Who has not heard the famous phrase “flamencos no, gracias” among the regulars at the gym? This phrase refers to those people who tend to train too much or mainly the upper body while neglecting leg training.

When we talk about leg training , the first exercise we should name is, of course, the squats. They are, without any doubt, the exercise that you should not miss in your leg routine if you want to have a strong and functional lower train. And of course, follow the advice we give you to achieve a correct squat technique.

Anatomy of the squat movement

The movement of the squat is, mainly, a dominant knee movement (doing the push-ups and the extension of it) although it also has a small component of hip flexion (although hardly noticeable, but we are going to lean slightly forward) . Therefore, when flexion-extension of the knee predominates , the main musculature to be recruited are the quadriceps , followed by the buttocks and, to a lesser extent, the ischiosural musculature .

Of course, given that the weight is going to fall on our back , it is very important to have some strength and control over our core , in order to adopt and maintain a “compact” posture throughout the execution of the movement to avoid injuries.

The benefits of the squat talking about strength

When we talk about squats and their benefits , one of the main ones is the considerable increase in strength in our lower train because it is an exercise in which it is very easy to progress in terms of loads and kilos and, if we work them in a way continued, we will have strong and powerful legs . The quadriceps are a large and powerful muscle, and therefore when working on a regular basis, strength gains are going to be considerable.

In addition, and due to the large number of variants that we can find from this exercise , the strength gains can be even greater, since we can work our lower train from different angles and with different stimuli so that we do not always do the same work.

But not only the strength of the lower train is important in speed athletes . In footballers , strength training can improve their performance in terms of speed and firing power if we incorporate it into normal work.

Squats work as prevention for the elderly

But not only squats serve to gain strength, muscle mass or run faster. Through repetitive work performing squats we can perform a prevention work towards the elderly, and even once this time is reached, this exercise can help improve the quality of life of older people, in addition to helping to improve their daily mobility .

However, the work of squats involves repeating a movement that older people tend to have trouble doing at times, as simple as getting up from a chair , a sofa or bed in the morning. Therefore, including this exercise in older people will help them improve their quality of life and reduce the dependence they may have on their day to day.

If you want to be faster, do more squats

If you look at the speed corridors (one hundred meters, 200, 400) his physiognomy is to have thick legs, with powerful quadriceps . This is so due to the workouts they do, and in which, quite possibly, they will include exercises such as squats to gain strength and power in their legs.

While we are gaining strength in our legs, we will be noticing another beneficial effect of performing this exercise on a regular basis : we will be faster, since our legs will be able to generate more force in the tread and, therefore, more power and more displacement in each stride.

Squats will help reduce back pain

Having to work in parallel with the work of our core muscles legs , the squats will also help strengthen this muscular section of our body (remember that the core is not only the abdominal muscles, but also is formed by musculature of the back).

This exercise, along with the deadlift, can be very good allies to reduce and treat back pain by helping us strengthen the posterior muscles, although for this it is necessary that we learn the technique correctly in order to avoid aggravating the ailment.

Squats and their influence on our balance and stability

Another benefit that we can have if we train on a regular basis squats is the improvement of stability and balance . Variants such as the squat pistol or squats on one leg , have a component of instability that will force us to reinforce this physical fitness.

Specifically, one of the muscles that will benefit most from this work would be the gluteus medius , which is one of the main stabilizers when we talk about balance and stability (and which often tends to be stunted and lacking muscle tone, for what a little help to “awaken” it never hurts).

How to increase fat burning with squats

Being an exercise with which we are going to move large weights and in which large muscle groups are involved, the fat burning resulting from working the squats will be considerably greater than it would be with an “isolated” exercise as it could be the bicep curl

Incorporating the work to high repetitions with moderate weights , not only will increase the pulsations, but it will help us to promote the burning of fats. Although also work with high weights at low repetitions can achieve the same effect.