Mama And Baby Exercises

A great take on the boring on squat is to jazz it up a bit with various feet positions, thus strengthening different muscles as you go.

Jamie Atlas (who has a really interesting and diverse fitness blog) demonstrates the possible varieties, with his infant daughter.

I thought I would post this here for two reasons - the first being that this would obviously be a great addition and variation to squats in a workout. You could basically move through your day like this (ok, not through your day, but you could designate a task to be done in squats (like cleaning finger marks of the kitchen cabinets, or wiping the crayon marks of the wall :-)) with the given freedom of other feet positions - it could make both squatting and wiping into quite an entertaining experience.
The second reason - and probably the main reason I loved this so much, especially with the child in the carrier - is that this is the kind of exercise that can be done by you with your child on you - kind of like a jogging stroller that works its way into your fitness instead of getting in fitness’s way. The added weight is great for the mom, the rocking up and down movements might just keep the babe quiet, and as a mom that spent about 6 to 8 months with my babies on me for a big portion of the time - this kind of exercise is a real life saver.

For more details on these squats, check out Jamies blog (also a great picture of moma doing some bench squats with baby)

Marley does the Gary Gray Squat Matrix from jamie atlas on Vimeo.