principles also apply to squats with weights if performed correctly.) <\/em><\/p>\n

Squats are an innate human function<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first and most important reason why squats are important is that squats are natural<\/em>. Did you know that you squat multiple times a day? Sitting, standing, and using the restroom all require you to squat. If you want to be a functional human being, it would be a good idea to keep one of your most basic movements in strong working order. The more that you build your squatting muscles, i.e. your quads, hamstrings, calves, and abs, the longer you\u2019ll be able to function normally and even optimally.<\/p>\n

Squats increase your mobility and balance\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re out of practice, trying to sink into a full-depth squat might not feel very good, or even be possible at this point. That\u2019s okay. You\u2019re just a little rusty. When you don\u2019t practice the squatting movement, your muscles and joints get tighter and less mobile.<\/p>\n

This probably wasn\u2019t the case when you were a young child. If you observe children, they naturally squat to full depth with an ease that\u2019ll make you jealous. But once children hit kindergarten and start sitting in chairs more often, their natural flexibility begins to diminish.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>That said, it\u2019s possible to get back to our original squatting ability. Do a little each day. If you can\u2019t get all the way down to parallel as in the image to the left, you can use a chair, medicine ball, or some other stable object that can assist you. Make sure not to use the assistance of your hands though, as this will defeat the point of strengthening your legs. Try to go down a little further each day. Before you know it, you\u2019ll be all the way down to parallel and beyond.<\/p>\n

Squats increase your circulation<\/strong><\/p>\n

A study<\/a> published in the American Heart Journal states that \u201csquatting from the standing position increases arterial blood pressure, cardiac output, and \u201ccentral blood volume\u201d in normal subjects\u201d.<\/p>\n

Simply put, squatting gets the blood moving around your body in a more efficient manner. Good blood circulation is imperative to good health because blood carries oxygen to the brain and all other parts of the body. Poor circulation can lead to diabetes, thyroid disease, hypertension, and obesity.<\/p>\n

Squats can strengthen your legs and the rest of your body<\/strong><\/p>\n

Squats have the unique ability to encourage muscle development in your entire body. Because squatting is a compound moment that recruits about 70% of your body\u2019s muscle mass<\/a>, natural testosterone, growth hormones, and other anabolic (building) hormones are released acutely. These natural anabolic hormones are secreted for the purpose of helping your body build muscle. So, don\u2019t neglect your squats because it\u2019s a natural way to boost your ability to build muscle.\u00a0This is especially the case when you do squats under a heavy weight.<\/p>\n

Squats burn fat<\/strong><\/p>\n

When you step into most gyms, you\u2019ll see rows and rows of cardio machines: treadmills, ellipticals, recumbent bikes, and so on. Each of these machines has a \u201cFat Burning\u201d feature on it. We generally associate\u00a0fat burning with these kinds of cardiovascular activities, but in squats, you actually also gain the benefit of burning a large number of calories while doing the movement. Not only that, you get the added benefit of burning more calories even after the movement is finished.<\/p>\n

This fact is connected to our previous point about muscle gain. It\u2019s been shown that adding one pound of muscle contributes to burning 50 more calories per day. Doing squats is one of the best ways to pack on the muscle. If you were to gain ten pounds of muscle, you could passively be burning an additional 500 calories per day.<\/p>\n

In my next article<\/a>, I\u2019ll share how to squat with the proper form, so you can get the most out of this important exercise.<\/p>\n

\n

Original\u00a0header image from Advanced Human Performance<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever gone to the gym and thought, what am I supposed to do? We get it. The gym \u2013 the people, machines, and a multitude of options \u2013 can make \u201cbeing fit\u201d all too intimidating and therefore, it\u2019s easy to give up. But, here\u2019s some good news: there\u2019s one exercise that can you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1713,"featured_media":13854,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[194,579],"thb-sponsors":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-13852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","tag-fitness-2","tag-squats","post_format-post-format-image"],"acf":[],"views":15219,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13852","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1713"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13852"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14608,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13852\/revisions\/14608"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13854"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13852"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=13852"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=13852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}