Exercise - Squats - Hindu Squats
Hindu Squats
The aim is to relax through the movement and get into rhythm with your breathing, which also changes from the power breath to a more economical method called anatomical breathing.
We can do a lot of reps of them to get movement and bloodflow into the knees.
They test and improve your:
- strength
- balance
- coordination
How To Do A Hindu Squat Correctly
- Start by getting a feeling of what the bottom position feels like. Stand with your feet just inside shoulder width and pointing straight ahead. Then sit down on your heels. Your heels may come off the ground. Your body should be quite upright with your knees tracking over your toes to the front.
- Once you feel comfortable, do 5-10 small bounces, slowly increasing the height of each bounce. On the last bounce, keep pushing your toes into the floor and drive with your legs until you are standing up straight.
- From this standing position, drop down into the same bottom position you just practised. As you lower yourself and reach close to bottom position, raise your heels and finish the bottom position on your toes alone. This is how Hindu squats differ from regular squats.
The arm swing and breathing
Once you’re comfortable with the basics as listed above, try incorporating these points:
- Swing your arms back behind you whilst in the starting or standing position.
- Initiate the descent by swinging your arms forward as you drop, and use the upswing of your arms to reverse the movement and begin ascending back to the starting position. Once you can do this fluently, your arms will swing from back to front with each rep without interruption.
- For the breathing, as you drop into the bottom position and your lungs are compressed, allow all the air to be pushed out of your lungs. On the ascent, breathe in again to complete the breathing cycle. You should be able to hear someone doing Hindu squats from across the room as the exhale is quite powerful once you learn how to open up your airway and let the movement force the air out.
Benefits
Doing Hindu squats helps you to gain an awareness of how your body moves and stays in balance. So, you’ll quickly learn how to properly align your body to maintain both balance and control.
Plus, as you shift your weight forward onto your toes, your center of gravity moves forward as well. This requires you to control your body and maintain stability throughout the exercise.
At the same time, the movement pattern of a Hindu squat improves your coordination. You’re not just performing a simple motion — you have to remember the sequence and teach your body to follow it.
This can even help improve how you perform other exercises, such as your jumping technique.
Muscles targeted
Hindu squats target muscles in your lower body and offer a wide range of benefits. Targeted muscles include your:
- shoulders
- core
- glutes
- hip flexors
- quadriceps
- hamstrings
- calves
- ankles
What they improve
- strength
- hypertrophy
- calorie burning
- flexibility
- balance
- coordination
- stability
- posture
- endurance (both muscular and cardiovascular)
- mobility
- heart rate
- athletic and daily movements
- power and strength for jumping, running, and sprinting
Can we do squats everyday?
- Although it’s not recommended to perform the same exercise several times in one day since it’s important to provide your body with proper recovery time, “Doing squats every day is generally considered safe.
- However, if you tend to do squats with a lot of extra weight or are feeling tired the day after doing squats, you may want to give your body a break so you don’t accidentally injure yourself.”
Hindu Squats – How Often to Do Them
https://www.mattfurey.com/hindu-squats-how-often-to-do-them/
by Matt Furey
Back in the day, some 22 years ago, when I first learned how to do Hindu squats, I did them every other day. Similar to a bodybuilding approach, I did legs one day and upper body the next. I made progress with this method, but was still unsatisfied. I believed I was destined for MORE, a lot MORE.
So one day I got to thinking. What if I do Hindu squats everyday? I had a sneaking suspicion that this would drive me to the next level.
I ran the idea by Karl Gotch, and he nodded, telling me that my idea was correct.
Later that day, when I was engaged in my workout, I made up my mind that Hindu squats were no longer a part-time exercise. I would work them full-time. I would do them everyday.
Within 30 days, my updated program began to work wonders. I was no longer hitting the same old sticking points. I was zipping past them, with ease.
After pushing past my old plateaus, I began to make improvements by leaps and bounds. My overall body strength improved dramatically. Even though all I did were two-legged squats and didn’t work on one-legged squats, I found that I could do them with little effort.
