Squats for your thighs and butt
Squats strengthen your entire thighs and your butt. If you have lower back or stomach problems, do not try squats. Do leg extensions and leg curls on your weight bench instead. You will still get good results!   Form is everything on squats. Start with no bar and no weights until you get your form correct, then use a barbell only! After 5 workouts with just the barbell, you can start slowly adding weight.   Only do squats with a weight rack that has safety pins! This way, if you can't get straightened back up, you can let go of the barbell and the safety pins will catch the weight so it doesn't hurt you. The pins are adjustable for your height. You can also face the opposite way I am facing - face toward your safety pins.   The key to squats is to rest the bar on the top of your upper back, not against your neck. Then, as you squat, keep the bar going up and down in a perfectly straight vertical line.   This prevents your back from bending, and it keeps the stress off your knees. If the bar moves forward as you squat, you will eventually hurt a knee. If you bend your back during the movement, you will eventually injure your lower back.   Start with shallow squats where you don't go too far down. Slowly squat deeper as you get used to the movement. Trust me - you do not have to do deep squats to get tremendous results.   A warning - if you have a lot of trouble catching your breath after a set of squats, quit doing them - your heart isn't yet up to it! I speak from experience on this. See this page for an easy way to pad your bar for doing squats.

All information on this site is opinion only. All concepts, explanations, trials, and studies have been re-written in plain English and may contain errors. I am not a doctor. Use the reference information at the end of each article to search MedLine for more complete and accurate information. All original copyrights apply. No information on this page should be used by any person to affect their medical, physical, legal, educational, social, or psychological treatment in any way. I am not a doctor. This web site and all its pages, graphics, and content copyright © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 Jon C.