Video: 10 Tips for Working Out When You Have No Time to Workout
When you have no time to workout, it can feel like you'll never reach your fitness goals. But it doesn't have to be that way. You might have no time…
4 Great Accessory Exercises for a Bigger Squat
Including the right squat accessory exercise can revolutionise your squat training. They can help you get a bigger squat whilst also broadening the focus of your training programme. They can also be used to vary your training if you’re getting bored!
How to Choose the Right Squat Accessory Exercise
The right assistance exercise for your squat is one that allows you to continue training the squat pattern without detracting too much from your squat training by taking too much time or energy to perform. Depending on your programme, this might mean performing another variation of the squat or it might mean performing a completely distinct accessory exercise. Whichever you opt for, consistently completing your assistance exercises will reward you with a bigger squat long-term.
The key to choosing the right assistance exercises for a bigger squat is to look at your weaknesses. If you’re constantly failing the squat in a particular part of the movement, you may wish to work on that position more. Feeling unbalanced in the squat? You may need to work on your weight distribution and technique. If you just want to add more volume to the legs without a tonne of extra systemic fatigue, you may opt for isolation exercises.
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How to Train Around Grip Strength Limitations
One of my favourite parts of training beginners is getting them strong enough that their grip strength becomes a limiting factor in compound lifts. This may seem like an odd boast, but let me explain.
As your skill, confidence and strength grows over the first couple of months of training, you will reach a point where the target muscle of an exercise can tolerate more work than your grip can. This is a great early milestone in training, but it can quickly become an obstacle.
When grip strength fails, people usually notice the following symptoms:
- Unable to keep the hands closed around the bar/dumbbell;
- Burning forearms;
- Regularly needing to adjust the hands on the implement;
- Unable to concentrate on the exercise for fear of dropping the bar/dumbbell.
4-Question Workout Review for Better Workouts
If you want to have better workouts, it’s important to perform a workout review. As the name would suggest, a workout review is when you look back at your training session and think about what you could have improved.
This is important if you’re a gym novice, but it’s also crucial if you’re experienced in the gym. When you’ve been training for a while, it’s even easier to get complacent!
While it’s important not to be paralysed by the need to make every part of your workout perfect, it is important to fine-tune things over time. Remember that we’re all constantly growing and evolving; that’s what the gym is all about.
Even Trainers Perform Workout Reviews
Even as a strength coach with over a decade of experience, I’m continuously thinking of ways that my training sessions could have been more efficient or effective. In each personal training session that I deliver, I only have a set period of time to provide the best stimulus for my client.
That makes it crucial that I cut out anything from the workout that isn’t moving them towards their training goals.
(more…)One Mistake That’s Ruining Your Strength and Conditioning
Strength and conditioning has been a passion of mine for a long time. Since studying for my degree in strength and conditioning in 2011, I’ve helped people improve performance in skiing, kayaking, football, basketball, track sports, martial arts, and more.
Unfortunately, I’ve noticed that there’s a lack of good strength and conditioning guidance for anyone who isn’t already a professional athlete. There are plenty of cool strength and conditioning exercises on social media, but these are often lacking nuance. A lack of nuance can easily lead to training mistakes. One of the mistakes I see most often in strength and conditioning is in the way we apply the concept of training specificity.
While it makes sense for training to be specific to your chosen sport, many people pursue training specificity in ineffective or even detrimental ways.
Here are some of the common mistakes relating to training specificity, and how you can correct them.
How to Plan Your Week for More Consistent Training
The weekly fitness plan is perhaps the most overlooked component in a consistent training routine. One of my top priorities with a new client is to get a sense of what an average week of their life looks like. Only once I understand that can I identify when they should train, how often, and what they should do.
I’ve created a step-by-step video describing how you can create your weekly fitness plan. You can watch this by scrolling to the bottom of the page now, or click this link. Just be sure to come back and finish the article for more reasons you should create your own weekly workout plan.
Why Should You Write a Weekly Fitness Plan?
There are three main reasons why you should use your weekly plan to design your fitness routine. We’ll cover each one before we move on to the video guide.
(more…)4 Reasons You Have Stubborn Muscle Groups
We all know the feeling of having stubborn muscle groups that don’t look the way we want them to. This is usually because that muscle group isn’t as big or defined as you would like to be, or it’s lacking strength.
After more than a decade of training people, I’ve run into countless variations of the stubborn muscle group. Calves, arms, butts, chests – you name a muscle group, I’ve helped someone who was disappointed with theirs.
I’ve identified 4 major causes of stubborn muscle groups. To be more precise, I’ve identified 4 behaviour categories that cause frustration with these areas of the body. Think of them as the zodiac signs of stubborn body parts. You might find that you identify with several of these, in which case you should work on addressing one at a time.
Let’s get to work on fixing these issues.
(more…)Everything You Need to Know About Starting Olympic Weightlifting
Olympic weightlifting has rapidly grown in popularity over the last 10-15 years. It’s a big hit because it contributes to a number of other fitness phenomena:
- The growth of fitness-sports like Crossfit;
- Better appreciation for the benefits of heavy strength training;
- The development of strength and conditioning science and practice.
Olympic weightlifting brings a great deal to the table for anyone who cares about these facets of fitness, and it’s more accessible than ever. When I started as a personal trainer, the average commercial gym didn’t even have kettlebells, let alone a weightlifting platform! Now, almost every mainstream gym has a platform, bars that spin, and bumper plates. Yes, this does make me feel old.
(more…)9 Tough Floor Exercises for Better Core Strength
Floor exercises are a great way to challenge the core, shoulders, and hips. They can also be a great way to build tolerance for loading the wrists. This makes floor exercises a great option for a wide range of goals; whether you’re training to get up off the floor after a fall, get better at yoga, or try your hand at gymnastics. These exercises also featured heavily in my guide to surviving the zombie apocalypse!
Some of these exercises, such as pushups and deadbugs, have been covered in great depth already. This post is aimed at building up the variety of exercises at your disposal. If you find a particular exercise here quite challenging, you can perform it on it’s own with a focus on truly mastering the technique. Alternatively, you can use these exercises in supersets and circuits as they tend to raise the heart rate.
They also force you to use the hips, trunk, and shoulders in tandem to maintain your position. Because you’re not laying on your back, these exercises also allow the shoulder blades to move freely. For these reasons, many strength coaches use them in blocks of general preparation work with their athletes.
If you want to skip the detail and just get an overview of the exercises, you can head over to this video.
4 Powerful Lessons On Strength Training and Injury
I recently attended the Barbell Rehab Method certification in Central London. The Barbell Rehab philosophy is heavily focussed on the idea of integrating strength training and injury management. The end goal is to allow you to train hard whilst respecting your injuries.
This is a philosophy that is very close to my heart and my training style. This weekend course was validating and eye-opening at the same time. Here are some of the lessons I took from my time with Dr. Michael Mash of Barbell Rehab. I’ve included some tips for you too.
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