Dumbbell Press is a great exercise to progress to from doing your standard barbell bench press. It forces your muscles to work harder to stabilise the movement and means you get more engagement in your shoulder joints.
Lateral raises are easy in that you don’t need much weight but challenging because they are hard work! A lot of people go too heavy with these and sacrifice form for feeding their ego. Let’s not be one of those people eh? đŸ˜€
When starting your weight session, you will need to warm up! Part of the warm up process is ensuring your muscles are ready to engage in the task at hand. This means you need the blood pumping and the nerves innervating your muscles firing and ready to kick arse. The Warm up Calculator allows a…
This one is just for you Lilian!
Your big swinging, pronounced movements!
A simple calf stretch that can be done on any step – provided the step is deep enough to allow you to drop your heels low enough! You can do this stretch both feet at a time or you can do one foot at a time to really get that targeted stretch for each calf.
This is an easy calf stretch that can be done anywhere there is a step. This stretch helps target the Gastrocnemius part of the calves.
This variation on the leaning calf stretch targets the second muscle that makes up your calves – the Soleus muscle. It sits behind the Gastrocnemius muscle and is more of a longer sheath of muscle compared to the somewhat bulked up look of the Gastrocnemius.
An easy stretch that can be done practically anywhere there is something you can lean into. By straightening out the back leg and keeping that heel on the ground, we can get a great stretch through the calf muscles of that leg. In particular the Gastrocnemius muscle which is that mango shaped muscle we generally see as the calf muscle.
In this progression, we throw in some extra challenge by having the swiss ball under us. By holding the body in correct alignment, you will also want to squeeze your glutes to help you stay on the ball.
If you are unable to get your head against the wall, try propping a towel that is rolled up enough to enable you have your head against it.
In this progression, the wall angel is done without any support under the hips. By holding the body in correct alignment, you will want to try and get your elbows against the wall and if possible your wrists too.
If you are unable to get your head against the wall, try propping a towel that is rolled up enough to enable you have your head against it.
This exercise isolates your quadriceps. This is also an exercise where you need to keep your ego in check as you don’t need to kick out a lot of reps with ALL THE WEIGHTS. A lighter weight with controlled movements should do the trick nicely.
Dead Lifts are often considered to be the biggest and most beneficial lift in the gym. It makes sense as to why too. The number of muscles recruited and the amount of weight the body can lift are both impressive and very effective in changing your body.
The Dead Lift is also one of the more technical lifts in the gym but if you learn correctly first time around, they can be seen as a simple lift! Afterall – it is simply lifting a dead weight from the floor đŸ™‚
This is a great exercise to get some control and activation happening in your glute and hamstrings. The aim of this exercise is control your descent down to the floor. If you kinda free fall and then “plonk” to hit the floor it means you didn’t control the movement with your glutes. Old ladies with lots of cats plonk – we don’t đŸ™‚
The key to get the most out of this exercise is to ensure that the working legs knee never goes in front of the ankle. Directly above or slightly behind is the way to go. Also make sure when you get to the top of the movement you are leaning back and that there is tension in your arms at all times!
This exercise is an evolution of your standard Swiss Ball Hamstring Curls. It’s a great exercise to really get a serious contraction happening in the hamstrings as well as engaging your glutes as well.
To make this exercise more challenging, you can have only your elbows pressed into the ground which reduces your stability. To make it more difficult again, have your arms straight up in the air.
The Swiss ball back extension builds strength and stability in the lower back, glutes, and hamstrings. Performing the exercise on a Swiss ball will actively engage the core and improve balance.
This is a great exercise to really get your biceps contracting. In the kneeling position and with your elbows above your head, the bicep is able to contract to its shortest position meaning you can really get some fantastic tension and pump in muscle. The cable machine enables you train the biceps with a different force curve also.
14 March, 2017 Annnnd it’s that time of year again. The Biggest Loser is almost upon us and that effectively means we are about to see some “amazing” transformations in 8 weeks. Errgh.
7 March, 2017 Surprise! It’s Kidney Health Week! I know, I know.. like I needed to remind you all! It’s totally etched into your brain like your birthday is, like Christmas Day and Easter. No? Doesn’t ring a bell? At all?