1 post tagged “endurance”

I do not understand why anyone would want to do Hindu squats in several short sets. Stopping every 10 repetitions breaks the pace, is tiring, and wastes time. You stop at the time when you should be getting up to speed so you can cruise on at a comfortable pace. One hundred Hindu squats takes from 2 minutes 15 seconds if you hurry to under 2 minutes and 40 seconds if you don't. (The time depends also on how tall you are—the taller the person the longer it takes.) Of course, you do not have to start with one hundred.

The reasons why it is better to do Hindu squats at a lively pace:

• You can do more that way because you can better use the elasticity of your joints and muscles. Moving without stopping so you can take advantage of the rebound can double your mechanical efficiency thanks to storage and return of energy by the elastic structures of your body so you can do more repetitions. The more you can do the better because it takes many repetitions to strengthen the knees. Ligaments are strengthened with “chronic activity . . . of an endurance nature” and so are the slow-twitch muscle fibers that do most of the muscular stabilization of the joints (see the previous article of this column). The surface layers of joint cartilage receive nutrition from synovial fluid (joint fluid), and intermittent compressing and decompressing of joint surfaces is necessary for providing nutrients and removing waste products from the cartilage cells . Furthermore, the synovial fluid becomes less viscous and thus more slippery with increased speed of movements in the joint.

• You will develop neuromuscular coordination and endurance (both muscular and cardiovascular) useful for sports and martial arts. The pace of an exercise determines the result. Slow pace “increases” the resistance by eliminating the momentum of the body or of the weight and thus develops hypertrophy. Fast pace “reduces” the resistance because you are taking advantage of momentum. A fast pace also improves mobilization and synchronization of motor units and so develops the type of functional strength needed in martial arts and combat sports.

If you are experiencing soreness I suspect that it may be caused by doing hindu squats too slow, forcing your muscles to work harder than if you moved fast. If you are in terribly poor shape, the slow squats make you tense your thighs enough to damage your fast-twitch muscle fibers—hence your muscle soreness. Poor muscular control of the knee joints due to fatigue of the fast-twitch muscle fibers and poor development of the slow-twitch fibers, or perhaps moving slow is not good for your knees' cartilage. If Hindu squats are done right they relieve and prevent knee problems. After squatting with heavy weights, on the same day and a day after I used to have somewhat achy and creaky knees. Now I do a couple of hundred Hindu squats after lifting weights and my knees make no noises and feel fresh.

Many people debate about whether to do multiple sets of hindu squats or just one long set. Experiment with different programs and you will find what schedule suits you. My inclination is to do the least amount of work that delivers the result. Regarding the choice between one long set or several sets—being as lazy as I am and not liking long workouts I prefer one long set because it works for me.

It is better to do the hindu squats through the full range of motion.

A simple rule for those new to hindu squats training: Typically, strength exercises for a given muscle group are done two or three times per week. How often you should do strength exercises depends on your reaction to them. If your muscles are sore the next day after every strength workout, even if you make some progress, it means that you exercise too often or too much. If you do not get muscle soreness but make poor progress, it may mean that you should exercise more often or you should increase the resistance or number of repetitions.

Soreness the day after will mean that you have not prepared gradually for the resistance and the number of repetitions. Such soreness is caused by using too great a resistance or doing too many repetitions for the given resistance, and it lasts from a couple to a few days. Repeating the same exercises, at the same intensity, after your muscles are back to normal, is not likely to cause soreness again. If it happens repeatedly, with similar rep ranges, then you need to reduce the rep range and build back up slowly.