Advance to progress
When it comes to making progress with regards to exercise, there are a number of ways to go about doing so, whether that be increasing the load, increasing the time under tension, taking shorter rests, performing more reps and so on. These are all ways of making exercises more challenging in one form or another but, depending on the intended focus/aim of the exercise, some may be better than others. If your goal is to increase strength for example, then increasing the load works perfectly well so as to allow you to keep the exercise at the required intensity to promote strength adaptations, however, lets imagine that you don’t have a way to increase the load due to lack of equipment, what do you do then? Most people will tend to lean towards doing more reps as a way of increasing strength, sounds reasonable enough and will indeed work up to a point, but once the reps get into higher ranges while the load stays the same the training focus begins to change, becoming less about muscular strength and more about muscular endurance. What this means is that you are no longer training your muscles towards lifting heavier loads (muscular strength) but rather that you are training your muscles to become more efficient at handling a specific load for longer periods of time (muscular endurance). So if the goal is to increase muscular strength then the question becomes how do we increase the load/intensity so as to stimulate/promote strength adaptations using minimal equipment? Depending on the exercise the answer may be to use a more advanced/difficult variation of that exercise. For the purposes of this post we will be using squats as an example. The basic air squat is a bilateral movement meaning the load (bodyweight) is divided between both legs, in order to increase the load/intensity without the use of extra equipment you may look to using unilateral movements such as single leg squats. By using this variation we haven’t increased or changed the load itself but rather manipulated the percentage of that load being carried by each leg and thus increased the intensity of the exercise for the working leg. This allows us to stay within the required intensity in order to stimulate/promote strength adaptations. Below is a number of different squat variations ranging from beginner to advanced movements one might use as a way of increasing intensity:
Air Squats
Feet roughly shoulder width apart
Begin to squat making sure knees track with the direction of the toes
Keep the back neutral and weight evenly dispersed throughout both feet
Squat down until thighs become parallel with the floor
Stand back up and return to start position
Single leg Squats
Using a box/bench that is roughly knee height, as you get stronger you may use lower heights to progress
Raise on leg forwards off the ground maintaining full knee extension
With the other leg begin to squat down making sure that knee tracks in line with the direction of the toes
Keep weight evenly distributed through the foot
Squat down until the glutes come into contact with the box/bench
Stand back up and return to start position
Shrimp Squats
Begin by raising one foot towards the rear and grasping it with one hand
With remaining leg begin to squat down with knee tracking in line with the direction of the toes and weight evenly distributed throughout foot
Squat down until knee touches the ground or cushion
Stand back up and return to start position
Pistol Squats
Begin by raise one leg forwards off the ground in a full extended position
With remaining leg begin to squat down with knee tracking in line with the direction of the toes and weight evenly distributed throughout foot
Squat down until you reach your lowest position
Stand back up and return to start position
Dragon Pistol Squat
To begin raise one foot off the ground by bending the knee
As you begin to squat down slowly begin to position the lifted leg behind the grounded leg keeping the leg bent for know
As you lower you will lean your torso to side as the lifted leg goes further behind the grounded leg
Once at the bottom straighten the lifted leg into a fully extended position
Stand back up and return to start position
