Squats For Runners : Running itself is undoubted, a great workout for the legs. So, if running trains the leg muscles, why do runners need to do other leg workouts such as squats, deadlifts, calf raises? Allow me to explain.
Cardio exercises are the best exercises to maintain overall fitness but none of the cardio exercises can make you strong and let you put on muscle mass. Since in cardio, the muscles aren’t trained by weight so you can’t expect your muscles to grow.
It is perfectly fine not to have muscle mass and strength when it comes to running but it does affect your performance and the age of your muscles.
Let us compare two athletes, the first one is doing running without any other leg workout exercises and the second one does leg exercise such as squats and thigh raises.
Who’ll perform better? The second one because he has:
- Stronger legs due to the squats
- Improved stamina because of the additional leg workouts.
- More range of motion
- Lower chances of injuries
So now when we are aware of the fact that leg workouts improve the performance of a runner, let us see the benefits of squats for runners:
What are Squats?
Squats are one of the best multi-joint exercises that can be done to target a variety of muscles for reaping the workout benefits. While standing upright with feet at shoulder length, it can be done by lowering your body in a sitting position and then standing back.
While lowering the body, the hips and the knees joints bend and the ankle joints also move. That is why it is called a multi-joint exercise.
Another point to remember is that any of the muscles attached to these joints and bones are targeted by squats. So, if these muscles are strengthened, the running performance of athletes will be increased itself.
Benefits of Squats for runners
Squats exercise has proved its effectiveness when it comes to training your legs. The legs are one of the most important organs of the body since the whole bodyweight relies on them and are used extensively in different functions of life. Also, we walk using these legs and we do running as an exercise to maintain the fitness of our body. The legs move with the help of thigh and calf muscles attached to the thigh bone and calf bone.
To ensure the good functionality of the legs while walking and running, we must ensure that the leg muscles are working well and are strong enough to bear the weight and the activities.
A good way to be on the safe side is to do workouts and exercise that make the leg muscles strong. Different exercises are used to train the leg muscle and squats are one of them.
Squats are the best way to help the runners improve their performance in the following ways:
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Increase the stamina
Having good stamina is very crucial to a runner because you can’t perform well if you run out of stamina after a mile. Workouts such as squats not only strengthen your legs but also improve your stamina and let you run for a longer distance and a longer time.
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Increase the stride
Having a good squats workout can be beneficial in providing a force to your stride. This is when you accelerate the running at intervals. Having a good force in the leg muscles will make this easier and more effective. This increases the running benefits because of the extra functionality.
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Reduce injuries
One important thing to consider is the injuries that a runner faces while running. These can be muscle strains and injuries in joints especially the knee joints and the ankle joints. Doing Squats can increase your muscle strength which then puts less pressure on the joints reducing the chances of injury.
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Increase the range of motion
The range of motion is the circular motion of the bone around the joint. Doing squats effectively increases the range of motion so the muscles move freely. This has a good impact on the running experience of a runner.
These are some of the benefits that result from doing the squats exercise. This exercise empowers the runners to increase the performance and reap the fitness and health benefits and have a good experience.
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Improve the pace
Squats are one of the proven ways to increase the pace of a runner or the time needed to run a specified distance. These are the 5K time, 10K time, the half marathon time, and the marathon time. So, when you are running for a longer distance, the muscles of your legs get tired and you are no longer to run. But, for someone who does squats, the leg muscles are strong, so the runner can run for longer distances and ultimately improve the pace of a runner because the longer a runner runs, the more he improves the pace.
So, if you want to get all these above-mentioned benefits, you must start doing squats.
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