If you’re anything like us, summer tends to be a time of taking it easy. And then September rolls around and you can’t remember the last time you picked up a weight or purposely got out of breath. The longer you leave exercise, the harder it is to do.

While it’s perfectly normal and fine to take a break, it’s important not to give up fitness altogether. We know, for example, that being static can make us as low and tired as suffering from insomnia for a week. It’s been also linked with type 2 diabetes, heart disease, dementia and some types of cancer. Research also shows that long-term inactivity is responsible for about one in six UK deaths. 

Those terrifying stats got me thinking: what could I do to incorporate a little more activity in my day without making a big effort? After a quick Google search (I hastily rejected the 5-minute plank challenge and a crazy 100-burpees-a-day workout), I came across wall sits.

A wall sit is an isometric (static) exercise used to work the quadriceps as well as your glutes and calves, explains Lucy Arnold, personal trainer and founder of inclusive fitness clothing brand Lucy Locket Loves. “You place your back flat against a wall with your heels on the ground, form a right angle at your hips and knees. You should be able to feel a slight pulling of the quad area,” she explains.

Recent research has found that doing just eight minutes of isometric exercises is enough to boost heart health. In fact, researchers concluded that these static holds were actually better than bouncy HIIT when it comes to improving blood pressure. That’s more than enough reason for me to sit against a wall for a few minutes a day. If I can get stronger, protect my heart and not have to do a single burpee, what’s there to lose? So, I decided to challenge myself to 30 days of wall sits.

According to Arnold, wall sits are great for gradually increasing strength and muscular endurance in your legs. “This can benefit your performance in the gym as well as in sports such as swimming, cycling or running,” she says.

As a runner, I’m particularly interested to see if my wall sit challenge will have an impact on my training, so I asked Anthony Fletcher, biomechanics coach and founder of Onetrack Run Club about their benefits. “Isometric exercises such as wall sits are a great tool to keep our tendons healthy,” he explains. “Runners need to do slow, loaded movements in order to keep the tendons healthy because they do thousands of fast movements every time they hit the floor.

“A wall sit would mainly load the quads and therefore the patella tendon (which connects the bottom of the knee cap to the top of the shinbone),’ he continues. “Regular wall sits could help to decrease the stiffness of the tendon, which would be particularly beneficial for someone who suffers with quad injuries when running fast.

“The good thing about wall sits is that as they’re isometric, they’re relatively risk-free and can be incorporated within your training to build endurance without tiring you out too much,” he adds.

Running aside, physiotherapist, pilates instructor and fitness influencer Lilly Sabri, says wall sits are a great exercise for improving your core strength. “If your form is correct, you’re engaging your core and back muscles during a wall sit to stabilise the body,” she says. According to Sabri this will build abdominal endurance and help to prevent back injuries.

Sean Kazab, trainer and fitness manager at workout app Fiit, also points out that they’re perfect for those who want to build lower body muscular strength but don’t have access to exercise equipment. They can be done anywhere, they don’t require much space and they take just moments. 

Before I get started, I need to make sure that I actually know how to do a wall sit properly. So, I get Sabri to write me a crib sheet on the exercise:

1. Stand with your back pressed against a wall and place your feet firmly on the ground, shoulder-distance apart, approximately two feet from the wall
2. Engage your core by pulling your belly button back towards your spine and keeping your ribcage down
3. Control your breathing as you slide your body down the wall until your knees and hips reach a 90-degree angle
4. Check your knee alignment to ensure that your knee joints are in line with your middle toes and aren’t buckling in or out
5. Keep your core engaged and your arms down by your side on the wall. Hold this position for the duration of the exercise
6. Once the timer is complete, slowly push up through your feet to slide your back up the wall into a standing position

TikTok might be full of influencers holding three-minute planks, but that doesn’t mean you’ve got to struggle against the wall for ages. According to Kazab, how long you should aim to wall sit for is going to depend on your fitness level to begin with. 

“I’d suggest doing a max wall sit test to gauge what’s right for you,” he says. When your legs start quivering during the wall sit, you’re most likely at your max and should come back up to standing.

“Aim to work about 70% of your max time and do three sets of that with a one-minute break in-between each set for your first session,” says Kazab. So, if your max is 60 seconds, do a wall sit for about 40-45 seconds and repeat that twice. “As you get fitter, you can make them longer and even add in more sets if you like,” he continues. “After three weeks, give it a retest and you should see a vast improvement.”  

