Perfect Your Wall Squat Form | Form Check | Men’s Health Muscle - video Dailymotion

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Perfect Your Wall Squat Form | Form Check | Men’s Health Muscle

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00:00 From lunges to squats to deadlifts to kettlebell flows,

00:03 there are a whole ton of advanced leg exercises out there

00:06 that can really help you build

00:07 a ton of leg muscle and strength.

00:09 But if all of those seem way too daunting for you

00:11 and you're just starting out in the gym

00:13 and you're not really sure how to go about

00:15 really building your legs and getting comfortable,

00:17 there's a much simpler exercise

00:18 that we can go to to start things out.

00:20 And that is something called the wall squat.

00:22 Now with the wall squat,

00:24 we're not even gonna have to pick up any weights.

00:26 All you need to do this, so you can do this anywhere,

00:29 is a wall and it is a really great way

00:31 to start learning this idea of knee flexion,

00:34 which is essentially bending your knee

00:36 and we're gonna have great range of motion over that.

00:39 We're gonna be very comfortable with that over time.

00:41 But if you're not, if you're not sure,

00:43 if you've been injured for a while,

00:44 you just haven't been in the gym,

00:45 then we can start with a move called the wall squat.

00:47 On top of really giving you a good start in knee flexion,

00:51 it's going to be an isometric exercise.

00:53 So that means it's a much easier contraction on your body.

00:56 It's gonna help you build awareness.

00:57 It's gonna help you build overall body positioning.

00:59 And once we master that,

01:00 we can move on to more challenging leg exercises.

01:03 Now, how do we master the wall squat?

01:05 We're gonna show it to you in just a couple of steps

01:07 because this is a great beginner move.

01:09 Let's go over that right now.

01:10 So we've got Brett here to help us demo the wall sit.

01:12 And the great thing about this move is literally

01:14 all you need is the wall and yourself.

01:16 So if you're in a hotel, if you're on the road,

01:19 this is something you can do anytime, anywhere.

01:22 Setup for this exercise is incredibly simple.

01:25 All Brett's going to do,

01:26 he's going to lean against the wall,

01:27 make sure your entire torso is against the wall

01:30 and you're not overarching your back,

01:31 but you're thinking of keeping your rib cage down.

01:34 Then all Brett's going to do from here

01:35 is he's going to start to sit down

01:38 and he's gonna walk his feet forward ever so slightly.

01:41 The goal of the wall sit,

01:43 the place we're looking to live in this

01:44 is with our thighs parallel to the ground,

01:48 fully parallel to the ground,

01:49 and our shins fully perpendicular to the ground.

01:52 So Brett can actually ever so slightly kick his feet in.

01:56 And then from there, all he's going to do

01:57 is think about squeezing his shoulder blades,

01:59 squeezing his abs,

02:00 and now he's essentially set up in the wall sit.

02:02 Now there are a couple little things

02:04 we want to make sure to get right while in the wall sit.

02:06 The biggest being,

02:08 we want to keep our glutes involved in this.

02:09 So it's really easy.

02:11 Brett's legs could come in.

02:13 If his knees are in, that is not where we want to be.

02:16 But the moment he squeezes his glutes,

02:19 his knees will instantly pop out

02:21 because our glutes are going to help create

02:23 that abduction for our thighs.

02:25 Once he's there,

02:26 he wants to make sure his entire foot

02:28 is driven into the ground.

02:29 He's thinking about driving his heels hard into the ground.

02:32 The wall sit is not meant to be an exercise

02:34 that you just hold for say three, four, five minutes.

02:37 That seems really, really, really cool.

02:39 But if you can hold it for three, four, five minutes,

02:41 again, you want to go to an advanced, a more advanced move,

02:44 or you want to learn how to create tension better

02:47 in the classic wall sit.

02:48 So Brett is really driving his feet into the ground.

02:50 He's squeezing his glutes so his knees continue to open.

02:53 And he's really focusing on flexing his abs

02:55 and flexing his shoulder blades.

02:57 And he's just holding the position.

02:58 Now this is work for Brett.

03:00 And we want to make sure that it's work.

03:02 That's how we know we're doing it right.

03:03 Now, as you advance in the wall sit,

03:05 we can gradually use this move in another way.

03:09 We can use it to get more comfortable

03:10 in other positions of knee flexion.

03:12 So now what I'm going to ask Brett to do

03:14 is he's going to, instead of having his thighs parallel,

03:17 he's going to lower his torso

03:19 just another three or four, five inches.

03:23 And now he's once again in that same hold,

03:26 still thinking about flexing his quads and his hamstrings,

03:29 except he's doing it from a more stretched position.

03:32 He's getting a lot more stretch

03:33 at the knee joint for those quads.

03:36 So we've added a little bit of challenge

03:37 and we're not even creating more challenge.

03:40 This isn't necessarily harder or easier

03:42 than the wall sit that we just showed you.

03:44 What we are doing though,

03:45 is we have changed the angle of isometric tension

03:48 that we're creating.

03:49 And by doing that, we've just changed the equation

03:51 a little bit for Brett.

03:52 You can play with different heights

03:54 and different positions within the wall sit as you advance.

03:57 Try to do say two sets at thighs parallel,

04:00 then two sets a little bit lower,

04:01 then two sets a little bit higher.

04:03 You're just working different sets of awareness.

04:05 You're building a lot more awareness for your body

04:07 and you're building a lot more isometric control

04:09 that will then translate to your bigger and stronger leg

04:12 lifts as you progress on your fitness journey.

04:14 So that is the wall squat.

04:16 And again, super simple, super easy, travels very well too.

04:20 How do we wanna use this in our leg workouts?

04:22 If you're just starting out,

04:24 this can be a main leg exercise for you

04:26 where we're just starting to build and feel

04:28 what it feels like to create tension in our legs.

04:31 Use it in this situation for say two to three sets

04:33 and work up to really owning 45 to 60 good seconds

04:38 on that wall sit.

04:39 If you can hold it much longer than that,

04:41 then they're one of two situations happening.

04:43 One, you are either not creating enough tension

04:45 and you're just kind of swimming through the move,

04:48 you're really not taking it seriously.

04:49 Or two, it's gotten too easy for you

04:52 and it's time to start stepping up

04:53 to those other advanced leg exercises

04:55 like the squat or the lunge

04:57 and learn something that's gonna take you

04:58 through a different contraction.

05:00 Either way, you can get a whole lot out of the wall sit.

05:02 The one thing you don't wanna do is waste time

05:05 doing what you're gonna see a lot of guys do on Instagram

05:07 and stacking plate after plate after plate on your thighs

05:10 so that you think you're loading that much more.

05:13 If you can do all that,

05:14 you're better off taking on a more complex squat

05:17 and starting to challenge a full range of motion contraction

05:20 and getting away from the isometric idea.

05:22 But when you are starting out,

05:23 just take on that wall sit,

05:25 get really, really comfortable with it

05:26 and it's gonna set the stage for leg gains to come

05:29 as you get more advanced in your training journey.

05:31 (upbeat music)

05:34 [BLANK_AUDIO]

Perfect Your Wall Squat Form | Form Check | Men’s Health Muscle

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