Using Acceleration Training to Perform the Ultimate Squats

By Dr. Mercola

Developing toned glutes tops just about everyone’s list of fitness goals. However, from a total health standpoint, aspiring to the perfect "bubble butt" should be balanced with the type of training that will best enhance your overall strength and function.

Not that a nicely rounded bum won’t inspire self-confidence and the envy of everyone at the gym, but developing a strong pelvis, legs, hips and lower back can serve you in many different ways.

One of the best methods of achieving this is to use whole body exercises, such as squats. Squats have been scientifically shown to be one of the most effective exercises to activate and build your gluteal muscles.

You can kick your squats up another notch by using weights, and you can really knock it out of the park if you combine your squats with Whole Body Vibrational Training (WBVT), also called Acceleration Training.

Keep in mind that, for any exercise program to really be effective, it has to be part of an overall health plan, the core of which is good nutrition and optimization of your metabolic engine. If you want help with modifying your diet, please refer to my optimized nutrition plan.

Before discussing how to take your squats to the next level, let’s review just why squats are such an excellent exercise, in their own right.

Why Do Squats?

There has actually been scientific research examining what the most effective exercises are for strengthening and toning your glutes—and two types of squats made the top-six list.

The American Council on Exercise, assisted by scientists at the University of Wisconsin, used EMG (electromyographic) analysis to measure gluteal muscle activation from eight common glute exercises. The study found the following exercises to be the best of the best:¹

Quadruped Hip Extensions	Lunges	Step-Ups
Squats	Four-Way Hip Extensions	One-Legged Squats

How to Perform the Perfect Squat

Like lunges, squats are compound exercises that work multiple muscle groups, which is what makes them so effective. Squats target every major muscle group in your upper leg, including your quadriceps and hamstrings, as well as your glutes and lower back.

Squats are one of the best functional exercises out there, promoting mobility and balance and helping you complete real-world activities with ease, like climbing stairs and getting up from the floor without difficulty, which can become more of a challenge as you age.

Squats have long been criticized for being destructive to your knees, but research shows that when done properly, squats actually improve knee stability and strengthen connective tissue. Here is how to properly perform a basic squat, which is demonstrated by Darin Steen in the video above:

1. Warm up
2. Stand with your feet just over shoulder width apart
3. Keep your back in a neutral position and your knees centered over your feet, with your abdominals contracted
4. Slowly bend your knees, hips and ankles, lowering until you reach a 90-degree angle
5. Return to starting position; repeat 15-20 times, for 2-3 sets for beginners (do this two or three times a week)
6. Make sure you breathe in as you lower, and breathe out as you return to starting position

Single-Leg Squats

As you progress, you may want to try some single-leg squats, which are performed similarly to regular squats but standing on one leg only—which is much more challenging. A single-leg squat is done in the following manner:

1. While in front of a mirror (over time you may omit the mirror), stand on one leg with your feet pointing straight ahead and the knee of your raised leg slightly bent. Keep your weight centered over the ball of your supporting foot. Keep your upper body erect with your head facing forward. Tuck your pelvis under and roll your shoulder blades back (in other words, don't round your shoulders).
2. Keeping your knee centered over the ball of your foot, slowly lower into a squat position.
3. Start with shallow squats. Once you develop more strength, coordination, and balance, you can squat more deeply and add hand weights or a medicine ball. Perform three sets of ten squats on each leg.
4. If you have a desk job, an even better approach would be to do four or five one-legged squats every 10 minutes throughout your day of sitting at your desk. You can alternate legs and even do some jump squats. This will help prevent the degeneration that occurs from sitting for excessive periods.

Over time, consider performing your squats (one- or two-leg) on an unstable surface such as a BOSU ball, to further increase the difficulty and complexity of the exercise. For example, try “triple squats” using a BOSU. With the platform side down, stand to the side of the BOSU with your right foot on top. Squat down, then step onto the dome with your left foot and lower into another squat. Next, step to the opposite side of the BOSU and squat. Repeat the sequence for about a minute. Or, try adding hand weights.

