Great Fat Loss Exercise: Squatting

August 28th, 2008

This article is the first in a series of articles, that will dealing with exercises and how to perform them correctly. There are lots of good and bad resources on how to perform exercises, all over the internet. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I’ve decide to compile a short list of good articles and videos, which will help you to learn how to perform these exercises correctly.

The exercises that have been selected for this series, have been chosen for very specific reasons, which are: they increase fat loss, build more muscle and will reduce time spent in the gym. But remember, exercise is only a part of the equation, with nutrition, mood, sleeping habits, and lifestyle chooses as some of other parts. Regardless of what you have heard, no part of the equation is more important than any other part of equation. Lots of exercise, but poor nutrition, will defeated the point of exercising, but so will lack of sleep.

Squat

Overview

The squat is sometimes called the king of all exercise, because many believe it to have the capacity to build muscle faster, loss fat quicker, and improve your general overall physical fitness. I believe this statement to be true, but only if it is performed correctly, otherwise you’ll just end up hurting yourself, which never help anyone.

There are many different types of squats (single leg, hack, sumo, bulgarian, etc) but for the most part we will be talking about the standard two legged squat. The squat is a great compound exercise, which basically means it involves two or more joints. The squat is a pushing movement, which requires the coordination of a large number of muscles to perform correctly. Some of the muscles that the squat uses are:

Because it involves such a large number of muscles, it is sometimes called a whole body exercise. Whole body exercise gives you the greatest bang for your buck.