The Forge: Hindu Squats

Quick Start Guide

This lesson features the second drill of GGP “Big Three” – Hindu squat aka Baithak.
Sets/reps: Similar to pushups – “…simply match the reps with the trainee’s age” – but in the case of the squats, double the number, i.e. your age times two. Same gradual progression applies: “Start with ten movements and add ten a week… until the target number is reached.” (Pavel). Your long-term goal is to be able to do the squats in one long (and easy!) set.
Important notes: Give your toes, ankles, and knees time to adapt. Feel free to start with multiple sets of low rep assisted squats. If your knees hurt, switch to regular supported squats – keep your heels on the floor, and your shins vertical.
Follow up drills: Thoracic Bridges (next lesson)
Questions?: Please post them in our SIMPLEXSTRONG Closed Facebook Group.

Quotes

Legs feed the wolf.

–Herb Brooks

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Second of the GGP “Big 3” are Baithaks (also spelled as Bethaks) – deep-knee bends, commonly know as Hindu squats.

Thomas Kurz writes:

Squats, in their various versions, are the most effective overall strength exercises. Their benefits are not limited to developing lower body strength and endurance. Squats without additional resistance (weight), such as Hindu squats, strengthen knee ligaments, develop muscular endurance in the lower body, and improve lung function. This is why these squats, called baithak, together with one more exercise—Hindu push-ups—are an indispensable part of Indian wrestlers’ training. These wrestlers, famous for their stamina, do several hundred deep squats every day (Draeger and Smith 1974).

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If you are new to weight training you should start with the easiest and, in the long term, the safest form of squats. I believe that would be the Hindu squats. If you are an experienced lifter but your knees are creaky, you may want to stop your heavy squats for a while and do Hindu squats to strengthen your knees.

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The Hindu squat will suffice as it is the safest one for beginners.

Mujumdar (1950) gives us a traditional Indian overview:

This exercise is supplementary to Dands. Dands give a prominent shape particularly to arms and chest while Baithaks shape calf muscles and thigh-muscles, tending to develop wonderful stamina of the performer. These two exercises enable Indian Wrestlers to become invincible in obtaining strength. Generally the number of Baithaks should be double the number of Dands. Baithaks make the wrestlers firm of footwork in wrestling. Quickness in Baithaks develops quickness of body-movements and the repetition increases stamina. Thigh muscles are the longest and strongest muscles of the body and Baithaks, running and jumping make leg-muscles brawny and strong.

European wrestlers are generally weak in leg strength and hence they fall easy victims to Indian Wrestlers. European wrestlers coming in contact with Indian wrestlers are now slowly realizing the importance and need of Baithaks in developing leg muscles.

Baithaks on toes, simple Baithaks on full soles and jumping Baithaks are some of the varieties practiced by Indian Wrestlers. In the initial stage of practice in this form of exercise, calf-muscles and thigh muscles ache a little, but constant daily practice without stoppage stops the complaint and increases the vigor, stamina and suppleness of the performer.

The arm swings reintroduce – well, the arm swings – from the introductory exercises. Apart from helping with the overall rhythm and Hindu squat pattern, they will relax the shoulder and whole upper body after Hindu pushups.

Notice that the arm movement coordinated with the squat is actually a jump pattern – shoulders go into extension, hips go to flexion.

Paul Wade writes in Convict Conditioning (2011):

“…[rhythm] encourages greater speed, greater explosiveness than in usual squats. …rhythmic nature of Hindu squats make them an excellent choice for a high rep alternative to running for those who wish to develop lower body endurance but with little floor space. They also provide great cardio benefits.

…but warns that:

“…the momentum used during the natural rhythm may irritate the knees of some athletes…. If you chose to use them, work them into your program gradually, to allow your knee tendons to get used to the exercise.”

That is why you should start with an easier variation, such as the supported Hindu squats, and why we will keep the total reps lower: still fairly high reps, but definitely not hundreds or thousand Hindu squats a day – minimum effective dose. To paraphrase Henk Kraaijenhof: “Do as little as necessary, not as much as possible.”

Here is some detailed information about high-rep Hindu squats from the great Thomas Kurz:

I do not understand why anyone would want to do Hindu squats in several short sets. Stopping every 10 repetitions breaks the pace, is tiring, and wastes time. You stop at the time when you should be getting up to speed so you can cruise on at a comfortable pace. One hundred Hindu squats takes from 2 minutes 15 seconds if you hurry to under 2 minutes and 40 seconds if you don’t. (The time depends also on how tall you are—the taller the person the longer it takes.) Of course, you do not have to start with one hundred.

The reasons why it is better to do Hindu squats at a lively pace:

1. You can do more that way because you can better use the elasticity of your joints and muscles (Bober 1995). Moving without stopping so you can take advantage of the rebound can double your mechanical efficiency thanks to storage and return of energy by the elastic structures of your body so you can do more repetitions. The more you can do the better because it takes many repetitions to strengthen the knees. Ligaments are strengthened with “chronic activity . . . of an endurance nature” (Tipton et al. 1975) and so are the slow-twitch muscle fibres that do most of the muscular stabilisation of the joints (see the previous article of this column). The surface layers of joint cartilage receive nutrition from synovial fluid (joint fluid), and intermittent compressing and decompressing of joint surfaces is necessary for providing nutrients and removing waste products from the cartilage cells (Feiring and Derscheid 1989; Hertling and Kessler 2005). Furthermore, the synovial fluid becomes less viscous and thus more slippery with increased speed of movements in the joint (Hertling and Kessler 2005).

2. You will develop neuromuscular coordination and endurance (both muscular and cardiovascular) useful for sports and martial arts. The pace of an exercise determines the result. Slow pace “increases” the resistance by eliminating the momentum of the body or of the weight and thus develops hypertrophy. Fast pace “reduces” the resistance because you are taking advantage of momentum. A fast pace also improves mobilisation and synchronisation of motor units (Pawluk 1985) and so develops the type of functional strength needed in martial arts and combat sports.

I suspect that your soreness is caused by doing squats too slow, forcing your muscles to work harder than if you moved fast. Because you are in terribly poor shape, the slow squats make you tense your thighs enough to damage your fast-twitch muscle fibres—hence your muscle soreness. The cracking sounds may be caused by poor muscular control of the knee joints due to fatigue of the fast-twitch muscle fibres and poor development of the slow-twitch fibres, or perhaps moving slow is not good for your knees’ cartilage. If Hindu squats are done right they relieve and prevent knee problems. After squatting with heavy weights, on the same day and a day after I used to have somewhat achy and creaky knees. Now I do a couple of hundred Hindu squats after lifting weights and my knees make no noises and feel fresh.

How to Progress?

You may use light dumbbells – a popular method both in India and in the West or a weighted vest – but I suggest to keep it easy and work on your leg strength using some of the time tested methods we teach in StrongFirst:

SFB Bodyweight: Single-leg squats aka pistols (we will cover them in future lessons)
SFG Kettlebell: Goblet squat, front squat, double kettlebell front squat
StrongFirst RESILIENT: Hack squat
SFL Barbell: Zercher squat, front squat, back squat