Personal Training in Liverpool Street

Quick Post: How to Deal With Your Sore or Weak Lower Back

It’s fairly common to feel like you have soreness or weakness in your lower back, without a specific injury or problem that you’re aware of. Here are some steps that can help you resolve this problem.

Why is Your Back Sore/Weak?

Some back issues simply require a change in lifestyle, while others may need prolonged support. It’s important to understand which is which. It might be worth seeing a qualified professional about your pain.

It’s easy to assume that lower back pain can last forever, and that having back pain makes you fragile, but this often turns out to be incorrect. Pain is not always an indicator of severe damage; many of the back conditions we fear the most, like degenerative disc problems, are present in people that have never reported pain.

Your first step on the road to managing your weak or sore lower back is getting a better picture of what’s going on in the first place. If you can manage your misconceptions around back pain, you can manage your plan for recovery.

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The Ultimate 7 Exercises for a Strong Back

When I started in the gym, the main focus was on the muscles on the front of the body; these were easiest to see in the mirror. But now, we’re living in the age of the strong back.

Training for well-rounded back strength should encompass the following areas:

  • The back of the legs (hamstrings);
  • The bottom muscles (glutes);
  • Lower back muscles (the erector spinae, among others)
  • A wide range of upper back muscles.

Why a Strong Back is Important

  • Strong hamstrings are often recommended for building knee resilience and hamstring injury prevention;
  • A strong lower back and glutes will prepare you for daily lifting tasks and reinforce many of your compound exercises;
  • Upper back strength can help with posture and support the lower back.
  • It’s just really satisfying to be strong in these areas!

The muscles of the back comprise a variety of movements, angles, and functions, so your back training has to be well-rounded. A lot of back exercises will also take a toll on your grip, so pepper your back training exercises across multiple workouts and cycle them between training programmes.

The Best Exercises for a Strong Back

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Quick Exercise Formats That Will Make You Strong

It’s frustrating when you do everything you can to get to the gym but there still just isn’t enough time to complete every aspect of your brand-new gym programme. In these moments it’s important that you don’t give up, and it can be useful to have a back-up plan for when you only have 20-30 minutes to train. Social media sites are drowning in HIIT workouts designed to exhaust you in 30 minutes or less, so let’s focus on how to perform a quick strength workout instead.

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How to Get The Most Out Of Your Deadlifts

In the Gym

Now that you’ve made the majority of your choices regarding how to perform your deadlifts, it’s time to get to the gym. This part of the guide will help you make the most of the workout.

Not sure what to start with deadlifting? Check out 10 Things You Need to Know About the Deadlift.

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10 Things You Need to Know About the Deadlift

Whenever I take someone through a new gym programme for the first time, I find myself wishing there was a resource I could direct them to with all the information they need on each element of their training. This is my attempt at creating such a resource for the deadlift.

People have a lot of questions about deadlifts. From concerns about proper deadlift form to wanting to hit a new personal best, it’s a nuanced exercise. For some people, the deadlift is just about grabbing the bar and ripping it off the floor. For others, it’s about being as cautious as humanly possible to avoid your back exploding. If you’re a regular reader of this site, you know by now that the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

Part 1 – Before You Lift

As with my previous squat guide, Part 1 will focus on the things you need to know before you go into the gym on deadlift day. Part 2 will focus on execution of the deadlift, BUT this is not a step-by-step guide to performing the deadlift. That would be much more effective in video form.

Note: My online deadlift programme is now available. Check it out if you want a stronger deadlift!

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The Most Effective Superset Choices for Your Workout Type

Adding supersets to your workouts is a fantastic way of saving time in the gym. Depending on your training aims, you can use different superset types to convey different benefits. Each category of superset that will lead to different considerations so that you can get the most out of them.

Antagonist Muscle Group Supersets

Antagonist supersets use muscle groups that work against each other. They perform opposite actions, such as the biceps and triceps, which bend and straighten the arm respectively. When one muscle contracts (shortens), its antagonist will relax (lengthen). Due to their opposite nature, antagonist supersets carries a very low risk of the two exercises interfering with one another. This makes them great for either high-volume work or strength training.

