To Squat or Not - A Guest Post

Along the lines of MythBusters, or snopes.com, it would be helpful if there were a site to which you could go to find the truth about the latest health fads. For example, if you Google "Gluten Free" or "Keto" diets you will find 5,540,000 different opinions about whether they work or not. The same goes for squats- you can find information to support whatever opinion you already have.

Many people think squats hurt your knees, will cause incontinence, and if you do too many you will end up injuring your back. However, in terms of scientific evidence, researchers have found that exactly the opposite is true. There are stipulations, of course. First, you need to rule out other injuries. If you have a knee that hurts with walking, it will probably hurt with squatting. If you are dealing with prolapse, it would be good to get that taken care of before squatting. If you have recently had a lumbar fusion, check with your doctor before squatting. Actually, I met a lady that has had most of her spine fused, and she squats with better form than anyone I know. Which brings me to the second stipulation: It's important that you have perfect form.

Good form isn't good enough in this case. I have met more than a couple people that think they squat well, then start loading up weighted squats and end up with issues. Don't blame the squat because you rushed into it. Take the time to have someone watch you, take the time to try a variety of

100 Squats a Day

A few months ago, my sister, Katie, asked me if I wanted to do 100 squats a day for 30 days. She had seen video online and wanted to try it to see what would happen. I said sure, but wasn't that committed. And, I never really heard anything more about it from her. Several weeks later, I asked her how the 100 squats a day program was going, and she said that she had started it, but never followed through long-term. We talked about it a bit, agreed to be each other's accountability partner, and decided to start May 1st. And that is how our "100 Squats a Day for the Month of May" began!

I've never really done squats, and I'm not sure Katie has either. Neither one of us are experts on the correct form and method. I knew that I should try and keep my back straight, though. And, I thought I was supposed to hold my arms straight out in front of me. Also, the slower, more controlled the squat, the more of a muscle workout. At least, that was my theory and method. I'm not sure what Katie's method/theory was- we never actually talked about how to do squats when planning this. We did end up inviting the Facebook public to join us on this squatting adventure, but I believe only one person did: another sister, Sally.

For the first week, I think Katie and I both did pretty well at keeping up with our 100 squats each day. And, I know that Sally was doing them whenever she had a spare moment - even in the library bathroom as she was waiting on her kids piano lessons to finish! The first several days, even though I tried to break up the 100 into sets of 20 or 25, my legs felt like jelly after each set. I felt a bit like an out of shape weakling working muscles that I've never really worked on before. I never heard Katie or Sally mention any jelly legs; they probably have better muscles going than I. I also found that my upper back would start to ache while doing squats. I figured that I was doing something wrong, or else needed to work on some