October Workout of the Month – Sissy Squats

Sissy squats are one of the best workouts that you probably aren’t doing but should consider incorporating into your workout immediately. Sissy squats, also known as quad-focused squats, are commonly used by top athletes and bodybuilders to get amazing results. We’ll discuss the many benefits of sissy squat exercises, but first, let’s learn a bit more about them. 

A New Way To Do Sissy Squats

When this exercise is done as a part of your regular exercise routine sissy squats can help you build up the power and definition in your quads. This exercise can also help improve imbalances in your quads and hamstrings and protect your knees. 

Typically, this exercise would have been performed by placing dumbbells or steps under the soles of your feet requiring you to hold onto a squat role or pole for balance. Eventually, you would perform them without a stabilizing mechanism and add resistance as you grew stronger.

This is, of course, is not an ideal way to perform this exercise and can pose safety risks, as well as be uncomfortable. It’s for this reason Body-Solid developed a piece of fitness equipment to resolve these issues. 

The Body-Solid Sissy Squat is the perfect machine to assist you in performing this exercise, plus there is the added benefit of being able to use it to do Russian twists, sit-ups, and even medicine ball tosses. 

Using the Body Solid Sissy Squat machine all you need to do is simply lock your feet into the machine and perform the exercise. You no longer need to worry about maintaining your balance or stabilizing yourself. Plus you’ll be able to get a full range of motion which will improve your workout. 

How to Do a Sissy Squat

To perform a sissy squat all you need to do is simply position your feet in the machine, adjust the leg pad to a comfortable position and you’re ready to go! For a helpful video from Body-Solid, you can see a demonstration of this exercise here. 

You can also intensify your workout by adding more resistance using resistance bands, medicine balls, or dumbells. 

The Amazing Benefits of Sissy Squats

While traditional squats are great, they’re not the best for your quads, and doing large amounts of regular squats tends to leave your glute and posterior thigh muscles larger than your anterior thigh muscles.

Sissy Squats are Safe

You may not realize this, but sissy squats are actually safer than the alternative exercise for building your quad muscles – leg extensions. Leg extensions put unnecessary pressure on your knee joint which – when done correctly –  sissy squats do not.

Everybody Can Benefit from Sissy Squats!

The benefits of sissy squats extend from beginners to pros. If you are a beginner you will especially benefit from the stability provided by this sissy squat machine, and if you are experienced and familiar with sissy squats you can level up your workout with added resistance. Here are some of the many sissy squat benefits:

Laser Target the Quads

Unlike most exercises, sissy squats allow you to hone in and target your quad muscles. Most exercises force you to involve your glutes and hamstrings, but now you don’t need to involve these muscles at all. 

This is ideal for those who have a bulge at the back of their thighs, with fewer muscles on the front of their legs.

Strengthen Your Core

This is a lesser-known benefit, but the fact is regularly doing sissy squats will strengthen your core! This is a very effective exercise since as you continually work your legs, your core is responsible for maintaining your form and balance. In turn, this provides you with a quality core workout!

Increase Joint Flexibility

Doing sissy squats regularly will also benefit and improve your joint flexibility and increase your range of motion at your ankles. This is turn can help you perform better as a runner, skier and overall improve your athletic performance.

Strengthen Your Hips and Posture

Finally, sissy squats are an excellent exercise to help strengthen and stabilize your hips. This is because during this exercise you are using your hip flexors to help to maintain balance throughout the movement. Over time this will help your body in building a stronger, healthier posture.