“Spend more time in a squat position throughout the day. Just doing that will improve your digestion, your knee health, your hips, and it will start to move things in the right direction. Another is hanging, which is so beneficial for shoulders.” – Ido Portal
Squatting has actually improved the mobility of my legs and knees. I had stopped doing them or positions in yoga like child’s pose and after a few years realized I couldn’t kneel any more or put all of my weight done in a kneeling position when I started jiu-jitsu.
But after months of simple squatting I regained that ability.
Yoga is also a great way to improve your balance as there are many single leg positions to do.
I have been doing some squats as an exercise too, but starting tomorrow I will add some single leg squats in there as those are supposed to be better in that they add variable resistance and balance into the mix.
Those things will supposedly make your bones stronger. And when your bones are stronger your muscles can get stronger according to this video.
Listen to the last few minutes starting at (55:09) of this podcast to get some ideas on how to improve your bone density.
Jump
Funny, while watching the above video and listening to the guy talk about bone density and some exercise one of the things I thought of were burpees.
He said something about Tony Robbins jumping on a mini trampoline probably helps his muscles and tendons, but maybe not his bones because of the give in a trampoline. That’s when I thought of doing burpees.
That’s when you combine a push up, squat and jump in one quick exercise. If you do a bunch of them fast in a row you’ll get a good work out.
Before I kinda wondered if they were bad for your knees jumping. But here is some evidence that jumping is good.
How to do burpees
- Stand up
- Raise your arms to the sky
- Jump up
- When you land jump back or step back into a plank position
- Do a push-up or if you can’t just hold the plank for an instant then…
- Jump forward so your arms are outside of your feet
- Stand and jump up with your arms raised
- Continue
When I first did these I would be out of breath after 10, however with time they get easier. It’s a good exercise as you are using a lot of different muscles too as well as making your bones denser.
If burpees are too difficult you could try jumping jacks or even box jumping.
Here’s a 5 minute workout on Youtube