Saturday 20 April 2013

How to Use the Barbell Squat to Build Muscle

By Dustin Aaron


Lots of people discuss what the king of all physical exercises is. A lot of fitness professionals will likely agree that the squat is one of the best exercise movements for building muscle not just on your hip and legs, but on your entire body. There is no doubt that lifting heavy weight in this exercise will turbo charge your results, but first you will need to learn how to competently perform the movement.

Begin by putting your legs shoulder width apart. There are many variations of the barbell squat. You can execute the exercise with your hip and legs spread like a sumo wrestler, thereby putting more stress on your hamstrings and lower back, or you can squat with a very narrow stance to put more focus on your quadriceps. Utilizing a shoulder width stance will groom you for any variation of the movement.

Before you step under the barbell, you must arch your back as firmly as you can. Using a firm back arch through the entire motion will help to prevent injury to your lower back. Now position your hands somewhat wider than shoulder width on the bar and then step under the barbell so that it is sitting on your trapezoid muscles.

Grasp the bar as hard as you can, and think about arching the bar out of the rack. Once the barbell is out of the supports you should actually sit back with the weight instead of squatting down with it. This sitting back movement will activate your hamstrings and also take most of the weight off of your knees and put it on the more durable hip joints. You might have to lean forward somewhat to maintain your balance, but as long as you sustain a strong back arch a little bit of leaning will not harm you.

Continue to sit back right until your upper thighs are parallel with the ground and then press hard into the floor with your feet until you are standing fully upright. Be sure you keep your entire body tight throughout the workout. This can easily be learned by just gripping the bar as tight as possible and maintaining a hard back arch for each and every repetition. A tight torso and arched back muscles, will help to stop injury.

The squat can be executed with heavy weight for low reps to build power or lighter with higher reps to greatly enhance your stamina and conditioning. Always remember to warm up before you set about to handle heavy weights, and for the sake of your safety it is best to use a minimum of one spotter when you execute the movement.




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