Exercise Plan - Quadricep Workout Through Squats

Margie Weiss: Hi, my name is Margie Weiss and this is the quad exercise video. Continuing on what we were talking about on quads, we did a basic quad exercise which is against the wall, progressing we are going to squats off the wall, which means that your core stability is much more important. The easiest way to do it is to have a bar in front of you so that you can use it for support and what Janis is going to do here with her feet shoulder width apart and her belly into her backbone, her head neutral, she is just going to bend her knees. Notice that her knees are behind her toes. She is going down to about 90 degrees and as she comes back up, she is pushing through her heels. Knees are soft which means that they are not locked out. In that way when she goes down and up you will notice that continuous action rather than a jerk and a snap. Belly is always engaged. This is the easiest way to do it. Now, if you want to get tricker, harder, you can always put these weights on your body, so that you add some weight. You can put them over your shoulder and to do that safely, you put it on the back of the shoulder blade, not on your neck. You don t want your neck leaning forward. You want your chin still neutral and for women you tend to be a little bit wider, but as she squats notice that her back is neutral, she still has her knees behind her toes. She looking out in front of her, most people want to look at the floor, which then tips your chest. So, you want to look straight out. Look at yourself in the mirror and smile because you love squat. We are going down and up nice and smooth. Now, there is another option, if you don t like the bar on your shoulder, you can always take that bar safely over head and bring it in front and just cross your arms and you can do the exact same exercise. Some people like this option better. There a lot of options, there is not one thing that you have to do. You do what you like because then you are going to do more. In terms of the numbers of the exercises that you are going to do, it s going to depend on the amount of weight, how many you have done in the past, whether you are used to it or not. You will always figure, 10-20 is probably a good amount. If you happen to do 5000 of them, the weight is probably too little. If you decide you don t like the bar at all, it s very cumbersome for you, you can do the same exercise using hand weights. Any place on your body works, you can have them at your hips, you can have them on your shoulders if you want. It s just adding weight to your body, so that as you do those squats, we are making the legs work a little bit harder than they would with just your own body weight. So, the idea is take those weights on, off. You may want to do some of the workout with them on. You can put them onto the shoulders to change. Shoulders are low, chin is neutral or you can just go with no weight. As you get more tired, you can always just get rid of the weights and continue the last few without the weights. So that way you get a little bit extra out of your workout.