Everything you need to know about the Wall Sit exercise
KEY AREAS: Posture, lower body strength, core stability, balance
START POSITION: Stand with your back to a wall about 25 cm away from the wall. Lean backwards with arms straight down at your sides. When your back and arms are flat against the wall, slide down gently by bending your knees until the thighs are almost horizontal and the lower legs are roughly vertical. Your feet should point straight forwards or slightly outwards, and should be about hip width apart.
NOTES: Hold this position for as long as you can, as if you are sitting on an imaginary chair.
The Wall Sit is a very easy to learn exercise that can be done anywhere with a flat vertical wall. No equipment is needed. It feels quite easy to start, but quickly becomes more uncomfortable as the quads get fired up.
Wall Sits can be incorporated into any Warm-up session and the intensity is easily adjusted by how long you hold the position for. Beginners may only be able to hold this position for a few seconds. By regularly including the Wall Sit exercise into your daily routines you will quickly become better at it, and soon you should be able to hold the position for around 60 seconds. A 30 second hold is very good.
Do this exercise after you have warmed up properly. The Wall Sit is a Static exercise (or Isometric exercise) and you will find it works better to do 2 sets. The first set should be short and easy – about half of the time you think you can do. The second and last set should be held as long as possible. This technique is similar to the Two-Cycle Stretch Technique which I discuss in my page about Flexibility & Stretching.