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What Are Air Squats

Updated: Apr 15, 2022



Air squats, also known as body-weight squats, are frequently employed in Cross Fit, various workout routines and utilized for rehabilitation purposes. Air squats are a fundamental leg exercise that involves lowering your body to approximately 40 degrees angle dorsiflexion and 95 degrees angle hip flexion. Air squats strengthen your quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, while enhancing your hip strength and better mobility of your spine.


What Are The Benefits Of Doing Air Squats.


Air squats enhance our core foundation while balancing our lower body. Air squats strengthen our quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, and hips while enhancing our spinal mobility. Since we are constantly balancing when doing air squats our lower-body muscles, including abductors (muscles used to pull away from the middle of the body) and adductors (muscles used to pull toward the middle of the body) are engaged, which also enhances our core strength while strengthening our upper back and stabilizing our spine.


How To Do Air Squats.

  • Maintain a shoulder-width stride with your feet pointed straight ahead.

  • Keep your gaze fixed on the wall since this will cause your chest to be in a proper position.

  • Your hips will move down and back when you squat.

  • Your knees should not extend past the tips of your toes.

  • Your lumbar curve should be maintained and your heels should remain flat on the floor.

  • Your lower body should be the only part of you moving.

  • Your hips should sink slightly lower than your knees.


Important To Maintain Proper Form.


To ensure you don’t experience pain in your knees make sure you don’t go too low (past 40 degrees) and use proper form. Sometimes knee pain can be attributed to placing your body-weight more towards your toes instead of the back of your heels. Another cause for knee pain can be a result of your feet being turned outwards at a slight angle.


If you are experiencing back pain while doing air squats it may be caused by inadvertently leaning your chest forward too much and this will put pressure on your lower back. One way to correct this is to keep your head up and fix your gaze on something at a higher degree and consciously be aware to squat towards your heels and not your toes.


My Personal Air Squat Workout Routine.


I incorporate air squats into everyone of my full-body workouts. During my air squat exercises I ensure to change up the spacing of my stance. For additional exercises I like to incorporate a balancing board and resistance bands into my workout.


The following are the different air squat routines I use to alternate between each workout.

  • Wide Stance – known as the Sumo Style.

  • Medium Stance.

  • Narrow Stance.

  • Slow speed – I take between 3 to 5 seconds to lower to 40 degrees and 3 to 5 seconds to stand at 95 degrees. I ensure to not lock my knees since I want to have constant resistance to fatigue the muscles.

  • Fast speed – squatting as quickly as possible. Always ensuring to squat to 40 degrees and stand at 95 degrees.

  • Using resistance bands to add resistance in all noted air squat positions.

  • There are various positions of the resistance bands you can incorporate into your workout.

  • Using a balancing board with the medium and narrow stance with or without resistance bands.


In Summary.


Our legs are responsible for practically every movement we make, from getting out of bed to our every day activities. Air squats and other similar strength-training exercises can help tone and build the muscles in our lower body. When these muscles are in good shape we are able to maintain a quality of life whereupon we are healthy, comfortable and able to participate in numerous life events.

About The Author: Steve is a Christian Blogger, Videographer, Research Analyst, and Personal Trainer who has a passion of bringing positive content while enhancing the lives of others through his blogs and videos.





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