30 days Squat Challenge

 

30 days squat challenge : 3410 squats - 7 rest days !

Our friend Margie came up with this brilliant idea of challenging our poor butts. We are officially at day 7 today ! and Yes.. the butt is feeling it.. and Yes I am enjoying it.  

The hubby doing his squats... only guy in this challenge

Squat is my running favorite work out just only because I have experienced the benefits of doing it.

 My IT band flared up after my first marathon in 2010. It was really bad. I could not go down the stairs and could hardly run a mile. 

Being a rookie to injury then, I took advices from various people and from google. I tried Active Release Technique ( ART) and was still very much injured after a few treatments. Then I heard my peeps raved about Arrosti and decided to try it. 8 treatments and hundreds spent and I was no better. 

I finally decided to see a PT and the prescribed therapy : squat. I was doing all forms of squat - squat, with stability ball, squat with exercise bands, squat on bosu ball. And it worked. I was out running after 2 weeks of squats. If I had knew that it was so easy, I would not have spent hundreds and suffered for 62 weeks. 

Last year, I developed this persistent pain on my heels which felt almost almost like plantar fasciitis.  So I started a series of exercise to strengthen my feet - go barefooted, picked up marbles with my toes etc etc. Nothing seemed to work. I finally saw a PT and he told me to do one legged squat. Bingo... the pain disappeared after I started the one legged squat routine.  

I swear by squat as the best exercise to complement running. It is not difficult to name 10 benefits of squats: 

1. Maintain mobility

2. Almost entire body work out - no other work out works more muscle than squats

3. Improve balance

4. Gain flexibility

5. Boost performance -  run faster

6. Maintain postures and movements similar to running

7. Develop core strength- stronger abs

8.  Increase endurance with stronger legs

9. Burn more fats

and the most important reason, as what my friend Jaxie puts it

10. We want it  to spring back when it gets smacked :)

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An update on our training : Week 3 of serious training. Body is tired and legs are heavy...so I guess we are doing the training right.  And the good new is that we have pretty much stopped the habit of talking each other into NOT running :)