Turbo-Charging Your Squats with Weights

Download Interview Transcript

The “Hot Potato Squat” is a dynamic exercise whereby you pass a dumbbell from one hand to another while performing squats. You can see this demonstrated online.² However, if you are going to add weights, I believe you’ll see better results by going slower. You’ll do fewer squats, but they’ll be far more intense—and far more effective.

By slowing down your movement, you’re actually turning the squats into a high intensity exercise. This is called high intensity interval training, or HIIT, and the latest science confirms that it provides far greater benefits than low intensity workouts in a fraction of the time—typically 12 to 15 minutes for an entire HIIT routine. The super-slow movement allows your muscle, at the microscopic level, to access the maximum number of cross-bridges between the protein filaments that produce movement in the muscle.

To reap maximum results from your exercise program, it is wise to work out at maximum intensity for about 30 seconds, followed by a 90-second recovery period. Your goal for HIIT is to get your heart rate up to your calculated maximum heart rate. The most common formula for this is to subtract your age from 220.

You can incorporate squats, plus a few other compound movements (such as pull-downs, chest presses, compound rows, or overhead presses) as part of a super-slow high-intensity routine, as I demonstrate in the video at the top of this section. For more about super-slow, high intensity workouts, refer to our previous article, where you can also find out how to do barbell squats, considered by some to be the “king” of strength training exercises. Now that you have an understanding of the mechanics and value of squats, let’s take a look at the ultimate squat: squats combined with whole body vibration training.

The ULTIMATE in Squats: Do Them on the Power Plate

Whole Body Vibrational Training (WBVT), also known as Acceleration Training, employs a vibrating platform that forces your muscles to accommodate, resulting in dramatic improvement in strength, power, flexibility, balance, tone and leanness. Acceleration Training increases production of human growth hormone (HGH), also known as “the fitness hormone,” and even reduces cellulite. In one study, Acceleration Training was found to be 54 percent more effective in producing visceral fat loss than traditional aerobics and strength training, and those using Acceleration Training were also able to keep off the weight long-term.

In my opinion, the highest quality WBVT machine on the market is the Power Plate. You can do almost any exercise while standing on the Power Plate and double your results with less effort, because the machine does much of the work “for you.” The vibrational component essentially doubles the energetic demands of the exercise—squats included! You need not necessarily add hand weights to your squats when you combine them with Acceleration Training. If you do add weights, you can use half the weight you ordinarily use, for equal results.

A recent study³ at Florida International University examined the energy people expended with squats on a Power Plate with the energy they expended doing conventional squats. They concluded that you can get the same metabolic bang for your buck on the Power Plate, using significantly lighter weights, less risk of injury, and possibly faster recovery time. The Power Plate offers the additional advantage of activating more muscles.

For the very advanced, you can even do squats using a BOSU that’s positioned on the Power Plate platform, as demonstrated in this video.⁴ But please be VERY careful if you decide to attempt this, as it requires extremely high strength and balance. Another great thing about the Power Plate is that it can be used safely by anyone, including the elderly, injured, or disabled, because there is benefit to even passively standing or sitting on it. If you want to see the Power Plate in action, I invite you to visit my Power Plate Video page.

Squats Are One of the Best Tools in Your Exercise Arsenal

One of the best exercises you can do are squats, which can strengthen and tone your glutes, legs, hips and back, as well as improve your balance. In fact, in a study by the American Council on Exercise, squats were found to be one of the absolute best exercises for your glutes. 

And for the ultimate squat, you can combine them with Acceleration Training, which allows you to use significantly lower weights, or no weights at all, and get the same or better results.  

There are many variations to try that require nothing more than your own body, so this great exercise is available to you whether you’re at the gym, in your office, or even in a hotel room, making squats an inexpensive, convenient, and effective part of any fitness program.