If you’ve spent hours hunched over a desk or sprawled on a couch, you’re not alone. Modern sedentary lifestyles often leave us with tight hips, weak lower body muscles, and poor posture. But what if one simple exercise could counteract these effects? Enter the humble squat — a powerhouse movement capable of reversing the toll that prolonged sitting takes on your body. Among the many variations, a deep squat, commonly known as the "Asian squat," has become popular for its holistic benefits.

A squat is much more than just a lower-body exercise; it's a movement pattern deeply rooted in human biomechanics. From standing up from a chair to bending down to pick something off the floor, squatting mimics functional actions that are part of daily life. But unlike the limited range of motion associated with sitting, squatting engages multiple muscle groups and joints, including your hips, knees, ankles, quads, glutes, and calves.

Physiotherapists say squatting is the foundation of mobility and strength, especially as we age. Squats challenge balance, coordination, and mobility. They are necessary for everything from standing up to maintaining lower-body strength.

Why Sitting All Day Wreaks Havoc on Your Body?

Prolonged periods of sitting will increase muscle imbalance, stiff joints, and reduced flexibility. Your hip flexors become tight, your glutes become inactive, and slouching at the shoulders will affect your posture. Eventually, this will lead to chronic back pain and other musculoskeletal problems. Deep squats can serve as a counter-effect by loosening tight hip flexors, strengthening the core, and improving lower body stability.

How Deep Squat Is Beneficial?

Compared to the average gym squats, the deep squat focuses on range of motion and joint health. To perform a deep squat:

1. Stand with your feet a little wider than hip-width apart, toes angled out.

2. Chest upright and core engaged.

3. Lower your hips as far as your mobility allows to get the thighs below parallel to the floor.

4. Squat with the position held for a long time, balanced and heels on the ground.

This squat variation builds strength in addition to developing flexibility in your hips and ankles. A deep squat is one of the most natural resting positions that a human body assumes. Many cultures have the habit of adopting it as a way of daily life to eat, rest, or socialize.

Customizing Squat As Per Your Body

Everybody's squat is going to look different. It's about hip anatomy, femur length, and just how comfortable your body feels when you put it in certain foot positions, width, and angles.

If balance or ankle mobility is a concern, try the following:

Heel Raise: Place wedges, plates, or books under your heels to elevate them and make it easier to squat deeper.

Add a Counterbalance: Stand holding a light dumbbell or kettlebell in front of you for more balance.

Provide Support: Lower yourself into a squat while having support from an immovable object such as a chair or a wall.

If you’re new to squats, start with bodyweight squats to build strength and confidence. Gradually incorporate variations like goblet squats, split squats, and single-leg squats to challenge your muscles further. For those aiming to add intensity, weighted squats with barbells or kettlebells can enhance muscle growth and endurance.

Long-Term Benefits of Squatting

It provides many benefits, other than aesthetically appealing, such as better strength of the lower limbs, better posture, increased flexibility, and low chances of injury. The most significant advantage is probably maintaining functional independence into old age. Experts point out that a good lower body strength and mobility are crucial to a long life. Squats make you active, thereby reducing your chances of falls and injuries.

Common Challenges

Has difficulty with depth or coordination? Don't be discouraged. Everyone faces their limitations. Constricting hips, weak ankles, or simply poor balance might limit movement for some. Mobility exercises can address these challenges through ankle stretches or hip openers; practice regularly, and remember, change is slow. Keep an eye on form and control and hold the weight lightly.

You don't need fancy gear or a membership to a gym to incorporate squats into your daily routine. Start with three sets of 10-15 bodyweight squats a day, increase in frequency and intensity as you move forward, and do these squats as part of your warm-up, cool-down, or take them between work to counteract sitting.

So the next time you’re tempted to sink into your chair for hours on end, think about how a few deep squats can reset your body and revitalize your health.

An estimated 80% of Americans said they took part in sports or fitness activities over the past year, marking a record high, according to a 2025 report. From TikTok-driven routines to throwback military-style training and tech-powered workouts, this year’s fitness trends promised visible results with fairly simple steps. Experts, however, caution that not every trend delivers the same benefits. Below is a look at five fitness trends from 2025 that captured widespread attention online.

5 Fitness Trends That Went Viral in 2025

12-3-30 Treadmill Trend

The 12-3-30 treadmill workout became a social media favorite for its straightforward format: walking at a 12% incline, 3 miles per hour, for 30 minutes. Popularized by influencer Lauren Giraldo, it is often promoted as a weight-loss friendly, low-impact cardio option. The incline helps activate the glutes and hamstrings more than walking on a flat surface, while still feeling manageable for beginners. Fitness experts note that results depend on regular practice, maintaining good posture, avoiding the handrails, and easing into the routine to prevent strain.

