Earlier I spoke about the hindu pushup as one of the best body weight exercises for the upper body. Today we are going to focus on the hindu squat.
The hindu squat works the entire lower body, strengthens your joints and your balance as well. It doesn't take a lot of room and you can quickly get a good workout.
How to work your lower body with the Hindu Squat
If you can't do a normal squat, this is most likely because of constricted range of motion in your ankles, hamstrings or hips. The hindu squat lets you get the benefits of the squat, but won't put you in (as much) discomfort as a normal squat. Because you do hindu squats and are on your toes during the bottom half of the movement, you don't need that large of a range of motion in your lower body.
This is how the exercise is performed:
How to perform the hindu squat
Start with your feet shoulderwidth apart
Inhale as you drop down to a squat.
As you start to drop down, start to raise up on your toes and reach the top of your toes, when you hit the bottom of the movement.
Your arms start to move forward in a circle and should be straight ahead of you at the bottom of the movement.
At the bottom of the movement start to exhale, lower down off of your toes, pull your arms toward you and start to straighten your legs.
You should have fully exhaled at the top of the movement, feet should be flat on the ground, and arms should be down straight alongside your body.
Sets and reps for training at home with the hindu squat
I prefer using the hindu squat in a pyramid. You start at 1 rep, pause for 1 rep's time, then 2 reps and 2 rep's pause, then do 3 reps and take the equivalent pause and so on. So if 2 reps take 2 seconds, then I take a 2 second break. At some point I reverse the pyramid and go down to reach 1 rep and then I am finished. So a starting rep scheme could look like:
1 rep, 2 reps, 3 reps, 4 reps, 5 reps, 4 reps, 3 reps, 2 reps, 1 rep. All with corresponding breaks.
Once you start getting better and better go up to 10 or 15 or 20 reps.
Just be mindful of your knees. If you start out with too many reps, you will get sore knees. So slowly build your reps and keep at it. Patience is the key!
Classic bodyweight exercises for training at home - Hindu pushup
While a bit cheesy, the above video clearly demonstrates one of the best exercises for training at home: the hindu pushup. It is one of the best bodyweight exercises you can do at home and one of my favourites.
It's a basic push up that uses a lot more of the shoulder complex than normal. Because you have your hands under your shoulders, the exercise is very triceps-centric. Due to the moving back and forth, you really engage the shoulder and upper back.
Workout program for exercising at home
A workout program for exercising at home could be 5 sets of 10 reps combined with some hindu squats, which I will be covering soon. The hindu pushups should work your entire upper body and the hindu squats will work the lower body and your balance. Of course, as always it is important to start out slow, to get your body used to the motions of the exercise and not overstressing your joints.
With regards to breathing, you can either do as they do in the video, which is exhaling when going down or you can do it the other way round. I find that if I do it the other way round, then I feel more of a stretch in the rib cage.
You really can do a lot of exercises just by using your own body. As such bodyweight exercises are perfect for training and exercising at home and I have incorporated them in to my home workout routine.
Bodyweight exercises are really awesome! You don't need to set them up, you don't need equipment and they can be really, really hard...and give you a really nice, lean, non-bulky body.
Coming from a martial arts background, I have done bodyweight exercises for many years and one in particular has really clicked with me: Flowfit by Scott Sonnon.
The primary reason I like it, is because it works on so many levels: it works the upper and lower body, it gives you elastic strength and stretches you, it gives you cardio and it works your body awareness.
The flowfit program
Basically you progress through 6 different exercises, starting at a very basic level 1 and ending at level 4, which is quite taxing. You do these 6 exercises one after another, 1 rep at a time. This is one circle and you do from 5-10 of these. You should aim for around 15-25 minutes of work...and that's it! You can find a lot of examples on Youtube of Flowfit: Flowfit level 3
As a total beginner you will have no problems starting at level 1 and slowly working your way up. Scott Sonnon has a really relaxed attitude towards starting training and training in general and focuses heavily on joint health and body health. So not only will you get stronger, you will also have less pain and feel better!
