Finding Fitness: The perfect squat

Welcome back to another article on personal fitness and nutrition. 

Hope you had an awesome week and accomplished some healthy goals. If not, it’s never too late to start a new journey.

I encourage everyone to take this article and use it as fuel to ignite their fitness “fire.” The goal is to turn that little, tiny spark into a blazing inferno.

It will happen! 

Exercise

A great way to get the body warmed up and burn a ton of calories is a movement called the squat.

Now, I know what you are thinking. Who doesn’t know how to squat? But it is a common misconception on what a true squat looks like and how it should feel. 

So please, hear me out. 

To begin, stagger your legs a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Make sure your toes are pointed out slightly. This will help your knees follow a natural path. 

Next, take a deep breath in and start to squat your body weight. It should feel like you are going to sit into a chair. Then you need to let your knees follow the way your feet are pointing out. They should not bow in or out at any time in the movement.

Your chest should stay elongated and your neck in a neutral position. 

Next, aim to descend until your thighs are parallel with the floor beneath you. As you get more comfortable, try to increase the depth of your squat and increase the range of motion in your hips and legs. 

After the descent, use your thighs and glutes to push yourself back up. Make sure to take the first few sets slowly and in front of a mirror or camera to make sure your form is good. 

If you feel the movement in your thighs and glutes, you are most likely performing an effective squat. 

As you get comfortable with squatting your body weight, try holding some additional weight close to your chest as you exercise. This can help you gain strength and endurance in your legs.

To start, aim for three sets of 6 to 10 reps.

Nutrition

Last week we talked about whey, a protein that can quickly move to muscles and start repairing or building new muscle cells. All protein can help build muscle and increase strength, but some are more efficient than others. 

Another favorite protein of mine is casein. Casein is protein that is slowly digested in our bodies. This not only helps our body recover, but can also help you feel full longer.

I suggest it to anyone who is looking to gain muscle and/or weight. Casein can be used at any time of day, but I use it at night to help increase muscle repair as I rest. One of my favorite bedtime snacks is a bowl of instant oatmeal (any flavor) with one scoop of casein. It helps the oatmeal get a thicker consistency almost like cookie dough, which helps me keep from diving into the cookies themselves! 

That is it for this week. I hope you learned something new that pushes you to keep bettering yourself. 

Next week, we will take a look at some easy ways to increase calf strength. Also, I have a pretty cool Wisconsin company here to explain its journey into the fitness and nutrition space. 

Always remember these three words: Never give up!