Facts About Squats

Squatting is arguably the best muscle building exercise out there. Weve decided to compose a list of facts about squats that you might (or might not) already know.

Facts about Squats

1. Squats Work the Entire Leg Muscles

Squats are good for growing the quads, hamstrings, calves and glutes generally. They also work the ankles, abs, oblique muscles and lower back.

2. Squats Increase Human Growth Hormone

Squatting regularly will increase your bodys production of Human Growth Hormone, a hormone that speeds up muscle recovery and aids muscle growth.

3. Squats Also Increase Natural Testosterone

The body responds to squatting exercises by producing more testosterone, the hormone which, among other things, determines muscle size.

4. Squats Give You a Good-Looking, Sexy But

Squats make your bum look more aesthetic and more attractive to the opposite sex. This is true for males AND females.

5. Squats Increase Your Endurance

The more you squat, the easier you will the rest of the exercises you do at the gym, no matter what you goals are.

6. Squats Increase Blood Circulation and Oxygen Usage

The more you squat, the better your body will be at performing other physical tasks. This raises your immune system, metabolic rate and energy levels.

7. A Squat Burns Fat at a Faster Rate than Running

Squatting continuously for the same time as jogging, for example, will burn fat faster whilst still increasing muscle mass.

8. Performing Semi-Squats Decrease Mobility over Times

Like with any exercise, use the full range of motion. Squats are no exception. Doing half-rep squats could negatively impact the general mobility of your muscles and joints over time as you train to work within lesser motions.

9. Doing Squats Properly Actually Improves Your Knees

Doing squats regularly without overdoing it to injury will actually build your knee/ankle joints and their surrounding muscles, ligaments and tendons over time. Squats are used in some rehabilitation courses to help people rebuild knee and ankle strength. It is important to always use full range of motion and correct form. 

10. Squats Are Good For Digestion and Help Keep You Regular

Cant produce squat in the bathroom? Try producing squats at the gym!

11. Squats Help Build and Maintain Muscular Balance and Posture

The better you can hold your squat, the better your body can hold itself. Squatting teaches you to keep your back straight, and is great for programming your body to keep the right, healthiest posture subconsciously, too.

12. Squats Strengthen Your Core

The better your core, the stronger your lifts will be in general. Note that it is important to do additional core strengthening work outside of squats as well.

13. Squats Will Make You Jump Higher

The strengthening of the leg muscles used during the squat means that you will have more power accessible for jumping activities. 

14. Squats can help your Run

Since squats help your leg muscles so much, they can add power to your sprint and add joint protection for long-distance runners, too.

15. Get Mentally Used to Intensity

 If you can squat with heavy weights almost till failure for a few reps regularly, you wont have a problem with added intensity in your other exercises. Since squats are one of the most intensive exercises, once youve got this one down it will be a lot easier dealing with other physical challenges during your training.

16. You Can Squat Easily

Squats, push-ups, planks and pull-ups make a great almost-full-body-workout when you cant get to the gym and dont have any equipment with you. Luckily this means that you can get bigger and stronger no matter where you are!

17. Squatting Undoes All the Negative Muscle-moves We Do Daily

Nothing like some good squats to counteract all the bad postures we put ourselves through in daily activities like sitting, computer work and driving.

18. Squatting Can Help Eliminate Back Pain

This is because it undoes negative posture moves like in the point above, and because it helps strengthen the lower back muscles.

Can you think of any other reasons why squats are great? Do you know of any other interesting facts about squats? Let us know below

The Effects of Smoking on Bodybuilding

Looking to take your bodybuilding endeavors to the next level by finally putting down those nasty cigarettes but need the motivation and some information to give you that push you need to quit? Well then, dear smoker, you are at the right place!

We all know that smoking is bad for you, and that it hampers your training progression. Here is a list of reasons why quitting smoking will help you to get bigger, stronger and fitter.

Smoking Harms Blood Sugar Levels

Nicotine causes a quick, short-term release of blood sugar. This is one of the reasons why smoking often leads to diabetes. It also lowers insulin sensitivity, which means that your body is less able to handle sugar and energy production. The less your body is able to create and utilize energy, the less energy you have during workouts and you get tired quicker. Your strength is also hampered, which means that if you didn’t smoke, you would probably be able to lift heavier weights, for more reps, for a longer period of time, causing a greater stimulus leading to greater muscle gains. Insulin helps to regulate sugar and therefore energy. Because your body is less able to regulate energy, it is less able to perform other functions that require energy that it needs to do to adapt and grow muscle, such as filling muscles with glycogen (the energy in the muscle that enables it to work). Because energy is already lowered in smokers, their bodies take longer to change from a stress-induced state that exercise causes to the anabolic, repairing state that grows muscle and strength. When the body stays longer in this stress-induced state, it will start breaking down muscle as a survival mechanism for energy and nutrients.

Smoking affects Your Breathing and Oxygen Levels

One of the most important roles of the lungs is to take in oxygen from the surrounding air and expel carbon dioxide out. Smoking physically damages the lungs, and also progressively smothers the lungs with tar. Additionally, the lungs are also too busy trying to heal and clean themselves out to function optimally. This greatly reduces the amount of oxygen that the body has at its disposal and the amount of carbon dioxide it can get rid of. This leads to decreased energy and strength, lengthened recovery times needed between workouts and a lowered ability for muscle to grow and adapt from stimulus.

