What Are Air Squats? Exercises, Benefits, and More You Should Know

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What is an air squat?

Squats performed with only one’s own body weight, or “air squats,” are popular exercises that can be found in a variety of fitness programs and routines, including CrossFit. They differ from ordinary squats in that you just use your own body weight to perform them, while regular squats often involve the use of additional weights. Your thighs and your glutes are the areas that should feel the squat the most.

To do an air squat:

Maintain a shoulder-width distance between your feet and a forward-facing stance at all times.

When you squat, your hips will slide backward and down toward the floor.

It is important to keep the natural bend in your lower back, and both of your heels should remain flat on the floor at all times.

When you perform squats in the air, your hips will go lower than your knees.

When performing a standard, weighted squat, you will want to lower yourself as much as you are able to while still maintaining correct form. For some people, this will mean that their hips will go lower than their knees as they perform the movement. When coming up from a squat posture, whether you are doing air squats or standard weighted squats, you will want to drive up (push up) via the heels and use your glutes to return to the standing position.

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How to do air squats: Proper form and safety

When performing air squats, just as with any other type of exercise, you need to make sure that you always employ the correct form in order to maximize the benefits and minimize the risk of injuring yourself. This means that you should begin by stretching and warming up. This is important to keep in mind even if the only exercise you do is squats.

When performing an air squat, you should:

It is not appropriate for your knees to go past your toes.

Your back shouldn’t curve inward at all.

It is important that you should not slump your shoulders forward. Only your lower body should be moving while you are in this position.

Maintain your focus on the wall that is in front of you. Your chest will remain raised as a result of this.

If you feel pain in the knee joints while performing the exercise, you are either going too low or your technique is incorrect. When you put your weight more on your toes rather than the back of your heels, this often causes knee pain since your knees are forced to bear more of your body weight. In addition, you can experience discomfort if your feet aren’t turned slightly outward at an angle.

If you practice squats and find that you have back pain, the most likely cause is that you are accidentally exerting too much strain on your lower back by leaning your chest forward an excessive amount.

You probably won’t want to perform air squats on a daily basis. Instead, you should be sure to give your muscles at least one day off per week to allow them to recover and expand.

Benefits of air squats

Squats in the air are an excellent tool for teaching the correct form for regular squats. As soon as you have mastered them, you will be able to progress to weighted squats safely and with a significantly reduced chance of injury.

Squats in the air are another great exercise for building a strong foundation of lower body strength as well as improving balance. They focus on your thighs, hamstrings, quads, and glutes, in particular, so assisting you in adding muscle growth to these specific areas of your body. Because maintaining balance is essential, air squats can also work your abdominal muscles.

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Who shouldn’t do air squats

There are certain circumstances in which performing air squats as part of your training routine is not a good idea. Squats in the air won’t cut it if you want to make your workouts more challenging. You’ll need to add other exercises to your routine. You can instead advance to barbell squats and lunges with weights if you want to challenge yourself further.

If you’re having trouble getting low enough in an air squat, you shouldn’t push yourself to the point where you risk injuring yourself. Instead, focus on doing as much as you can and gradually increasing the depth of your squats as you progress.

People who are experiencing sciatica nerve pain, which can be felt from the lower back, upper buttocks, and down the thigh, should not perform any kind of squats without first consulting their physical therapist, as the exercise could compress the nerve and irritate symptoms further. Sciatica nerve pain can be felt from the lower back, upper buttocks, and down the thigh.

Air squat workout routines

Squats in the air provide the greatest benefit when they are included as part of a comprehensive exercise program.

You can adopt a regimen from CrossFit Northeast Georgia, which comprises four rounds of each of the following exercises to combine cardio and full-body strength training:

running 200 meters

25 pushups

25 situps

25 air squats

You don’t need much more than your own body weight and a few simple props that you probably already have lying around the house to complete the at-home workout that is provided by NerdFitness. The following exercises will make up your body weight routine:

20 leaping jacks

1 pullup (if you have a bar)

20 air squats

20 pushups

20 lunges (10 each leg)

20 pushups in a decline position, with your legs raised over your chest.

Squat challenges are taken on by some individuals as a method of increasing their strength and endurance. For example, the 30-day squat challenge that is offered by Shape includes not only standard squats but also variations such as air squats, sumo squats, and leap squats. There are other days reserved for rest.