These squats will get you to the next level.

Everyone wants to be jacked AF, showing the world their potential to look like a superhero. The thing is, many people focus on the upper body and especially the chest, abs, and arms. These are beginner mistakes of course, yet people seem to fall prey to this uninformed way of doing things. While having a jacked upper body is certainly going to help your physique, in the end you’ll need to build up your legs as well. Leave your legs like two toothpicks then no one will say look at that jacked guy, but instead they’ll tell you to stop skipping leg day.

So maybe you’re a novice. Maybe you just have some severe knee pain and training legs feel like torture. Well, sorry to say, but that’s not a good enough excuse. Everyone has the ability to improve upon their weaknesses despite their hang ups. If you have crappy knees, some other leg injury, or are simply a novice who is afraid of doing barbell back squats, then there’s a squat technique you should be doing to mitigate these hindering factors.

The Landmine Squat.

While many upper body junkies may recognize the name from performing the landmine press for chest development, the landmine squat is fairly similar in set up. You put as many plates as you can handle on one end of a barbell. Grabbing that same end of the barbell, you push the weight from your chest until your arms reach full extension. The differences lie in the execution. Where you would normally hold the end of the barbell and push up with your arms, instead you simply fall into a squat and push back up. The position allows you to avoid putting too much pressure on your knee joints while giving you solid resistance to push against. This is what makes them an awesome workout especially if you knees are battered.

Landmine squats are a great way to introduce squatting to a newbie, allowing them to practice proper form. For veterans it gives them an opportunity to give their joints a break and potentially recover from long term damage while at the same time allowing for some quality resistance work.

What do you think of landmine squats?

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