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

With public figures like Ivanka Trump and Gisele Bündchen sharing their involvement, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu has seen renewed interest as both exercise and self-defense training. BJJ is a grappling-based martial art that focuses on ground techniques, balance, and leverage, allowing smaller individuals to control stronger opponents. Beyond physical conditioning, it encourages strategic thinking and mental focus, which has helped build loyal communities around the sport.

According to Fox News, Ivanka Trump and her family train with the Valente brothers in Miami, Florida. The instructors describe jiu-jitsu as a discipline that supports physical, mental, and emotional growth, guided by their “7-5-3 code,” which emphasizes spiritual, mental, and physical well-being.

3-2-8 Fitness Method

The 3-2-8 method gained traction as a weekly fitness framework rather than a single workout. Created by instructor Natalie Rose, it includes three days of strength training, two days of Pilates or barre, and a daily goal of 8,000 steps. The approach is designed to support muscle tone, metabolism, and hormonal health, and has been especially popular among women seeking balance rather than burnout. By combining resistance work, low-impact core training, and consistent movement, the method aims to support fat loss and overall fitness without overwhelming the body.

TikTok’s 50-Jump Wake-Up Ritual

One of the simplest trends to take off in 2025 involved starting the day with 50 jumps right after getting out of bed. According to Fox News, the trend’s creator, Kathryn Smith, openly shared that discipline does not come naturally to her. “I am a lazy person by nature. I always have been. I'm never gonna do something that I don't want to do,” she said in her TikTok video. Despite its simplicity, the habit struck a chord with viewers, highlighting how short bursts of movement can help boost alertness and set the tone for the day.

Horseback Fitness

Animal-assisted workouts continued to grow in popularity in 2025, building on trends like Doga and goat yoga that blend exercise with time spent around animals. Among these, horseback fitness stood out. Horse riding, along with tasks like grooming and stable work, offers a full-body workout that improves balance, core strength, coordination, and cardiovascular health. Many programs also include off-horse exercises, such as Swiss ball movements, to mirror riding posture and engage the thighs and core. Beyond physical benefits, participants often point to the mental and therapeutic effects of working closely with horses.

Obesity is not just about how waist size or BMI, but it’s now reshaping the kinds of injuries patients are coming to orthopedic clinics. According to Dr. Rakesh Mattoo, Director of Orthopedics & Joint Replacement at Max Smart Super Speciality Hospital, Saket, the link between weight gain and joint degeneration is now impossible to ignore. “In India, cases of obesity-related osteoarthritis have increased by 30–35 percent over the last ten years, especially in urban areas,” he explains.

Orthopedic surgeons are seeing the consequences every day. “Approximately 55–60% of our knee replacement patients are now overweight or obese, up from about 35–40% a decade ago,” Dr. Mattoo shares. A similar pattern exists with hip replacements: obesity now accounts for nearly 28–30% of those cases, compared with 15% in 2010. The physics behind this trend are sobering, studies show that “every 5 kg of extra weight increases the load on the knees by approximately 15–20 kg,” accelerating cartilage wear and hastening surgical intervention.

What Is Happening In India?

These clinical numbers reflect a far larger population trend. India’s burden of obesity has been rising steadily for decades. In 2022, around 70 million adults in India were classified as obese, including 44 million women and 26 million men, according to data published in The Lancet. This marks a sharp rise from the early 1990s, when obesity rates were much lower. Overall, obesity prevalence climbed from 1.2% to 9.8% in women and 0.5% to 5.4% in men between 1990 and 2022. Additionally, overweight and obesity together affect nearly one in four Indian adults, nearly 24% of women and 23% of men aged 15–49, and even children are showing increases in overweight prevalence.

It’s not just body weight that matters, but where fat is stored. Central abdominal fat, that stubborn belly, is one of the greatest predictors of early joint degeneration, says Dr. Mattoo. And certain groups are at especially high risk: women (particularly post-menopausal), people with prior knee injuries, those with family histories of osteoarthritis, and individuals leading sedentary lives. Conditions like diabetes, hypothyroidism, and metabolic syndrome also create a kind of chronic internal inflammation that accelerates cartilage breakdown.

How Can You Stay Safe?

So what can someone do to protect their joints before they reach the operating table? Dr. Mattoo emphasizes realistic, sustainable steps:

Keep weight in check: Even losing 5–10% of body weight can significantly ease stress on knees and slow osteoarthritis progression.

Build strength: Strengthening the muscles around the thigh, hip, and knee, along with the core, helps distribute load and protect joints. Moderate, low-impact activities like walking, cycling, or swimming are far kinder to joints than high-impact exercise.

Eat smart: “Choose joint-friendly nutrition,” he urges, including foods rich in omega-3s, calcium, vitamin D, and protein, all essential for healthy muscle and cartilage.

