A Highly Effective Full-Body Exercise I See Nobody Doing
It’s not swimming, running, burpees, or planks.
Are you looking for an exercise that works the entire body? Are you looking to build muscle and cut fat? Are you sick of the usual advice with exercises that burn you out instead of building you?
If your answer was yes to any of these questions, you’ve come to the right place.
I’ve been working out for seven years and had a fat-to-fit journey where I dropped 55lbs.
This exercise requires your mind and muscle coordination and can do wonders for your body if done in the correct form, which I will help you with.
Overhead Squats
This is a functional movement that uses all your muscles to move and lift. Here’s how you do an overhead squat:
- Use a barbell or a water bottle to use overhead
- Stand with a shoulder-width stance
- Hold the weight overhead
- Inhale, hold your weight and squat down
- Take a cycle of breath, hold and squeeze your core
- Exhale, squeeze your glutes and stand up
Watch this video to learn more:
We will cover the important points to keep your form in check towards the end.
Why Should You Do This?
There are several benefits of overhead squats.
Full Body Experience
Overhead squats target your glutes, quadriceps, hamstrings, core, shoulders, and upper back. It will strengthen these muscles and help you burn fat.
Since it’s a functional exercise, it also helps outside the gym with activities that use the same muscle group.
E.g. football, lifting a suitcase, picking and placing boxes, lifting something off the ground, placing something at a height, etc.
Stability and Mobility
According to Boybuilding.com, most people struggle with:
- Tight, over, lifted pecs that pull the shoulders and upper back forward
- A rigid thoracic spine that can’t extend
- A weak core
- Inflexible hips, knees, and ankles
Overhead squats can help you ease these issues. They also improve hip and ankle mobility.
Posture Correction
Most of us work all day slouched on our desk. This weakens our pecs, lats, and lower traps. Weak lats also impact your core and make it weaker. Adding to that, all this creates a shoulder imbalance.
When you do overhead squats, you will put your body under extension training.
This exercise extends your body which strengthens your thoracic spine and core. When that happens, it will improve your overall posture and future lifts in the gym.
4 Variations You Can Try
These three variations will challenge and strengthen you.
1. Tempo Overhead Squat
Tempo means to slow down the time taken to perform an exercise.
Like a tempo push-up is done by taking 5 seconds to go down and 5 seconds to come up. It’s more tiring than a simple push up.
Similarly, tempo overhead squat is doing a single rep slowly. It could be 5 or 10 seconds depending on what works for you.
Watch a video here to learn how to do this.
2. Clean Grip Overhead Squat
If you’re using a barbell, you’ll likely have a wider grip. However, a narrow grip is more challenging as it requires better shoulder mobility.
You can check right now by raising your arms. If your shoulder mobility is not as smooth, a close grip will lean your arms forward.
If your shoulder mobility is good, doing this can improve your stability as well.
Watch a video here to learn how to do this.
3. Overhead Squat Pulse
Pulsing — i.e., moving a part of your body up and down in a tiny, repetitive motion . It can burn like hell when you’re doing it.
And
Pulsing isolates the active muscles and fatigues them more quickly, which helps build their endurance. Plus, you’ll get stronger.
To do this, when you are down in an overhead squat, do 5 pulses then come up. This will give you an extra burn and will work your muscles.
Watch a video here to learn how to do this.
4. Overhead Squat Pause
As the name suggests, this variation requires you to go down and pause for a few seconds and then come up. For this, it’s recommended to use a lighter weight as it requires a lot of effort to come out of a pause.
The pause reduces the stress on your lower back and makes your legs work harder.
Watch a video here to learn how to do this.
3 Ways to Make Your Overhead Squats Better
Here are some simple ways to perform better at your overhead squat, and doing this will help you do other exercises better too.
1. Shoulder Mobility
Since overhead squats require you to hold weight with your arms straight, improving your shoulder mobility can help you lift heavier weight.
Do this by:
- Arm rotations
- Release muscular tension using a lacrosse ball
- Shoulder mobility exercises (use this video to help you)
2. Strengthen Your Core
While this squat already strengthens your core, having a stronger core will help you perform it better and be more stable in this movement. It will also reduce the tension off your back during this movement.
You can do this with core exercises such as planks, hip raises, Russian twists, etc.
Watch this video for a well-rounded core workout.
3. Be Aligned
Your form during this exercise is important to be safe and reap the benefits of the movement. Do this by keeping a few checkpoints:
- Knees to have a shoulder-width stance
- Knees shouldn’t bend inwards or cross your ankles
- Arms should not lean forward
- Chest should be up
- Tighten your core during this exercise
- Use your glutes to come up by squeezing them to stand up from the squat
- Practice your grip on the bar
While the overhead squat is a little challenging initially, it improves various aspects of your body apart from just building muscle — such as balance, stability, mobility, endurance, etc.
The beginning can feel stiff, but flexibility and strength will follow with frequent practice.
It’s an exercise with so many benefits, so program it into your workout whether you’re working out at home or outside!
Subscribe to my (free) weekly newsletter about health, travel, and personal development — https://niharikasodhi.substack.com/
If you liked this, you might enjoy:
