Fitness expert offers tips for the perfect squat
Many of us may have put on a few pounds in recent weeks. Daniel Craig's personal trainer Simon Waterson spoke to This Morning about the squat and its weight loss benefits.
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If there's one exercise slimmers can do to shift excess weight, it's the squat.
Simon told This Morning: "Everybody dreads legs day, but good friends don't let you skip legs."
The first reason why squats are the ideal weight loss exercise is that they require "no equipment" - "it's easy".
Demonstrating the exercise, Simon said: "Your legs need to be in line with your toes, you can bring your arms up, squat down to 90 degrees and return back to the beginning."
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He continued: "There's such a variety of squats.
"You can do the basic squat which is quite normal, neutral back and neutral neck."
But he caveated this with: "But neutral for me is not neutral for you, it's about finding your comfortable position."
Slimmers can try varying their speed, too.
The reason why squatting is such a great exercise is because it recruits the leg muscles, core and shoulders.
"In turn, by doing that, you need a lot of energy and you need to get that energy from somewhere, and hopefully that energy source is fat.
"And that's why it blasts fat."
Simon recommends that beginners do three sets of 10-15 squats every other day.
He said: "But as you start to progress you can add in a bit of resistance," as he demonstrated a squat with a dumbbell in each hand.
As for squeezing the bum at the top of the squat, "a little bit, but that's entirely up to you".
Simon added: "The squat is great for your core, the obliques, the six-pack look that you're looking for."
For expert squatters, Simon demonstrated a squat on top of a Bosu, which adds instability.
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He added a further tip: "A fundamental thing, on the hard part of the exercise, breath out.
"It's recruiting every single part of your body."
Variations include jump squats, narrow squats and wide squats.
As for how many jump squats Daniel Craig can do, Simon said: "As many as I tell him."