Leg Exercise - Squats & Modified Squats



Commonly Used For: Knee pain and back pain.

Video Transcription: This is a squat exercise, which is a great functional exercise to get your quads and your glutes going. The way you want to do it is have something behind you just in case you tip over backwards, you'll sit instead of fall all the way over. You want to have your feet hip distance apart and you're slowly going to hinge at your hips and sit back. You want to make sure that you're sitting back towards the chair or surface that you're going towards and not coming forward so you don't want your knees going beyond your toes like that. Your knees should stay behind your toes as you come up and down. The other thing that you want to watch out for with your squats is your knee position — inward and outward. They should stay directly over your toes as you squat down. People have a tendency to let their knees come together. You don't want to let that happen. You want to make sure that they stay right over your toes as you squat up and down. If you have trouble maintaining that position, sometimes it's nice and can be a nice cue to use an exercise band. [You can buy these at sport goods stores or online at Amazon.com.] This one's a little bit long, but what you want to do is take that band and tie it around your legs. Again, feet are going to be hip distance apart so you should have a little pressure into the band now. And then maintaining that pressure out into the bands, now you're going to perform your squats and it just gives you a nice cue to help keep your knees out and not let them come inward. If performing regular squats is too easy for you and you want to make it a little bit more intense - especially up in your hip region, you can again use an exercise band. This one you do want to have a fairly long one. you're going to step on the band first. Make a cross in front of you. Go behind your legs, back cross. Then you're going to go around your thighs, cross gain. Hold it nice and tight and then you're going to do your squats, holding that apart. Just like that. So that's your modified squat.

DISCLAIMER: PLEASE CONSULT YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY OF THESE EXERCISES

WARNING! These exercise demonstration videos are designed to be educational. Please consult with your doctor before attempting to perform any of these exercises. If you experience any pain or discomfort, do not continue the exercise. STOP and consult your doctor!