Within a years time, every day was a 500-Hindu squats day. And when I say 500, I mean 500-straight Hindu squats. Yes, in a row, without stopping.
When it comes to getting good at something, the key ingredient that most people miss is the idea that you need to DO MORE if you want to BE MORE.
As a young swimmer, I was decent when I trained once a day with my age group, but when I joined the older age groups for a second session, I improved so much that I couldn’t believe it.
My skills in wrestling followed a similar protocol.
Same goes for my training in martial arts.
In the beginning, I start out slowly. I give myself goals that are almost laughable.
For example, one goal when taking on something new is to do nothing but watch the videos everyday.
What good will that do me?
More than you realize.
It’s called “mirror neurons,” if you want to research it.
After about a week of watching, the impulse to DO reaches a point where it catapults me into action. Even though I am now moving, I continue to watch videos on the subject each day, including those I take of myself, so I can compare what I am doing to those I am learning from.
As I watch videos, I make adjustments and refinements. This is why the way I do Hindu squats today is not exactly the same as how I learned them back in 1999, when I came out with Combat Conditioning. In fact, I have multiple variations that I teach on my membership site.
The more I do Hindu squats, the better I get at doing them. But you have to be smart about how you go about your business. You do not just plow straight ahead and force yourself to do 500 each day. There’s a method to the mastery.
Anyway, keep this one idea in mind. If you want to get better at shooting free throws, you work on them each day, physically and mentally. Don’t expect to be great at shooting if you only practice a couple times per week.
Same goes with anything. You condition your body-mind to do the thing – and then you end up having the power.
Body weight training using Hindu squat
If body weight training is a huge priority for you, the Hindu squat is great for you.
When you are traveling or on a tight schedule, it feels good to be training with just your body. It has a simplistic appeal to it.
With high volume Hindu squats and push-ups/pull-up pyramids a few times per week, you can keep your strength and endurance up - without going to the gym.
Tension is for strength and power, whereas relaxation is for speed, endurance and flexibility. Both tension and relaxation are important, and both should be practiced.
In your workout sessions, you can have a deliberate relaxation practice at the start of every strength session. There are many relaxation exercises - and the Hindu Squat is a great one among them.
Programming And Tests
https://www.adaptivestrength.com.au/the-hindu-squat/
My first set of Hindu squats after at least 2 years of not doing a single Hindu was pretty bad. I had to stop after 50, which is crazy seeing as my record previously was 500 unbroken squats in 15 minutes.
To get back on track with them now, I like to do 100 Hindu squats at the start and finish of every session, but there are many other ways to do this.
The first test to gauge your improvement is to aim for getting 100 unbroken Hindu squats with good form in 3 minutes.
To achieve this, include this in your training program:
10 Hindu squats on the minute for 3 continuous minutes. Over time, add one rep per minute until you can do 34 Hindu squats on the minute.
Once you have achieved this, you can either try again with a mouthful of water or add a 5kg weight vest.
The ultimate goal for Hindu squats (which few reach) is 500 consecutive repetitions in 15 minutes. This can take up to 6 months to prepare for.
When doing high repetition sets, my Hindu Squats and my breathing fall into a deep rhythmic alliance and my mind is allowed to switch off. It is meditative and regenerative. This of course can only occur once the movement has reached an autonomous stage after several thousand squats.
I have also had first hand experience with high volume Hindu squats being beneficial for knee and ankle health. Next time you go to the gym, give this beautiful movement a go and see how they make you feel.
General comments
https://www.strongfirst.com/community/threads/hindu-squats.6968/
I’ve done a lot of these at various times. I got hyped up about them when the Matt Furey book came out and have returned to them periodically, building up to over two hundred in a set and over a thousand in a day.
Not at all similar to swings. Swings are an explosive hip hinge, and Hindu squats are, well, squats, and driven by knee flexion/extension even more than a regular flat-footed squat.
I think Hindu squats are a good complement to swings and other squats because they do stress end range knee flexion in way that other exercises do not. However, I think they should come with a couple of caveats.
–They do put a lot of stress on the knees in an extreme range of motion. Some people may not tolerate this at all. Most people will need to build volume very conservatively (as in do WAY less than you are capable of) and use a deliberate, smooth and controlled pace (not drop and bounce).