Don’t rush into high-impact activity: Running, jumping, or poorly executed gym movements may feel energizing but can do more harm than good if your body isn’t prepared.

Get routine screening: Annual check-ups — including BMI, vitamin D levels, blood glucose, and lipid profiles — catch early risk factors so that preventive measures can be taken.

Looking at younger adults, building strong musculature between ages 20–35 isn’t vanity — it’s protection. Dr. Mattoo points out that muscle mass helps slow degenerative joint changes over decades. Simple habits like walking 6,000–10,000 steps a day, practicing correct posture, and avoiding harmful sitting patterns or lifting techniques go a long way.

With air pollution keeping many indoors, lifestyle changes have to adapt. Structured home workouts like resistance bands, yoga, or bodyweight exercises can mimic outdoor benefits. Even small changes — standing desks, walk-and-talk phone calls, frequent stretch breaks — increase daily calorie burn and reduce sedentary strain.

The rising tide of obesity isn’t just a statistic; it’s now manifesting in the everyday pain and movement limitations of millions of Indians. But as Dr. Mattoo reminds us, “It’s never too early or too late to make changes that protect your joints and your future mobility.”

Aging brings a shift in how the body functions. Metabolism slows down, hormones fluctuate, and the risk of conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, joint problems, and bone loss begins to rise. Health experts often describe the 40s as a turning point, a decade where prevention matters more than ever. According to US-based longevity doctor Dr Vassily Eliopoulos, many habits that feel harmless in one’s 20s and 30s begin to show their impact sharply after the age of 40.

In a recent Instagram post, Dr Eliopoulos highlighted five things people should stop doing immediately if they want to protect their long-term health. He wrote that this is the decade to take muscle health seriously, make sleep a priority, and let go of small daily habits that quietly speed up aging. He added that the choices made in the 40s decide how well the body functions in the 50s, 60s, and 70s because preventing damage is always easier than trying to repair it later.

Stop cutting back on sleep

Sleep becomes crucial in the 40s because the body needs more time to repair itself. Dr Eliopoulos explains that adults between 40 and 60 require seven to nine hours of sleep every night to maintain hormone balance, protect cognitive function, and support metabolism. Even losing a single hour can make a difference. Research shows the risk of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and faster brain aging rises for every hour of sleep below the seven-hour mark. Chronic lack of sleep also encourages fat storage around the abdomen, weakens the immune system, and slows recovery after daily activities.

Simple habits such as keeping the room dark and cool, avoiding late-night screen time, and sticking to a regular sleep schedule can make sleep more restorative. Dr Eliopoulos describes good sleep as a free nightly hormone reset.

Stop neglecting strength training

Muscle loss is one of the most predictable changes after 40. According to Dr Eliopoulos, adults lose three to eight percent of their muscle mass each decade unless they actively work against it. Resistance training two to four times a week can slow this decline dramatically.

Strength work helps maintain bone density, improves insulin sensitivity, and builds lean muscle. Exercises such as squats, push-ups, weightlifting, or using resistance bands increase stability, balance, and overall metabolic rate. Studies also show that middle-aged adults build strength more efficiently with resistance training than relying on cardio alone.

Stop relying on highly processed foods

Packaged snacks, sugary drinks, instant meals, and ultra-processed foods can have a much bigger impact in midlife. More than half of adults over 40 struggle with obesity linked to these foods. They cause sudden spikes in blood sugar and promote inflammation, raising the risk of heart failure. These foods also lack fibre, which affects gut health and increases the risk of colon cancer. Brain health is not spared either, with several studies linking diets high in processed food to faster cognitive decline.

Switching to whole foods such as fruit, nuts, vegetables, and yoghurt can help stabilise energy levels and reduce the risk of diabetes. Reading labels to avoid additives and hidden sugars is an important habit at this stage.

Stop delaying routine health tests

Once a person enters their 40s, regular health screenings become essential. Many conditions, including high cholesterol, prediabetes, thyroid disorders, and vitamin deficiencies, develop silently. Monitoring levels such as A1C, lipid profiles, thyroid markers, and vitamin D helps detect issues early, allowing interventions before symptoms show up. Avoiding tests often means missing warning signs until fatigue, pain, or more serious complications appear.

Stop letting stress build up

Stress hits harder in the 40s because the body becomes more sensitive to cortisol. Continuous stress can raise blood pressure, increase inflammation, affect memory, and contribute to anxiety. Long-term stress even accelerates cellular aging and can push biological age forward by several years. When paired with poor sleep or unhealthy eating, stress significantly increases the risk of stroke.

Dr Eliopoulos recommends daily breathing exercises, regular walks, and simple meditation practices to help reduce stress and protect long-term health.

Disclaimer: Please note that this is a user-generated content. Health and Me does not encourage any changes to be made in your daily schedule without consulting your doctor.