Do you know how to activate your glutes? Do you know how to tuck them? This exercise is definitely one that can help you with this! A very simple exercise that can be done practically anywhere.. except for may be a public toilet floor… for.. well obvious reasons.
Want to make this exercise more challenging? Add weights to your pelvis. Gentlemen mind your bits!
Getting our glutes to work can sometimes be tricky work. This exercise focuses on extending the hip so you can give the glutes a good squeeze. By going single leg, it means there is more weight for the glute to lift.
To make this exercise a touch easier, you can cross your floating legs ankle across your working legs knee.
To make it more challenging you can place a small weight across your hips (gentlemen – watch your bits!).
No weights? No problem! You can always do a workout with your body weight or in this case, your leg weight! The trick to this one is pelvis and lower back control. You must maintain control of them in order to get the most out of the exercise. If you arch your back too much, your lower back tries to take over which can hurt. If you can’t get your straightened legs down to the ground without arching – don’t go so low OR bend your knees.
You can make this exercise more challenging by holding a medicine ball or something weighted between your ankles!
This is a very basic and effective stretch for the Latissumis Dorsi muscles or.. commonly shortened to Lats. Not much to say other than it’s awesome and you can vary up your grip by holding the post/frame/structure with either pinky finger on top!
The plank is the exercise we all love to hate. But the longer we can hold, the stronger our abs, back and shoulders will get!
A staple movement of the gym when it comes to abs! This one is pretty straight forward but still effective in getting those abs working.
Just make sure you aren’t pulling your head forward as you crunch up!
A cool little variation to your standard plank, the side plank targets those obliques!
If this one annoys your shoulder, you can alter it so that you are on your hand as opposed to your elbow and forearm.
Dying Cockroaches.. Drunk Irishmen.. this exercise has had many a name.. but the purpose and benefits!
Yeah.. about the name of this exercise. It’s pretty straight forward. You are trying to reach your fingertips around the outer side of your opposing knee! I don’t know what you’re thinking?
A simple stretch that can help release those tight muscles of the inner thighs.
Quite often when we have issues with lower back and knees, tight adductor muscles can be a contributing factor to this as they pull the knee inwards and thus compromsing the correct biomechanics of the knee and hip. This is bad. We don’t want that. So this stretch is a good starting point to sorting it out!
Believe it or not – most people simply don’t know how to do a plank properly.
Nope! No idea!
Then when they learn, they realise how challenging it can be. This is where the modified plank comes in. Allowing you to understand the biomechanics of the exercise and making it easier to focus on technique.
When someone says “have a stretch”, this is often the first stretch they think of – and that’s no bad thing!
The Quad stretch is a great one as often we get tight in the hips and the quads can contribute to this tightness.
This stretch is something SO. MANY. PEOPLE. SHOULD. DO.
Especially if you work at a computer.
Tight upper trapezius muscles cause so many problems. It can cause headaches, dominance over other muscles, protracted shoulders.. the list goes on! Doing this stretch is a fantastic way to help avoid these problems!
Big tip for this exercise is to be very gentle with the tilting of your head. There is no need to rip it to the side. Gentle is key!
Why aren’t you doing it already? WHY??
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This stretch is more a yoga pose but hey – it works! Fantastic for stretching out the hips and hamstrings and that’s a good thing. This particular pose is a SCREAMING PIGEON. How extreme!
Due to so many people being in a seated position for many hours of the day, the hip flexors (Tensor Facia Lata and Psoas Major) tend to get a bit tight and ultimately can cause the pelvis to tilt forward which can lead to lower back tightness and soreness. This neat stretch can help stretch those pesky hip flexors out and avoid the tightening happening in the lower back!
The Pec Stretch is something that nearly everyone should do.. REGULARLY. We often get so tight through the shoulders and often the chest muscles are the ones that play a part in this tightness.
This stretch is a minor but vital variation on the good old pec stretch.
The Pec Minor stretch stretches out and helps loosen up tight and protracted shoulders which is ever so important for those who work in offices or do anything heavy lifting wise where the weight is needed to be lifted or dragged down and toward you.
Initially a tricky release to get positioned for, the wall scrum is actually a pretty awesome substitute for a well placed elbow, which some of us might even welcome!
This exercise can be done on a post, a door frame.. pretty much any object that allows you to get into the position. You can do this without a towel but we generally suggest using one to make it somewhat more comfortable!