Hindu Squats

Hindu squats, also known as Indian squats, are usually done without added weights. Therefore, it never quite got the kind of traction normal exercises do among gym goers here in the West. So what is the Hindu squat, and what are its pros and cons?

The Hindu squat is similar to a barbell-free, regular squat, where you place your feet about shoulder-width apart and squat until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then make a distinct turn and push to a standing position again.

The main difference is that you lift your heels, i.e. balance on the front parts of your feet only. This puts the knees in a position well in front of the center of gravity, which is quite demanding on the knee joints. There are both pros and cons to this; let's discuss them in turn.

When balancing like this, you are not only training the immediate muscles in the leg, but also develop and refine stabilizing muscles as well as overall balance. For a martial artist, one of the few areas Hindu squats have gained popularity in the Western world, this is great news.

Some proponents argue that this intense stress on the knee joints actually helps protect the knees over time. This argument makes sense to an extent, since the body is very good at adapting to new challenges. Think about it; when you dig a lot, you get calluses to protect your hands. When you lift weights, you get stronger to handle the increased workload. Pearl divers need to stay underwater for several minutes without scuba gear, and with training they adapt to do just that. So is it that unreasonable to think a wrestler can actually injury-proof his knee joints to some degree by getting them used to extreme stress in a controlled setting?

Then again, joints and ligaments are a whole different animal than muscles. Muscles get a beating but bounce back quickly due to the rapid blood flow, sending in fresh nutrients and flushing out old waste products. Joints don't have that kind of "traffic" and heal much slower. In many cases, injuries are caused by repetitive stress, kind of like an accumulation of drops in a bucket, until you start experiencing pain and limited movement.

With this in mind, it should be obvious that deliberately putting extra stress on an already injury-prone joint -- especially for a wrestler -- week after week is asking for trouble. This is especially true if you make the movement ballistic, i.e. push off from the bottom position like you were trying to leap into the air, which is often touted as an advanced form of the exercise.

Logic dictates that the Hindu squat is of limited use for a regular person going to the gym a couple times a week. Why play with fire and risk months on the sidelines when you can get great workouts with much safer exercises like classic front squats, leg presses and leg extensions?

On the other hand, many prominent martial artists swear by Hindu squats, and in Asia it's been a mainstay of thousands of athletes for ages. If you're a wrestler or fighter, the drawbacks may be minor compared to the possible upside. It may, in fact, be a kind of insurance policy against injury, just like the proponents claim. That decision is yours. But for the regular Joe Shmoe trying to lose love handles, it's hard to justify the risk.

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