Carbon Monoxide and other Toxins

Smoking increases the amount of carbon monoxide in the blood, along with other toxins. The naked eye can see the different between the blood of a smoker and that of a non-smoker. The blood of smokers is thicker and darker than that of non-smokers. If you think about blood and veins as a road which acts as the body’s delivery system, then the carbon monoxide and other toxins can be seen as elephants in the road that take up a space that is not designed to accommodate them. They get in the way of the other vehicles and stop them from doing their job properly, turning an efficient road into peak traffic on damaged roads. The body is also less able to respond the way we want it to with weight training because it is busy fighting off and trying to cope with these harmful chemicals. For example, these chemicals place an unnecessary burden on the liver and kidneys which are metabolizing and eliminating these chemicals, on top of regulating and creating chemicals needed for growth.

Smokers Get More Sick

Smokers get sick more often than non-smokers, and when they fall ill, they are sick for longer and experience worse symptoms. We all know about the terror of falling sick and being unable to gym, as well as feeling like we are losing all the strength and size gains we have worked so hard to get. Getting sick more often means that your body spends less time in the gym, and less time growing from strength to strength and the worse symptoms mean that you suffer greater setbacks every time you get sick.

Smoking Disrupts Eating and Diet Habits

Eating the amounts of food you need in order to gain mass can sometimes be challenging. The increased appetite from quitting smoking is a great chance to stock up on the extra calories that you need to increase muscle growth. In the long term, smoking will no longer interfere with your appetite and blood sugar levels.

Sleep

Smokers not only need more hours of sleep than non-smokers, but their sleep is of less quality. One reason for this is because their bodies spend a lot of time trying to cope with the demands placed on it from smoking. Another reason is because of the nicotine withdrawal they go through while sleep. Getting better quality sleep as a non-smoker means that your body is better able to recover and grow muscle every night you sleep.

Recovering From Smoking Instead of Growing

As mentioned earlier, smoking placed a big burden on the body and the body is in a constant battle to deal with its harmful effects and survive. This energy that the body spends counteracting the negative effects of smoking would be much better spent building muscle.

Smoking and Focus during Workouts

Smokers are less able to concentrate because they are in constant withdrawal from nicotine. This withdrawal starts a few minutes after their last cigarette and builds up as time goes by. Withdrawals usually get to a point where people start craving another cigarette after 30 minutes, which is why the average person smokes a box (20 cigarettes) a day. As time drags on, withdrawals intensify, leading to symptoms like thirst, moodiness, dropped sugar levels, lack of concentration etc. These withdrawals mean that smokers are generally not as able as non-smokers to focus 100% on their entire workout program.

Smokers Take Longer to Build Muscle and Reach Greater Levels of Fitness than Non-smokers

Can you grow muscle if you smoke? Yes. Can you get bigger muscles than most people who go to the gym if you smoke?  Yes. Can you compete in bodybuilding competitions and have a successful bodybuilding career as a smoker? Yes. Can you do all these things with the same amount of time and energy compared to if you didn’t smoke? No. You can still get there, but the road will be longer and tougher.

Rather quit smoking and give your body every fighting chance that you can to reach your goals as quick as possible. STAY STRONG!

The Health Benefits of Sweating

You sweat while you work out, while in the sauna and throughout the day because of heat. Sweat is the body’s way of cooling the body down because of the cooling effect when water evaporates from the skin. In the cave man era, humans were able to run for long periods of time - longer than most animals – because their ability to sweat. Sweating prevented them from overheating, which would lead to collapsing, feinting and even death.

Sweat is smelly and unattractive, but is essential for life. Here are a few benefits of sweating:

• Sweating Prevents death. 

This is because of its ability to cool the body down. If humans could not sweat, then more than 70% of the human population would die within one week. Scary statistics…

• Sweating helps to detox the body. 

Sweating allows the body to release some of the toxins that it needs to expel through the skin. This detox method can release up to 30% of the toxins and impurities that the kidneys and liver would otherwise have to deal with. This eases the burden on the kidneys and liver, allowing them to perform more of their other bodily functions like energy, nutrient and hormone control, metabolism and release.

• Sweating is good for the skin. 

Sweating opens up the skin so that it can receive some of the nutrients and minerals from within. This includes lipids and oils that moisturizes dry skin and also allows the skin to release excess oils that might cause pimples and blackheads. People who sweat more often have better looking skin than those who sweat less.

• Sweating can be used as an indicator to the level of effort used during exercise. 

Although people sweat differently (i.e. some people sweat less after high intensities of exercise while others sweat a lot even when they are not exercising.), without sweat people could push past what is safe because we could be overheating without realizing it. The dangerous effects of overheating progress until death.

• Sweating decreases water retention. 

Sweating gives the body an opportunity to get rid of some of the excess water under the skin. This excess water looks like cellulite, can make people look bloated and hides muscle definition. Sweating also gets rid of sodium, which is an important mineral but can cause health problems. People who follow a typical westernized diet consume too much sodium (the amount of sodium needed is 2400 mg. The average American consumes 7800 mg a day).


People who don’t engage in exercise and therefore don’t sweat often enough tend to have higher levels of toxins in their bodies. They are also more prone to duller looking skin which is more likely to breakouts with pimples or blackheads or whiteheads, rashes, redness, inflammation and flaking.
As healthy as sweating is, sweating too much can cause the body to lose precious nutrients like water and electrolytes that the body cannot survive without. Make sure to replenish water whenever you sweat to stay hydrated and eat a good diet that is rich in minerals and electrolytes. Mineral and electrolyte dense foods are foods like fresh, raw produce (like vegetables, leafy greens, fruit, seeds, nuts) red and white meat, fish and seafood.
It is commonly believed that those who sweat more are healthier than those sweat less. The fitter you become, the more you will sweat as one of the ways that your body becomes more adept at cooling itself down.

Sweating might not be the best thing for your image and it might make you feel uncomfortable, but at least you know that it is a healthy thing to do. Keep hydrated and make sure your diet / supplementation includes the minerals and electrolytes that are lost from sweating. STAY STRONG!