The squat is the greatest exercise

Since I added the squat to my fitness program a few years ago, I’ve slowly gained a serious appreciation for this exercise.

In fact, I will just go on record and say this… I think the squat is the greatest exercise you can include in any fitness program.

The beauty of the exercise is that you can start out doing them with your own body weight and then progress to squatting with hundreds of pounds on the bar if you so desire.

Regardless, you will derive substantial benefit from performing this exercise, whether you do it with light weight and high reps, heavy weight and low reps, or somewhere in between.

Let’s take a deep dive into the squat and why it should be included in the strength training program for any Champion of Aging.

The Squat Trains The Most Muscle Mass

First of all, let me define the version of the squat that I am talking about here… the low bar squat.

With the low bar squat, instead of the barbell resting on top of your shoulders, it is placed a couple inches lower.

This forces you to bend at the waist a bit as you descend into the squat in order to keep the bar over the center of your feet.

It is critical that you do that in order to train the exercise efficiently.

By bending at the waist the muscles of the core and back are engaged a bit more, and the exercise focuses more attention on the hips than the quadriceps.

As a result, more muscle mass is incorporated over a longer range of motion when performing this version of the squat.

Because more muscle mass is incorporated through a greater range of motion it is better for developing overall general strength.

Starting Out Training The Squat

If you are completely new to strength training, you can start out just by doing body weight squats, or you can hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in your hands and perform a goblet squat.

The key is that you perform the exercise with a complete range of motion.

A correct, full squat occurs when the hip joint drops below the top of the kneecap.

This effectively results in the top of the thighs being parallel, or slightly below parallel to the floor at the bottom of the squat.

If you fail to drop down to that level, you have not performed a full squat.  Instead, you have performed a partial squat.

While trainees can partial squat with far more weight than they can full squat, they are training less muscle mass, and therefore, placing less stress on the body to create the strength adaptation we desire.

The squat is a natural human movement pattern

One of the big reasons why the squat should be the cornerstone of any strength training program is because it is a natural human movement pattern.

At one point or another, every human being has squatted.

In fact, in some cultures, squatting is second only to standing as the most common posture.

Unfortunately, in wealthy cultures, many people get away from squatting.

As a result, they can suffer from major quality of life issues due to an inability to get up out of a chair or off of a toilet.

Here are the other reasons why the squat is so effective…

• It is safe.  Performed correctly, it is simply a loaded version of a natural human movement pattern.
• If offers a wide range of dosing.  Training can start with as little as a partial bodyweight squat and go from there.
• The squat is a compound exercise involving multiple joints.  No other exercise recruits as much muscle through a large range of motion.
• The squat will help you get healthier by having a positive effect on metabolism, skeleton and neuromuscular system.

All this is why the squat is the cornerstone of any legitimate strength training program.

Why I have come to appreciate the squat even more

When I first started out training the squat, my goal was to get the weight on the bar up to 300 pounds or more.

However, since I didn’t start training this exercise until my mid-50s, I had already built up some wear and tear on my body.

One of the issues with the low bar squat is that people like me with some limited shoulder flexibility can have trouble placing the bar in the right position on the back.

The result was that each time I would get the weight on the bar up to a certain level, I would start to develop tendonitis in the elbows.

That has an impact on my pressing lifts so I would have to back off on training the squat.

Also, I’ve been dealing with a low back issue for over twenty years, and this has prevented me from training the exercise as consistently as I like.

Some days the back is simply out of whack and it is not a good idea for me to squat on those days.

A couple years ago, a colleague suggested that I get myself a safety squat bar so I don’t have to worry about the shoulder issue.

This has been a game changer or me.

I can now train the squat more consistently.

Back to getting my squat weight up to 300 pounds.

That is no longer a bit priority.

While I continue to slowly improve my numbers on this exercise, I also train some sets with more reps so I can be sure to get the full range of motion I am seeking.

This is allowing me to keep my mobility in my hips, knees and back.

As a former competitive golfer, I have friends and acquaintances who’ve had to undergo hip and knee replacements.

I have no such issues.

Final Thoughts

If you are new to strength training, or you’ve at least been a casual lifter, and you don’t do squats, you should reconsider this exercise.

Most people avoid them for whatever reasons, but they are really missing out on a hugely beneficial exercise.

As I suggested, you don’t need to train them super heavy, and you can increase the weight you train with as slowly as you want.

The key is to just do them and reap the benefits.

Now get to work!