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.
This exercise is a deceptively challenging exercise to help activate the often pesky Glute Medius. Strengthening this muscle will assist with keeping your pelvis aligned. It is quite often used for eliminating knee and back pain as when the muscle is weak, it causes the hips to cock out to the side which puts the lower back into play and also can put the knee out of optimum biomechanical alignment. You will feel the burn on this one!
This is a great exercise for targeting your lats but one side at a time. It is also a handy one to use if you are attempting rebalance your self in the situation of having one side of the body being weaker than the other. Focus on posture and technique is better achieved doing this motion also.
This is a great exercise to do if you are having any sort of problems with your knees or ankles. The TRX squat allows you to lean back into the exercise and get tension more through your hamstrings and glutes as opposed to your knees while also keeping your ankles and knees in a more neutral position.
One of the first exercises that come to mind when you think fitness! Push ups are a great way to exercise your chest, shoulders and arms. If you are new at this exercise and do not have the strength to perform it, you can either bend your legs at the knees to take off resistance or perform the exercise against the wall instead of the floor.
For the most advanced lifters, you can place your feet at a high surface such as a bench in order to increase the resistance and to target the upper chest more.
When people think of using a swiss (or sometimes known as a Fit) ball, this is often the exercise that comes to mind. It is a very common exercise to do in order to target your ab muscles.
To increase the difficulty, you can hold a weight across your chest or a theraband behind you where it is affixed to a post or secured location.
Dead lifts are considered to be one of – if not THE BEST exercises. The basic premise is that you are lifting a dead weight from the floor. It has many variations and can be mixed up to co-inside with your workout requirements. Using a kettle bell allows to mix up the positioning of the weight to be more central to your mass.
This is a great exercise for those who struggle to get those glutes to work and also to keep them in an activated state. The bridging component helps keep tension on the glutes to ensure they keep you in the right position!
To make this one more challenging, you can add weight onto your hips.
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 actual legs involved in this exercise but it is a great one to finish off a session! This exercise isolates the Triceps at the back of your arms but it also has a secret lesson of holding your shoulder in the correct positioning to help with your posture. 2 for the price of some burny arms!