Week one: feeling the burn

I kick off my 30-day challenge by doing the max test. I’m able to hold a wall sit for 75 seconds before my legs turn to jelly, so I start off by doing three sets of 50 seconds with a 60-second rest period in between each set. 

The first 50 seconds is fine, the second is painful and the third is like torture with my quads screaming out in pain. It was so much harder than I’d anticipated. Like loads of runners and gymmers, I’d under-estimated just how difficult sweat-free workouts can be. 

Over the next few days, I try to time my wall sit exercises with an 11am coffee break and the same pattern emerges; the first set is OK, the second is painful, the third awful. But, interestingly, I do start to experience an endorphin-boost by the end of that tricky third set – something I didn’t think possible from a low-impact workout.

After seven days of wall sits, it finally starts to feel a bit easier. I’m only really struggling in the final few seconds of the last set. Seeing the progress is hugely motivating.

On the final day of week one, I go on a run and it happens to be the fastest I’ve done a 5k in a month. Coincidence?

Week 2: boredom strikes

After a week of wall sitting, I start to struggle with boredom. After all, I’m literally leaning against my bedroom or living room wall staring at my bed or TV for two and a half minutes. It’s hardly exciting. The only way to make it more interesting at this point is to sling on a workout playlist, which does improve the situation.

Then, the week turns sunny and I take the challenge onto my little balcony so I can people watch while building quad strength. On the weekend, I even rope my boyfriend into doing wall sits in our local park when we’re out for a walk. The only way to get through these kinds of exercises is distraction.

Week 3: upping the intensity

As I enter week three, it’s time to step up the challenge so I start holding each wall sit for five seconds longer, as per Arnold’s suggestion. My quads may be sore but at least I’m progressing. And despite the heavy workload this week, I start looking forward to my mid-morning exercise. It’s a great way to combat that sluggish feeling you get after a few hours stuck at a desk.

Week 4: trying wall sit variations

As my challenge comes to an end, it’s time to up the ante with a bunch of wall sit variations. 

First up, I try a single-leg wall sit which involves extending one leg out in front of your body. Sabri tells me this makes the other leg work even harder and also helps with balance. It’s certainly challenging, but it’s a big mental relief to try something new.

Next, I put a 5kg dumbbell on my lap to increase the intensity, and find that I can barely keep it on there for 30 seconds. I switch to a 3kg plate for the remaining two sets which is more manageable but still killer. My legs are like jelly by the end and I collapse on the floor as soon as the timer goes off.

For the last few days of my challenge, I alternate between single-leg and weighted wall sits which aren’t getting much easier but I’m learning to enjoy them more and more.

On day 30, I redo the max test to see how far I’ve come and find that I can now hold a wall sit for 90 seconds without a single wobble. That’s a huge improvement. I finish off by doing a regular wall sit for 60 seconds, a weighted wall sit for 50 seconds and a then single-leg wall sit for 30 seconds on each leg. And just like that, the challenge is complete. 

The verdict

I haven’t gained crazy amounts of strength in my legs but after 30 days of wall sits, I know that my lower body muscular endurance has definitely improved. The fact that I can hold a wall sit for 15 seconds longer than I could 30 days ago feels like a big achievement. 

I can’t say I’ll be doing daily wall sits from now on but I certainly will incorporate them into my day as often as I can. Why wouldn’t I? They’re such a simple but effective way to get your body moving.

If, like me, you want to make your sedentary days a little more active without too much effort, I’d seriously consider wall sits. 

Wall sits are a difficult exercise to master, so if you want to start slow, Sabri suggests starting with a wall sit at a 45-degree angle between your quads and torso, so you’re not going down as low. Hold this for between 10 and 15 seconds before coming back up. You can gradually increase this as the days go on and you feel stronger.

And for an extra challenge…

“Variation is one of the key principles to elicit muscle adaptations,” says Kazab, who believes it’s important to keep challenging yourself in order to reap the rewards.

Aside from the single-leg wall sit and placing a weight on your thighs, Sabri recommends the following adaptations to increase the intensity:

• Bring your hands straight out in front of you to decrease your stability a little. This will encourage the muscles in your legs and core to work even harder
• Add some upper body moves such as a lateral raise or shoulder press with weights to make it dynamic. Make sure to keep your core engaged and your back pressed against the wall to avoid injury 

Images: author’s own