Six Reasons to Squat Challenging Loads

1. Build muscle.

Muscle is cool because it promotes good stuff in your body, like better hormone production. Not to mention, it allows you to be strong, useful and independent.

2. Get strong.

Not only will your muscles respond to the load, your nervous system will adapt to the load as well and you’ll get stronger and become more stable.

3. The original core exercise.

Managing difficult weights requires good bracing. All your torso muscles work overdrive to stabilize your spine as your squat. This carries over to all other movements.

4. It’s hard!

Effort expends energy. In other words, it burns calories and can make you sleep better.

5. Bone Density.

You need to load your skeleton to promote bone growth. This is necessary and crucial as you age.

6. Mobility!

First, if you don't squat, there's a chance you never take your ankles, knees and hips through a full range of motion. Squatting give us exposure to these positions, and squatting with a challenging load helps the body get into range of motion you otherwise wouldn't be able to. Over time, your range of motion will improve and your joints will be happy.

For clarification: I purposely did not use the word heavy.

Heavy is relative to each person. And without context, means nothing.

Challenging is more important. And I don't have to add load to make things more challenging, or to feel heavy. There are other variables to manipulate, like tempo, rest or cardiorespiratory demand (aka sprint on an airbike then squat).

Justin Miner

@justinminergain