Perfect Your Wall Squat Form | Form Check | Men’s Health Muscle
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00:00 From lunges to squats to deadlifts to kettlebell flows,
00:03 there are a whole ton of advanced leg exercises out there
00:06 that can really help you build
00:07 a ton of leg muscle and strength.
00:09 But if all of those seem way too daunting for you
00:11 and you're just starting out in the gym
00:13 and you're not really sure how to go about
00:15 really building your legs and getting comfortable,
00:17 there's a much simpler exercise
00:18 that we can go to to start things out.
00:20 And that is something called the wall squat.
00:22 Now with the wall squat,
00:24 we're not even gonna have to pick up any weights.
00:26 All you need to do this, so you can do this anywhere,
00:29 is a wall and it is a really great way
00:31 to start learning this idea of knee flexion,
00:34 which is essentially bending your knee
00:36 and we're gonna have great range of motion over that.
00:39 We're gonna be very comfortable with that over time.
00:41 But if you're not, if you're not sure,
00:43 if you've been injured for a while,
00:44 you just haven't been in the gym,
00:45 then we can start with a move called the wall squat.
00:47 On top of really giving you a good start in knee flexion,
00:51 it's going to be an isometric exercise.
00:53 So that means it's a much easier contraction on your body.
00:56 It's gonna help you build awareness.
00:57 It's gonna help you build overall body positioning.
00:59 And once we master that,
01:00 we can move on to more challenging leg exercises.
01:03 Now, how do we master the wall squat?
01:05 We're gonna show it to you in just a couple of steps
01:07 because this is a great beginner move.
01:09 Let's go over that right now.
01:10 So we've got Brett here to help us demo the wall sit.
01:12 And the great thing about this move is literally
01:14 all you need is the wall and yourself.
01:16 So if you're in a hotel, if you're on the road,
01:19 this is something you can do anytime, anywhere.
01:22 Setup for this exercise is incredibly simple.
01:25 All Brett's going to do,
01:26 he's going to lean against the wall,
01:27 make sure your entire torso is against the wall
01:30 and you're not overarching your back,
01:31 but you're thinking of keeping your rib cage down.
01:34 Then all Brett's going to do from here
01:35 is he's going to start to sit down
01:38 and he's gonna walk his feet forward ever so slightly.
01:41 The goal of the wall sit,
01:43 the place we're looking to live in this
01:44 is with our thighs parallel to the ground,
01:48 fully parallel to the ground,
01:49 and our shins fully perpendicular to the ground.
01:52 So Brett can actually ever so slightly kick his feet in.
01:56 And then from there, all he's going to do
01:57 is think about squeezing his shoulder blades,
01:59 squeezing his abs,
02:00 and now he's essentially set up in the wall sit.
02:02 Now there are a couple little things
02:04 we want to make sure to get right while in the wall sit.
02:06 The biggest being,
02:08 we want to keep our glutes involved in this.
02:09 So it's really easy.
02:11 Brett's legs could come in.
02:13 If his knees are in, that is not where we want to be.
02:16 But the moment he squeezes his glutes,
02:19 his knees will instantly pop out
02:21 because our glutes are going to help create
02:23 that abduction for our thighs.
02:25 Once he's there,
02:26 he wants to make sure his entire foot
02:28 is driven into the ground.
02:29 He's thinking about driving his heels hard into the ground.
02:32 The wall sit is not meant to be an exercise
02:34 that you just hold for say three, four, five minutes.
02:37 That seems really, really, really cool.
02:39 But if you can hold it for three, four, five minutes,
02:41 again, you want to go to an advanced, a more advanced move,
02:44 or you want to learn how to create tension better
02:47 in the classic wall sit.
02:48 So Brett is really driving his feet into the ground.
02:50 He's squeezing his glutes so his knees continue to open.
02:53 And he's really focusing on flexing his abs
02:55 and flexing his shoulder blades.
02:57 And he's just holding the position.
02:58 Now this is work for Brett.
03:00 And we want to make sure that it's work.
03:02 That's how we know we're doing it right.
03:03 Now, as you advance in the wall sit,
03:05 we can gradually use this move in another way.
03:09 We can use it to get more comfortable
03:10 in other positions of knee flexion.
03:12 So now what I'm going to ask Brett to do
03:14 is he's going to, instead of having his thighs parallel,
03:17 he's going to lower his torso
03:19 just another three or four, five inches.
03:23 And now he's once again in that same hold,
03:26 still thinking about flexing his quads and his hamstrings,
03:29 except he's doing it from a more stretched position.
03:32 He's getting a lot more stretch
03:33 at the knee joint for those quads.
03:36 So we've added a little bit of challenge
03:37 and we're not even creating more challenge.
03:40 This isn't necessarily harder or easier
03:42 than the wall sit that we just showed you.
03:44 What we are doing though,
03:45 is we have changed the angle of isometric tension
03:48 that we're creating.
03:49 And by doing that, we've just changed the equation
03:51 a little bit for Brett.
03:52 You can play with different heights
03:54 and different positions within the wall sit as you advance.
03:57 Try to do say two sets at thighs parallel,
04:00 then two sets a little bit lower,
04:01 then two sets a little bit higher.
04:03 You're just working different sets of awareness.
04:05 You're building a lot more awareness for your body
04:07 and you're building a lot more isometric control
04:09 that will then translate to your bigger and stronger leg
04:12 lifts as you progress on your fitness journey.
04:14 So that is the wall squat.
04:16 And again, super simple, super easy, travels very well too.
04:20 How do we wanna use this in our leg workouts?
04:22 If you're just starting out,
04:24 this can be a main leg exercise for you
04:26 where we're just starting to build and feel
04:28 what it feels like to create tension in our legs.
04:31 Use it in this situation for say two to three sets
04:33 and work up to really owning 45 to 60 good seconds
04:38 on that wall sit.
04:39 If you can hold it much longer than that,
04:41 then they're one of two situations happening.
04:43 One, you are either not creating enough tension
04:45 and you're just kind of swimming through the move,
04:48 you're really not taking it seriously.
04:49 Or two, it's gotten too easy for you
04:52 and it's time to start stepping up
04:53 to those other advanced leg exercises
04:55 like the squat or the lunge
04:57 and learn something that's gonna take you
04:58 through a different contraction.
05:00 Either way, you can get a whole lot out of the wall sit.
05:02 The one thing you don't wanna do is waste time
05:05 doing what you're gonna see a lot of guys do on Instagram
05:07 and stacking plate after plate after plate on your thighs
05:10 so that you think you're loading that much more.
05:13 If you can do all that,
05:14 you're better off taking on a more complex squat
05:17 and starting to challenge a full range of motion contraction
05:20 and getting away from the isometric idea.
05:22 But when you are starting out,
05:23 just take on that wall sit,
05:25 get really, really comfortable with it
05:26 and it's gonna set the stage for leg gains to come
05:29 as you get more advanced in your training journey.
05:31 (upbeat music)
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