How to do Pistol Squats for Beginners! Proper Progression!

Pistol squats are one of the exercises that get its name from the position in the exercise. Many believe that pistol squats are one of the most difficult exercises to do. But this is not true! To become an expert at this exercise you just need to be consistent and follow the guide on ‘How to do pistol squats for a beginner?’.

The reason why many professionals regard pistol squats as a difficult exercise is that this exercise testifies various body parts and their strengths. It takes a good workout plan and numerous working days to get onto it.

Pistol squats are extremely beneficial to athletes and sports that include running activity. As they target more of the lower body and the muscles associated with it! A more specific answer is available below. This exercise checks and improves the stability, mobility as well as endurance of a person. These factors overall enhance our body health and fitness.

Pistol squats targets a series of muscles as mentioned earlier. Let us see which are those-

Muscles worked in Pistol Squats-

Pistol squats target the muscles of the calf, glutes, hamstrings, adductor muscles, hip flexors, and the muscles of the abdomen. This means that doing this exercise daily would make these muscles grow stronger.

The good thing about this exercise is that it targets a number of muscles. But, the thing that worsens the exercise is again the muscles targeted. You may ask, ‘How can muscles affect both the situations in a completely opposite way?’ Since the number increases so does the strength required to work these muscles increases. This increases the amount of energy needed and the force generated to work out.

In other words, pistol squats are a high-energy-requiring workout. This ultimately leads to the development of the muscles of the lower body. The benefit of enhancing the strength of the muscles is the extra power one can yield whenever needed! Check Wikipedia for the muscles of the lower limb.

The exercise will be mentioned in a set of small-durations stretches that will help you through the pistol squats. The series of these workouts that help in progressing through pistol squats are called pistol squat progression!

The below video from the school of calisthenics will tell you the pistol squat progression and other tips to get going. Do watch it for a better understanding! If not followed kindly read the progression that I suggest.

How to do Pistol Squats for Beginners-

3 Progressions for Easy Pistol Squat-

1. Simple Squats-

Doing simple squats prior to doing the main exercise will help you a lot. Squats in general are easy to perform and are vital to learning some advanced workouts. Normal squats will prepare the base needed to go for pistol squats.

Step-By-Step Instructions-

Simple squats will train your body and make it ready to do basic but essential steps in pistol squats workout. You can refer to the detailed article based on Squats that will drive through tits and bits that you should know in order to perform squats–

This article will guide you through the crucial and vital points that you need to know while actually doing this exercise. Each and every article written on this website is user-friendly and easy to comprehend. So that the readers will understand every important thing mentioned over here.

2. One-legged Squat with Chair-

This exercise primarily focuses on improving your overall body balance. Good balance and perfect stability is prime prerequisite to doing pistol squats. The single-legged squat with a chair is the one that will fulfill this condition. This progression is important for those who have got good strength but lacks balancing stability.

While performing the exercise you will notice that it burns a bit in the back of your leg. Indeed this is a good sign (up to a certain limit) that indicates your muscles are getting used to the pain which would in upcoming days lead to their development.

Step-By-Step Instructions-

• Stand straight with a shoulder-width gap in your legs.
• Note that you should have a small chair or a stool right behind you. On which you can sit easily and a height of about half a meter.
• Bend your knees half a way such that one of your legs is sweeping throughout. This should be a slow pace swing with simultaneous bending down.
• Bend until your butts touch the chair! Now Reverse the motion and get back to starting position.
• That’s it! You are done with halfway pistol squats or proper pistol squat form.

The major advantage of doing this progression is that it will improve your balance a lot. As pistol squats ask for both strength as well as balance, here we will get half of the work done. i.e. Balance!!!

These halfway one-legged squats prepare your muscles for full squats. Performing One-legged Squat with a Chair on a regular basis will make pistol squats a real cakewalk. Just do the stretches and professions before going for the real workout. Within few days you will notice an improvement in your performance.

Now we will try to improve the stability that one lacks at the end of the pistol squats.

3. Shuffling of legs at full Range squats-

This progression of pistol squats will focus on the end part of the squats. This progression is absolutely needed for those who unwillingly fall down at the end of the exercise. Here they lack the stability required to complete the squats and Reverse the motion again.

Step-By-Step Instructions-

• Get into the full range squats or in layman’s terms – ATG (Ass to Grass).
• Now extend your one leg forward with no bend in knees & your back of thigh should touch your calf.
• This is the so-called last position of pistol squats or proper pistol squat form.
• Shuffle your legs and hold that position for a couple of seconds.
• Repeat the progression to master the balance required to hold the ending position.

These are all the progressions you may need to do in order to master a perfect pistol squat. This is the perfect beginner guide to get going with the pistol squats.

Pistol Squat Benefits-

Pistol squats are highly beneficial in improving your health, fitness, endurance, etc. This exercise targets a lot of lower body muscles including a few abdominal muscles too. Hence, It proves to be very beneficial in terms of muscle development and strengthening.

Below is a list of benefits of doing pistol squats daily-

• Increases the balancing ability of the body.
• Improves body Strength and Power.
• Helps in Muscle building.
• Advances body’s Mobility.
• Increases Focus & Concentration Power.
• It Burns a lot of Calories.
• Good for Heart Health.
• Improves overall fitness and health.

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