–I don’t think they are a great choice for generalized “conditioning” (whatever that means), since fatigue is very localized, and going hog wild on volume and pace will likely lead to achy knees (guess how I know this).
I would add them (if at all) in small doses, as a fill-in-the-gaps complement, not as a focus of training. For a lot of people, Hindu squats are a “dose makes the poison” kind of thing.
A loaded version of the Hindu squat that I like is the KB hack squat, which I believe is described in Beyond Bodybuilding. Basically, you do a Hindu squat while holding a KB behind the back. The key to these is keeping the torso upright; leaning forward is a cheat that make the drill very easy. With an upright torso, you have to keep the glutes very tight and really drive the hips forward to get out of the hole. The same caveats about conservative progression and non-tolerance apply to KB hack squats as well.
In my opinion, you should only do 250 - 300 hindu squats (quitte less taxing for your knees) if your knees can tolerate it. Besides, it will be a good general conditioning for cardio / strength.
Then, instead to only half of H. Push ups
Then, do some pistol squats and OAOL push ups (so this is naked warrior).
Then keep doing the bridge.
In you want a complete bodyweight program, I think it is a better option
they are more quad dominant vs the hamstring dominant swing
I did Matt Furey’s program of hindu squats, hindu pushups and bridges for several years when it first came out. Got up to doing a set of 500 squats, 100 pu’s and 3 min bridge. Was totally out of shape at the time I started and I credit his program for getting me off my butt. Never experienced any pain from the exercises. If your pace yourself properly, you shouldn’t have any problems. Definitely do the research on proper form and it should be no problem. Even now I will do a set of 100 squats and or a set of 25 hindu push ups when I just want to get the blood flowing. I have stayed with the bridges since doing his program. I do a 2-3 min bridge daily.
I also think that putting hindu squats in circuits of bodyweight exercises can have some good benefit on conditioning.
I did a lot of judo and we used almost each time the couple hindu squats / diver push ups, either slowly (strength) or fast (explosivity). I my opinion, they are good conditioning exercises which work both flexibility and muscles.
I can only think of one exercise that has entirely changed my life- the Hindu Squat
Having been introduced by my dad to Matt Furey in 2005 when the internet was younger and I was but fifteen y/o, I started obsessing with doing 500 hindu squats 2-3 x a week. I loved how they made me feel. I was studying to be an actor and singer so the power and strength of my diaphragm from doing these exercises was amazing. I’ve since rediscovered them and committed to getting back to that 500 number.
Doing these has actually helped my knees massively, at first they were a little creaky and weak I couldn’t even manage 10 but just work up slowly adding more over time and soon you’ll find your knees are working better than ever.
Yes, me too! I have osgood slider or whatever it’s called where your growth plate on your tibia can’t keep up from growing too fast 12-4 years old and have always had knee pain at that point in my life. Sitting for long periods of time in theaters or airplanes where I couldn’t stretch out my legs gave me such cramps and discomfort.
Practicing this movement that is the hindu squat brought strength not only to my quads but also to the tendons and ligaments surrounding my knee joints. The biggest growth I noticed wasn’t even in the quads! -It was the pop of those strengthened tendons immediately surrounding my knee joints. Truly amazing transformation!
Slowly! Like I commented below, the strength gained from these movements came noticeably more to my tendons and ligaments more than my quadriceps, especially at first. Great advice given below as well! Happy squatting!!
I did hindu push ups hindu squats and neck bridging for years, built up to 500 in both exercises and a 10 minute neck bridge, getting back into them now, made me strong as an one on the mats (jiu-jitsu ) and the power is repeatable unlike conventional weight training, did them first thing in the morning, regulated my sleep patterns once I were doing them 5 plus days a week
It’s quite a movement. The coordination of arm swing, breath, and speed, take the stress off the knees that most ‘vertical’ squats risk. I’ve only done them occasionally, but I’ve been doing Dand every day for some time. Maybe I’ll take a month or so and just pile up reps of dand-bethak like an old-school wrestler…