Examples

  • Biceps curls and tricep extensions;
  • Dumbbell bench press and bench rows;
  • Squats and leg curls;
  • Romanian deadlifts and leg extensions.
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Why The Rocky Mentality is Harming Your Progress

Photo by Attentie Attentie on Unsplash

Rocky Balboa once said, “You gotta be willing to take the hits.”

These are big words for someone who retired from boxing after getting brain damage – from taking too many hits.

I like a lot of things about the Rocky films. They’re inspirational and emotional. They have big 80’s soundtracks and exciting workout montages. As films, they are super fun to watch.

And before we go any further – Rocky 3 and Rocky 4 are the best!

My issue with the Rocky series has more to do with how it embodies a certain training culture I see in the gym. I’m not just talking about the fighting athletes I know either; regular gym-goers train this way too.

My problem is not with Rocky, but with the Rocky mentality.

What is the Rocky Mentality?

Rocky mentality, pronoun – the pursuit of suffering and discomfort in fitness activities, with no guarantee of superior or faster results.

Example:

“Did you hear that Nick did supersets of deadlifts, pullups, and backflips yesterday?”

“Yeah, he has that Rocky mentality.”

By Pisit Heng on Unsplash

If you’ve ever stepped into a gym, chances are you’ve met someone who suffers from the Rocky mentality. But how can you tell? I’ve compiled a list of ways that this mindset manifests itself on the gym floor:

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Enhance Upper Body Mobility and Strength with These Exercises

In Part 1, we established that increasing the flexibility of our tissues does not instantly improve the way we move. If we don’t add other ingredients like strength and motor control, we won’t improve our mobility in any meaningful way. You can learn about this principle in part 1. This is especially true with the areas on today’s list: the muscles of the spine and the upper body.

Historically, mobility in these areas is a matter of some debate. There are some who believe more flexibility is always better, while others feel these two areas should be permanently locked into a “safe” position. As always, the answer lies somewhere in the middle: you need to be able to take joints through range, but you also need the strength and control to make sure this happens at the right time, with the right limitations. Being very strong in just one position is almost never the answer.

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Back Mobility and Jefferson Curls

Ask anyone what they should be wary of when it comes to exercise and they’ll tell you it’s the lower back. Having suffered from my fair share of strains in the back muscles (the erector spinae and quadratus lumborum), I do feel that some caution is justified. However, losing your spinal mobility because you’re afraid to move can be harmful too.

After those injuries in my early training years, I started to move like a robot. I would lock my back up and hinge perfectly from my hips, even to pick up a 2.5kg plate. I even got a reputation for it among the athletes that I coached at the time. It makes sense, right? Rounding the back is a well-known lifting sin, and every manual handling course ever tells you not to lift with your back. Surely I was onto something.

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Enhance Lower Body Mobility And Strength with These Exercises

I don’t think I need to convince anyone that mobility and flexibility are crucial aspects of any fitness regime. I probably also don’t need to point out that mobility training goes a lot further than just static stretching these days. But whether you like PNF stretching, dynamic stretching, partner-assisted stretching or anything in between, I think there is a missing link in many mobility routines.

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5 Reasons to Stay Away From Celebrity Workout Advice

A close up of a woman's hands on the floor as she performs a pushup
By Ayo Ogunseinde on Unsplash

In our search for better fitness results, many of us are tempted to see what workouts and fitness products our favourite celebrities are using in order to achieve their successes. Whether it’s an elite athlete or a celebrity with “perfect” body, it can be appealing to try and follow along with the steps they’ve posted on social media or in a magazine. Unfortunately, this can lead to a lot of disappointment.

When I talk about celebrity workouts, I’m referring to the following:

  • Celebrity workout DVDs (yes, these are still a thing);
  • Superhero movie transformations (any celebrity transformations actually);
  • Elite athlete strength and conditioning sessions;
  • 1-minute snippets of workouts on reality TV shows;
  • Cover model/Influencer workouts;
  • Use of fitness products advertised or endorsed by celebrities.
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