We’ve all seen the suggested daily calorie intake for males (2,500kcal) and females (2,000kcal). We’ve all heard that 10,000 steps a day mixed with a balanced diet will offer a lifeline of health wherever we lack the time to workout. But for many people, the full-time demands of work and home life can limit the opportunities to count calories, workout, or even walk 10,000 steps.
That’s why you need to make a smart investment in home gym equipment. We’re not talking about a sizable and hard to accommodate multi-gym. We’re here today to talk about the squat stand (check out this utility squat stand from BLK BOX Fitness for inspiration).
Benefits of a Home Squat Stand
The first thing to notice about a squat stand is that the space needed to set up, use, and store your equipment is minimal. As opposed to other home gym equipment that may require forward or sideways movement, a squat stand offers many workout options that simply require vertical space. Even the smallest of studio apartments can accommodate standing workouts.
The rise in popularity of Olympic lifts also plays into the hands of squat stands over squat racks (you may have read up on squat racks, but beware that they require more space and many of the basic workouts that you will likely wish to enjoy can be achieved on a lower budget and within a smaller space with a squat stand).
Depending on your workout goals, there are many potential benefits to making a squat rack the focus of your fitness time. While the front squat and back squat are always going to be the mainstay of this fat-busting and muscle-toning machine, there is nothing to stop you from using the squat rack for other means of exercise, such as bench pressing the dumbbell bar or using the bar to complete pull-ups.
With such a classic piece of versatile gym equipment in your home, standing ready to use, your inclination to work out and beat your personal bests will increase day by day, and week by week, driving you towards higher levels of fitness – other home gym equipment that must be packed away and set up again with each workout will not afford you the same “ready-to-go” availability.
Understanding Muscle Shock
Muscle shock is something that sounds a lot worse than it actually is. In essence, when we talk about muscle shock we mean mixing and varying our workouts so that our muscles are ‘shocked’ into a response that will result in greater muscle tone. Overuse of the same muscle groups will not result in permanent muscle growth in that area, but rather the results will plateau and any further improvement will be slow and hard to distinguish.
This effect can frustrate gym-goers who do not understand that a variation in workouts will result in a more rounded response from the body in terms of a steady general increase in all-over muscle tone. The squat stand is an excellent way to vary your workouts and achieve levels of muscle shock that won’t see your efforts quickly plateau.
