1. How You Do Them
If you can do lateral squats, you're on your way to doing this one. Get in position for a lateral squat, feet together, hands on hips, standing straight. Push your shoulders back and down if you like to add some extra tension to the routine. Step out with your left foot, getting a wide stance, wider than your shoulders, and bend your knees as you go into a squat so that your thighs are parallel to the floor. Here's where it gets different than the typical lateral squat: as you come up to a standing position again, step lightly into a skipping motion as you set your left foot down, and step out with your right. Practice this until you can do it with a fluid, non-stop motion.
2. Staying Safe Doing Squats
You may have heard many and varied excuses for why people don't want to do squats, from complaints about the stress on the lower back to a desire to avoid overextending the knees. Take another look. The typical squat, when done well, helps strengthen your calves, hamstrings and quadriceps, adductors on the inside of your thighs, the buttocks and your back. It's difficult to find an exercise that gives such an intense and focused work out to so many essential muscle groups. When done well, they tone and strengthen the body, and they help with many of your daily tasks that involve bending and lifting. Do them well--by squatting instead of bending--and you build your muscles in a powerful way.
3. Women Have It Better
Squats have been shown to help build bone density in the spine and hips. When engaged in with good form, steady movements and intensity of work out, you can expect to burn a high number of calories while building up muscle mass on your thighs. Better muscle mass translates into a higher metabolic rate, which keeps you burning fat even while sitting around the house. How much better can it be?
4. Go To The Next Step
Once you've gotten the balance and movement down and have no problem keeping your rhythm going, try adding weights, either in the form of dumbbells or a barbell. Try with really low weight at first, and work until you feel comfortable. Keep the reps steadily increasing, and watch that you don't rest too long between sets.
5. Don't Get Bouncy
With the lateral skip squat, different from the normal up-and-down stationary squat, you have to keep the motion going, not stopping as you would normally. The temptation here is to turn it into a jumping motion, which can put the wrong kinds of stress on the knees. While squats in themselves aren't dangerous, the improper execution of the routine can lead to problems, both immediate and down the road. Keep the skipping motion light and controlled, and think fluidity of motion in every step you take.
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