Squats are your friend not foe

Happy new year everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday and are looking forward to hitting the gym this week (if you haven’t already).

Has everyone found it a little hard to get going this week?

One particular exercise can be hard going in the gym…SQUATS! Why do I insist we do them…squats are your friend not foe!

A powerful way to boost your overall fitness and get some serious results…they’re simple to perform, require no equipment, and can be done just about anywhere!

Here’s why we do squats almost every workout session…

1) Builds muscle for your entire body

Squats obviously help to build your all leg muscles, but they also create an anabolic environment, which promotes body-wide muscle building. Squats trigger the release of testosterone and human growth hormone which helps to improve muscle mass & growth when you train other areas of your body aside from your legs.

2) Makes real life activities easier

Squats are one of the best functional exercises out there, as humans have been squatting since the hunter-gatherer days. When you perform squats, you build muscle and help your muscles work more efficiently, as well as promote mobility and balance.

3) Burn more fat

One of the most time-efficient ways to burn more calories is actually to gain more muscle! For every pound of additional muscle you gain, your body will burn an additional 50-70 calories per day. So, if you gain 10 pounds of muscle, you will automatically burn 500-700 more calories per day than you did before.

4) Prevent injuries

Most athletic injuries involve weak stabilizer muscles, ligaments and connective tissues, which squats help strengthen. They also help prevent injury by improving your flexibility through your ankles and hips.

5) Tones your abs & bum

Few exercises work as many muscles as the squat, so it's an excellent multi-purpose activity. These growing muscles participate in the regulation of glucose and lipid metabolism and insulin sensitivity, helping to protect you against obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

6) Helps remove waste

Squats improve the pumping of body fluids, aiding in removal of waste and delivery of nutrition to all tissues, including organs and glands.

Squat at home, squat at the office, squat before dinner and squat in the gym…it’s good for you!

“It’s supposed to be hard. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it. The hard…is what makes it great”