Doing wall sits every day for a month is not a healthy way to lose weight or build muscle. Performing any strenuous exercise daily, without rest days, increases your injury risk. Plus, repetitive daily exercise will actually decrease the amount of muscle tone you gain. Instead, it’s best to incorporate wall sits into your workout program 2–3 times per week for increased health and better overall fitness.
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What Happens if You Do Wall Sits Every Day for a Month?
Despite the popularity of 30-day or 31-day challenges, these sorts of workout programs are not recommended by trainers or physical therapists. Doing wall sits every day for a month is a challenge with several drawbacks. Here’s why to avoid month-long wall sit challenges:
You Risk Overtraining
After strenuous exercise, the muscles you worked require 48 hours of rest to recover before they’re ready for another workout. Muscle strength and tone only increase when your muscles are allowed to rest before the next workout. Doing wall sits every day undermines this process. The mistake of working your muscles without providing recovery time is known as “overtraining.” You will actually gain less muscle tone if you work out the same muscles every day with wall sits.
- Muscles require 48 hours of rest after a hard workout in order to gain strength and tone.
- Working the same muscles every day with wall sits interrupts recovery and causes slower fitness progress.
- You will get stronger, more toned thighs by doing wall-sits 2–3 times per week instead of every day for a month.
To provide yourself with proper rest and recovery, do wall sits 2–3 times per week, with at least 48 hours between wall-sit workouts. On rest days where you’re not working your lower body with wall sits and other exercises, focus on training muscles in your upper body. By allowing rest for your muscles, you’ll actually experience more strength and muscle tone improvement.
You Won’t Create a Sustainable Workout Schedule
Doing wall sits every day for a month is a tough challenge, but it doesn’t put you on a path to long-term fitness. After working tired muscles with wall sits every day for a month, you’re most likely to be so sick of wall sits that you never want to do them again. Instead of doing wall sits, begin with a fitness program that you can stick to for 3–6 months.
- A 30-day wall-sit challenge will not help you build a long-term fitness schedule.
- Typically, after doing wall sits every day for a month you’ll be burnt out and sick of exercise.
- Try a total body workout program with a variety of exercises and rest days, which prevent boredom and burnout.
Total body fitness programs incorporate rest days, so you get a break from the gym. They also include a variety of exercises, which builds total fitness and prevents boredom. Instead of doing the same exercise every day for a month, you’ll get better results from a variety of exercises, plus some days off.
Wall Sits are Not a Total Lower Body Workout
Quadriceps and glutes are the main muscles targeted by wall sits. Other muscles are worked secondarily, but the calves and hamstrings are not worked very hard by wall sits. In order to build tone and strength throughout your lower body, it’s best to avoid doing only one exercise.
- Wall sits mostly target the quads and glutes, but they do not work all the muscles in your lower body equally.
- Add glute bridges, calf raises, and single-leg deadlifts as bodyweight exercises that build muscle in your hamstrings, glutes, and calves.
In order to build complete lower body strength, try a workout program that includes wall sits for the quadriceps, single-leg deadlifts for the hamstrings, and calf raises for your calves. Side lunges, squats, and glute bridges are also great lower body workouts that target muscles neglected by wall-sits.
You’ll Have an Increased Injury Risk
Any exercise challenge that asks you to do the same exercise for an entire month without rest puts you at increased injury risk. When used as part of a workout program, wall sits can be great for reducing knee pain. However, doing them daily works exhausted muscles, which can lead to pulled muscles, joint pain, and inflammation.
- Performing wall sits for an entire month without rest days increases injury risk.
- Working tired, overstressed muscles puts you at a much greater risk of injury.
- After working out a muscle group (such as the legs), allow 48 hours before you work out that muscle group again.
Rest days from exercise are essential to prevent injury. You’ll get much better results by doing a lower body workout with wall sits 2–3 times per week. Just remember to rest for 48 hours after a tough lower body workout. So, if you do a leg workout that includes wall sits on Monday, don’t work your lower body again until Wednesday, at the earliest. In the meantime, you can work out other muscles, or take a full recovery day.
Are Wall Sits Better Than Squats?
Wall sits are superior to squats if you are rehabbing a knee injury or if squats are painful for you to perform. However, if you are looking to burn calories, increase muscle tone, and improve strength, squats are far better than wall sits.
- Wall sits are better for helping individuals recover from knee injury than squats.
- Choose wall sits if squats are painful or if you need to build up strength to do squats.
- Squats are more effective at burning calories and building muscle tone than wall sits.
- Choose squats if weight loss and improved muscle tone are your primary goals.
Despite what some sites say about wall sits, health professionals agree that isometric exercises (where you hold a static position) like wall sits do not improve strength as much as isotonic exercises (where you move and perform repetitions). So, if your goals are weight loss or increasing muscle tone, do squats instead of wall sits.
What Does Doing Wall Sits Every Day for a Month Do?
Avoid challenges that ask you to do wall sits or any other exercise every day for a month or any other extended time period. The reasons you should avoid doing wall sits every day are:
- You will develop less strength and muscle because you will be overtraining the same tired muscles every day.
- Wall sit challenges do not create a sustainable, long-term fitness schedule.
- You will only work a few muscles in your lower body by doing wall sits—others will be neglected.
- Your injury risk will increase due to repetitive exercise without proper rest and recovery.
Instead of doing wall sits every day, follow a total body workout program. You can incorporate wall sits into your workout 2–3 times per week, but a true fitness program will work your other muscles and provide rest days. This sort of program actually results in more calories burned, better fitness, and increased muscle tone. Plus, you won’t have to sit up against a wall over and over for an entire month.
