Whenever we hear the word gym, the two things that strike to our mind is ‘staying fit and weightlifting’. The gym is the place that helps you to stay fit and every single person is crazy about it. No one has to be a powerlifter to come close with their weight training. When we talk about women, they don’t put up the heavyweight, rather they use to exercise to enhance their figure. But when they do, they should take care of their posture.
If we are talking about Squats, there are many mistakes that people do. It may prove to be dangerous for you. To give you an idea, we are mentioning 10 worst squat mistakes at the gym that can be dangerous for anyone:
- Not going Low: Many people don’t enough down while doing squats. It reduces the size and capability you are building in your legs. You must be thinking why it will happen. Right? It is because wrong squats will limit your range of movement and hurt your knees as the force will not shift to your hips.
It is required to keep your legs parallel.Also, just make sure that your thighs are parallel to the ground. If you are unable to go that much low, try Goblet or Zercher squats.
- Collapsing of knees:
Avoid your knees to collapse. It will put stress on your knees and damage the ligaments.
Remember to point your knees in the same direction of your toes. If you feel that your knees are still drifting, secure them using a mini-band. It will help your legs to fight against resistance and activate the correct muscles. - Heels lifting:
Avoid the lifting of heels. This is not a right posture and may harm you in many ways: it creates difficulties and put stress on the knees.
Remember to drive using your heels. To do so, keep your toes upwards whenever you feel that your heels are going up. You can also start doing ankle mobility exercise as it can solve this problem. - Using the same Squat style:
Squat variation makes your muscles stronger and avoids plateaus, so avoid the same kind of squats. Every squat style has its own positive point. Research on it and add it in your exercise routine.
- Avoiding using the safety bar:
Safety bars are must in the case of Squats. Especially when you squat at power rack, set the safety bars just above the height of your shoulders. If you will set them too high, you will never able to exercise in the right way.
This will help you at the time when you will be very tired, you can simply put the weight on the safety bar and relax for some time. - Not straitening your lower back:
It is very important to maintain a flat spine at the time of squatting. If you are rounding your lower back, it means you are putting stress on your lumbar spine. This situation is known as Butt wink.
What you can do is, un-rack the bar, get into your posture, take a deep breath, and exhale harder. It will help you in maintaining the pose. - Avoiding using your glutes:
Glute is known to be the hardest muscle of your lower body, so why can’t you use it while doing squats? Just imagine spreading the ground apart with your feet and activate your glutes. It will help you in increasing strength.
- Speed is not everything:
Avoid raising your hips at a fast speed. It has been seen that many people lift their hips before their shoulder.
This posture is not correct and it may put a lot of stress on your lower spine whenever you are extending the area above your hips.
Never do it again and instead of it, try to raise your shoulders and hips together. - Harmful use of Squat Pads:
Never use Squat Pads. It avoids your legs to be in a correct posture. It will affect the usage of the barbell.
You may not be able to raise it and prevent your upper-traps to tolerate heavyweights. - Smith Machine for squats?
Never use Smith Machine while you are doing your squats as it takes you to a two-dimensional plane and unnatural movement.
It also maintains your weight which may prevent you from getting benefits from squats. Squats will really help only if you are doing your best.
Just avoid these mistakes while doing squats and you will able achieve your body goal.
