FITNESS FRIDAY - ONE LEGGED SQUATS (ouch!)

Angie and I had our usual "Ouch I am so sore...I don't know if I can work-out today" rant. We are still trying to figure out how we are supposed to "Enjoy the pain" as Bernard says. There are certain things I just DON'T LIKE to do.

PERIOD.

They would be PUSH UPS and THE PLANK (more on that in another blog.) Angie isn't fond of ONE-LEGGED- SQUATS. "They make my legs go numb", she confides to me while standing at the chroma wall waiting for the traffic segment. "All I think about is the lactic acid that must be accumulating there." Well,

TIME TO POP THAT THOUGHT BUBBLE GIRLFRIEND!

While I'm shooting ouch darts from my eyes at my work-out buddy who easily bangs out a set of 10 "real" pushups (as I labor through mine), Angie is thinking "Oh my gosh, I want to quit! But I WON'T!" when Bernard drags out the BiG BaD free weight for the one-legged squats.

What *is* a one-legged squat? You ask? Allow us to demonstrate as we try to get figure-skater-cut-quads:



When I used to row (Side bar, I actually trained with the US Rowing National Team after college, *thinking* I might go to the Olympics in '96...but that's a bummer story for another time....) our coach, Hartmut Buschbacher, really liked...NO, make that LOVED having us do ONE-LEGGED- SQUATS...over and over and over again. It got to the point where I remember going to the grocery store with my team-mates and while waiting for them to finish up inside, I would stand on the curb and start banging out the squats...we were nuts!

Bernard is fond of saying "Enjoy the pain". This applies to the one-legged-squat, too. In the Bernard Fit Bit below, Angie asks him the two things to remember to do while working towards your quad rhapsody.

The video below is a pretty funny story. Have you ever nudged the speed around on your treadmill because the person next to you was going just a little faster? Competition can be healthy, pushing you to challenge yourself more. But what if the competion is, well, yourself?

HAVE A LQQK!

Do you know when a figure skater spins around and squats down on one leg with the other leg sticking straight out in front of them that that is a *very* fancy version of a one-legged squat? I think that maneuver is called "shooting the duck." I can't imagine doing that, but I do know this -- One-Legged-Squats are the fast lane to cut quads. The quest is on!