How many times per week should you squat? You shouldn’t squat more than every few days if using heavy weights. However, squats are an important movement for any strength-building workout. Few exercises are as effective at building lower-body strength than the well-known and well-loved squat. Most people start off with bodyweight squats until they master the movement and then add weights. Then they proceed to dumbbell, and, in some cases, barbell squats. There are advantages to using dumbbells vs. barbells, but you can’t argue with the effectiveness of even the body squat as a muscle and strength builder. In fact, there are a variety of benefits to squatting. Let’s look at reasons you should squat more.
Squats Are a Functional Movement
One of the biggest benefits of squats, besides the way they strengthen your legs and give them a beautiful shape, is they’re a functional exercise and a movement you do often in your daily life. If you keep track, you’ll be surprised at how many times each day you squat down to pick something up. Squats help you do everyday movements more efficiently. Plus, having stronger, quads, hamstrings, glutes, and calves makes lower-body movements from walking up a hill or running to climbing stairs easier and safer. Staying fit and functional matters even more as we grow older.
Squats Build Lower Body and Core Strength
You probably squat to target your quadriceps, hamstrings, and glutes. Squats work all these muscle groups, but they emphasize the quads more than the hamstrings and glutes. But your lower body isn’t the only group of muscles that works when you squat. Your core also gets a workout when you lower your body into a squat.
In fact, a 2018 study that compared activation of the core with planks vs. squats found that the muscles that line the spine, erector spinae, are strengthened 4-times more with a squat than a plank, an exercise designed to work the core muscles. It’s not surprising that the erector spinae muscles activate more during squats since activation of these muscles keeps you from falling forward when you squat.
Squatting Improves Flexibility
When you squat through the full range-of-motion of the exercise (no cheating), it will improve your flexibility too. You’ll get the most flexibility gains if you do deep squats. In fact, partial squats will only improve the range-of-motion in your hips. You need more depth to maximize flexibility gains. That, in turn, can improve how well you can squat and how deep you can go. So, squatting gives you the flexibility and mobility you need for more effective squatting and better range-of-motion.
Squats Will Improve Your Athletic Prowess
By enhancing strength, power, and mobility, squatting more will improve your performance in almost every sport. For example, squatting regularly can improve your vertical jump height and sprinting speed, but how? Squats enhance neuromuscular performance and power output by improving motor unit recruitment and synchronization of those motor units, and that gives you an edge when you jump or sprint. The best way to maximize these benefits is to squat at a high percentage of your one-rep max, around 80%.
Squats Are a Fat Burner
If you’re trying to get leaner, squats are a more effective way to do it than doing isolation exercises like leg curls and leg extensions. Being a compound exercise, squats work multiple muscle groups. In fact, a 2014 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that squats worked more muscle groups and elicited a stronger hormonal response than the leg press. The more muscle groups you work at the same time, the greater the anabolic response. The anabolic response can lead to enhanced fat burning.
Squats Improve Bone Density
If you squat using a high resistance, around 80% of one-rep max, squatting builds bone density. How do we know this? A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research looked at this issue. In one study of older women with low bone density, but not osteoporosis squats using heavy resistance three times per week improved bone density after 12 weeks. The women squatted using a resistance equivalent to 80% of one-rep max. At the end of the study, they had more favorable markers of bone health, improved bone density, and greater muscle strength.
Another study of college-age men and women found that strength training, including squats, and deadlifts boosted bone density in men but not in women after 24 weeks of training. It’s not clear why the protocol wasn’t effective for women.
The Bottom Line
Now you know why you should squat more and squat heavier. Don’t start out using heavy resistance, but work toward it as your strength and fitness improve. Squatting with more resistance builds core strength and bone density. Likewise, work on deepening your squat over time, as that is what will enhance your flexibility and mobility. Keep your form tight too. You’ll get more benefits from squatting if you move properly.
References:
- Shaner, Aaron A.1; Vingren, Jakob L.1,2; Hatfield, Disa L.3; Budnar, Ronald G. Jr1; Duplanty, Anthony A.1,2; Hill, David W.1 The Acute Hormonal Response to Free Weight and Machine Weight Resistance Exercise, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: April 2014 – Volume 28 – Issue 4 – p 1032-1040 doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000317.
- Almstedt HC, Canepa JA, Ramirez DA, Shoepe TC. Changes in bone mineral density in response to 24 weeks of resistance training in college-age men and women. J Strength Cond Res. 2011 Apr;25(4):1098-103. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3181d09e9d. PMID: 20647940.
- Mosti MP, Kaehler N, Stunes AK, Hoff J, Syversen U. Maximal strength training in postmenopausal women with osteoporosis or osteopenia. J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Oct;27(10):2879-86. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e318280d4e2. PMID: 23287836.
- Marián V, Katarína L, Dávid O, Matúš K, Simon W. Improved Maximum Strength, Vertical Jump and Sprint Performance after 8 Weeks of Jump Squat Training with Individualized Loads. J Sports Sci Med. 2016;15(3):492-500. Published 2016 Aug 5.
- Lorenzetti S, Ostermann M, Zeidler F, et al. How to squat? Effects of various stance widths, foot placement angles and level of experience on knee, hip and trunk motion and loading [published correction appears in BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2020 Jan 29;12:7]. BMC Sports Sci Med Rehabil. 2018;10:14. Published 2018 Jul 17. doi:10.1186/s13102-018-0103-7.
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