The Secret of Firm Thighs Revealed
December 15th 2006 12:03
I was laughing the other day as I glanced at a women's fitness magazine with a headline about a quick firm up for your thighs. I can give you a surefire firm up for you thighs. Its called the squat.
The squat is the most ballyhooed but least tried of all exercises.In the 90s the muscle mags started to repeat research which seemed to prove that a male following a program of systematic squatting and no other weight training actually sported arms and chests which measured larger at the end of the study. This didn't come as a surprise to me,because I had long believed that leg training is the elixir for overall fitness. You cannot add a regimen of squatting to your program and not get results.
I think that squats send the body a sobering message. They are an intense shock on several systems of the body at once. The large muscles in the legs and buttocks cannot but be stimulated by even one legitimate set of squats. The intense stress on these large muscle groups inevitably leads to stress on the heart and lungs. The skeletal system cannot ignore the pressure a weight placed on the shoulders; the motor response system has to adapt to the vital task of balancing the body as it descends toward the floor. If squats are done in a repeated manner with adequate recuperation the body will undertake to adapt by adding tissue and bone, opening new neural pathways for balance, and increasing the capacity of the heart and lungs. These changes will take place practically everywhere, since squatting involves so many parts of the body.
How to do squats? Here I get radical and dogmatic. I do rock bottom squats. That means I secure a barbell on my shoulders behind my neck and do a deep knee bend until my rear end is touching my heels and I can't go down any further. Sometimes I stop at the very bottom of my squat in order to stop any momentum I might use to bounce. When I start up from the bottom I try to do it with a burst of speed. This gives the legs no choice but to recruit muscle. I also place a block of wood or weight plate beneath my heals to allow my rear end to go all the way to my heals at the bottom of the movement.
I think partial squats are a compromise on the difficulty of the movement. They allow a huge amount of weight to be handled, but I am of the opinion that they are not maximizing all the recruitment of rear end and upper thigh muscles like rock bottoms. I doubt that few who do rock bottoms can use large weights. They are just too hard. That means that the danger of injury is actually lower. Hauling around 400 lbs is dangerous no matter what you are doing.
I do leg extension before squats, because I want the quad warm before I start. I would not hesitate to start a leg workout with squats and do only squats. Five sets of squats is plenty.
If you have never really done squats, start with the bar only and learn the technique first. I advocate that you also prop your heels on a block of wood or a 25 lb plate.
If you don't get real benefits from squatting,you are not alive. But if you are like most of the denizens of the gym the squat will remain a mystery. It is really the secret weapon of firmness(and fitness). Your servant,as always.
The squat is the most ballyhooed but least tried of all exercises.In the 90s the muscle mags started to repeat research which seemed to prove that a male following a program of systematic squatting and no other weight training actually sported arms and chests which measured larger at the end of the study. This didn't come as a surprise to me,because I had long believed that leg training is the elixir for overall fitness. You cannot add a regimen of squatting to your program and not get results.
How to do squats? Here I get radical and dogmatic. I do rock bottom squats. That means I secure a barbell on my shoulders behind my neck and do a deep knee bend until my rear end is touching my heels and I can't go down any further. Sometimes I stop at the very bottom of my squat in order to stop any momentum I might use to bounce. When I start up from the bottom I try to do it with a burst of speed. This gives the legs no choice but to recruit muscle. I also place a block of wood or weight plate beneath my heals to allow my rear end to go all the way to my heals at the bottom of the movement.
I do leg extension before squats, because I want the quad warm before I start. I would not hesitate to start a leg workout with squats and do only squats. Five sets of squats is plenty.
If you have never really done squats, start with the bar only and learn the technique first. I advocate that you also prop your heels on a block of wood or a 25 lb plate.
If you don't get real benefits from squatting,you are not alive. But if you are like most of the denizens of the gym the squat will remain a mystery. It is really the secret weapon of firmness(and fitness). Your servant,as always.
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