How Many Squats Should A 16 Year Old Do
Luz Ignasiak
The number of squats you should do has nothing to do with your gender and everything to do with your fitness level. Be mindful of your limits and make sure your form is solid before adding additional reps or weight.
As a beginner, squatting 3 sets of 12-15 reps several times a week will have you well on your way to more strength and fuller jeans. Incorporate them into a well-rounded exercise routine and watch the results flow!
In the spring of 2010 I returned to the United States after living in Scotland for a few months. My travel schedule had been crazy: 12 countries in less than 14 weeks, which included a particularly insane span of 6 countries in 12 days.
My first day back in Ohio, I called Mark Cannella, the head coach at Columbus Weightlifting. (Mark is a good friend now and was an Olympic Weightlifting coach at the 2012 Olympics in London.) We set up a time for me to come in the next day.
Regardless of what my true max was on that first day, we can safely say that I increased my squat by at least 100 pounds in 16 weeks that followed. With the proper combination of training, diet, and recovery, I think you can achieve similar growth.
When I went to the gym for those 16 weeks, I did squats every workout. (I was lifting 3 days per week.) Squats were also the first exercise that I during each workout. I wanted to make sure that I was working on my most important goal when my energy and concentration were at their best.
As I already mentioned, I was never missing workouts, I was getting great sleep, I was eating everything I could find, and I was living a low stress lifestyle. There were too many other great things going on at once for me to say whether or not the supplements made any difference.
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Squats strengthen all of the muscle groups in your legs, including your calves, quadriceps, hamstrings and glutes, as well as muscles in your lower back and core. Those muscles provide the foundation for most activities of daily living.
Some research even shows a link between strong leg muscles and longevity. In one study, people ages 70 to 79 with stronger quadriceps (the muscles along the front of the thigh) had a lower chance of dying over six years compared with those who had weaker quadriceps
Try to keep your weight evenly distributed on both feet as you do the exercise, with your weight mostly on your heels, not your toes, says Lori Michiel, founder of Lori Michiel Fitness, which specializes in senior fitness in the home.
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As you start to build strength, you can try doing your squats without holding on to anything. For balance, let your arms rise parallel in front of you on the downward part of the squat, then drop them to your sides when you stand up, Austin suggests. You can see Austin demonstrating how to do a mini-squat in the video below.
Position yourself as if you were about to do a traditional squat, but bring your hands up in front of your chest. Squat down, then as you push yourself back up into a standing position, shift your weight onto your right leg and gently sweep your left leg out to the side, so that you use only your right leg to push yourself back up. Bring your left foot back down into the starting position, then squat down once again, this time shifting your weight onto your left leg as you rise and gently sweep your right leg out to the side. Continue alternating from left to right for 8 to 10 repetitions.
Unfortunately, while there is a lot of data about how much weight you should be able to squat based on your sex, age, and even body weight, there is a relative lack of normative data providing insight into how many squats you should be able to do.
In other words, there are squat weight standards or lots of available average weights for squats but very little in terms of official squat standards or squat averages for the number of squat reps for men, women, and age, among other factors.
Trying to answer the question, How many squats should I be able to do? is that determining the average squat count by age, the average number of squats for women, a good number of squats for men, etc., requires looking at bodyweight squats, also called air squats, rather than squats with weight.
Otherwise, it would be pretty impossible to make an apples-to-apples comparison or answer: How many squats can the average person do? when a different squat weight is being used for all of the average number of squats data.
Or, they prefer to just do the correct number of squats using an appropriate load based on fitness level and fitness goal rather than banging out super long sets of bodyweight squats to see how many air squats they can do before hitting failure.
Perhaps your fitness goals are better aligned by looking at how much weight you should be squatting and how many reps and sets of squats you should do based on your fitness level, squat weight, and training goal.
One final way that you can bring more value to looking at the question: How many squats should I be able to do? for assessing your fitness level based on the average number of squats age-matched and sex-matched peers might be able to do is by putting a time limit on the number of squats.
Basically, much like a push-up test or curl-up test (which are also fitness tests for muscular endurance), you can look at the average number of bodyweight squats by age, sex, or fitness level in a distinct bodyweight squat test time period.
While there may not be official bodyweight squat standards in terms of how many squats you should be able to do by age, sex, or body weight, Strength Level does have average squat reps for men and women by age and sex for basic bodyweight squats using self-submitted 134,331 data points from users of the online community for the website.
Beginners know how to perform the exercise correctly but have only been training for about a month. In terms of percentiles, a beginner level in terms of the average number of squats is someone who is better than just 5% of the population.
In other words, if you are indeed a beginner because you have just begun exercising and have only been doing squats for about a few months, you will look at the average number of squats beginners can do based on your age, sex, and body weight and aim to achieve that level or above.
On the other hand, if you are only able to do the number of bodyweight squats reported in the Beginner column for your sex, age, or body weight, but you have been training longer than six months and fall into one of the other experience levels, your fitness is at a beginner level.
Because the intermediate level constitutes the 50th percentile, you could say that the number of squats the average male can do is 57, and the number of squats the average female can do is 39.
Remember that while you certainly can perform squats as a muscular endurance exercise, in which case most people do bodyweight squats and try to do as many squats as possible, the squat exercise is typically performed as a lower-body strengthening exercise or lower-body hypertrophy (muscle-building) exercise.
Beth lives in London and works as a freelance writer on a range of projects. Along with writing regular articles for Medical News Today, she writes for the Horniman Museum, an anthropology museum in South London. This involves recording minutes for conferences, blogging for their website, and documenting their process of curating art exhibitions. She loves theatre, yoga, and cycling in her spare time.
After working as part of the editorial team for Medical News Today, Markus wrote a large body of medical information articles for our Knowledge Center. Based in Edinburgh, he has qualifications in medical science and science communication and enjoys photography.
Caitlin Geng lives in Johannesburg, South Africa, with her husband and three dogs. Her work, which has appeared in print and digital publications, mainly deals with health, mental well-being, parenting, and beauty. When she is not writing, Caitlin is usually curled up on the couch with her dogs, reading comics or a good book.
Sprains are painful and can cause swelling. These injuries can make it painful to squat and do other exercises that involve the knee. A person with a sprained knee may also find it hard to walk or put any weight on this joint.
Tendonitis is more likely to occur as a result of repetitive movements, particularly if these exert a lot of force on the tendon. People often make repetitive movements while playing sports or working in a manual labor job.
If the IT band becomes inflamed, it can rub on the outer knee and cause pain, especially during movements that involve the joint, such as squatting. IT band syndrome often affects runners. People who do not stretch properly before exercising also have a higher risk of sustaining this injury.
To warm up, use movements that mobilize the joints and increase the flow of blood and oxygen to the muscles, such as marching on the spot. Stretching the legs before and after exercise can also help lower the risk of injury or strains.
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