Archive for the ‘Exercise Technique’ Category
Monday, December 19th, 2016
Here’s one for the ladies of Team Swole – a guest post by Emily of Body Shape 101
One of the biggest problems that women face is inner thigh fat. Flabby inner thighs that rub together while walking are not only a sore but irritating as well. Most people can relate as this quickly jogs their mind to painful friction burns especially when wearing a dress or skirt.
Besides this painful fact, inner thigh fat interferes with your figure and self-confidence as well. However, you’d be pleased to know that inner thigh flab is not chronic and that you can easily get rid of it through simple exercises. There are leg exercises and equipment purposely meant to curve and tone your legs, such as recumbent bikes, but you may need to indulge in some cardio exercises as well.
1. Cossack Squats
This is a highly effective workout that targets your lower body. It will shape the glutes and thighs on all angles by burning the excess fat and in this case, inner thighs. (more…)
Posted in Exercise Technique, Workout Routines | 1 Comment »
Monday, December 12th, 2016
Keeping Your Knees Healthy, Happy and Functional
Are you experiencing unpleasant pain in the knee while training legs? In this article, we are going to tell you how to protect your knees from any unpleasant injuries as they are very common.
As you may already know, legs are one of the most important parts of the body, and it must be regularly trained, even though that it can be quite unpleasant from time to time. It’s not fun, and it’s painful to train legs, and that’s why many people neglect them.
For maximum effects, legs must be trained heavily until exhaustion. A serious injury in the area of the knees can stop your muscle growth and prevent you from training properly.
Here are some tips shared by experts in the industry:
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Tags: exercise, fitness, healthy knees, injuries, injury, knee injury, leg training, legs, Sports, technique, wheels
Posted in Exercise Technique, Injuries | No Comments »
Monday, November 14th, 2016
Build Upper Body Muscle & Strength At Home
Pull-ups are simply one of the finest body weight exercises that can be carried out for your upper body. Pull-ups workout your core, back, arms, and shoulders working out almost every muscle in the upper body. Pull-ups can be performed virtually anywhere that you can locate a bar to cling from.
We all know about the normal pull-up; how tough they are! This exercise in itself demands great power, and if you cannot perform at least 20 standard pull-ups in a row, then I suggest you do not attempt any of these advanced pull-up versions until you can.
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Tags: exercise, fitness, home fitness, home workout, pull-ups, pullups, workout
Posted in Exercise, Exercise Technique, Workout Routines | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 21st, 2016
How to do Dips
Dips are listed in a previous post as one of the top 5 best triceps exercises. They can be useful for both chest and triceps training.
Based on the principle that exercises in which you move your body through space are better than the exercises that keep you in a stationary position, dips are actually better than push ups. It is also easier for you to add weight to your dips than it is to add weight to a push up.
What are Dips?
Any exercise where you use your triceps to elevate your body is a dip.
To execute a traditional parallel bar dip, find a set of parallel bars and climb up. Start at the top position with your arms straight, elbows locked and body hanging in space. Lower your body until your shoulders are parallel to your hands, then push yourself back up to the top, stopping just short of lockout.
In this post I want to discuss how to do dips the right way, several variations of dips, how to do dips if you can’t do dips, and what to watch out for when first learning how to dip.
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Tags: dips, exercise, how to, technique, tricep, tricep training, triceps
Posted in Exercise Technique | 7 Comments »
Monday, July 27th, 2015
Like pull ups, heavy rows are one of the best exercises to train your back. The king of rowing exercises is the standing barbell row, but the problem is that too few people perform them properly.
You might see the following common technique flaws in people executing barbell rows:
- momentum – using the posterior chain to generate momentum, instead of using the muscles of the back and arms
- rounded back – weakness in the lower back or hip tightness can cause your lower back to round, which is bad for the spine
- standing upright – you have to bend over nearly parallel to the floor in order to work the upper back properly
As I mentioned last week, you can fix all of these issues by switching from barbell rows to inverted rows, or you can learn how to perform barbell rows correctly.
Let’s talk about how we can best use barbell rows in our training routines.
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Tags: back, back training, barbell rows, bent over rows, bodybuilding, exercise, fitness, lats, rowing, rows, strength training, traps, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 15 Comments »
Friday, July 24th, 2015
Don’t Waste Time Training Legs the Wrong Way!
Your legs are the foundation of your physique. With their bulging tear drops, incision-like cuts, and shredded striations, prize leg development can win you a contest. Lagging leg development can also lose you a contest. Additionally, having strong legs makes it that much easier to develop a strong upper body. Here are 6 mistakes most athletes make when training their legs. These tips apply both to active bodybuilders and newbies, so pay attention!
The Top 6 Leg Training Mistakes
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Not Training Legs At All
A lot of people completely avoid leg training. Why? Personally, I find it hard to understand. But there’s obviously a reason why they do; theories are they already have some preconceived notion that their legs are developed beyond what they are in actuality, or they see leg training as “hard”.
It’s true that leg training can be painful, and you generally are sore afterwards, but many bodybuilders grow to love that soreness, as with other muscles. Avoiding leg training is a critical mistake, and you can’t build a house without a foundation.
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Tags: exercise technique, hamstrings, leg training, legs, mistakes, myths, quads, squats, squatting, technique, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding, Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Weight Training | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2015
How to Deadlift
Deadlifts are one of the primary, fundamental exercises for all serious weight training programs. Deadlifts work 100% of your legs and they require functional stability from 95% of the rest of the muscles on your body. Using proper form, deadlifts will help you get stronger, gain more muscle, and burn more calories than any other single exercise after the squat.
Deadlifts build lower back and hamstring strength, and they teach you to keep your lower back tight against a heavy load, which is critical to avoid injuries when lifting objects from the ground or floor. Unfortunately, this is also why deadlifts have gained a bad reputation of causing a variety of injuries, including spinal injuries and hernias.
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Tags: back, build muscle, deadlifts, exercise technique, gain muscle, legs, muscle gain, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 16 Comments »
Monday, July 20th, 2015
How to Perform Squats
There are many different lifts that a weightlifter can do to increase their strength, speed, and power. All kind of weightlifting is great for your body, but I prefer to not waste time in the gym lifting with tunnel vision, going from machine to machine and seeing little results from my hard work.
Instead, I would rather do 3-4 exercises with maximal intensity to wipe out my whole body in order to reap a maximal anabolic effect. The most well known and most dreaded of these exercises is the squat.
Rules to remember when squatting:
- Keep the lower back straight and mostly flat; do not round your back!
- Keep knees pointing out slightly, do not let them creep inwards as you push yourself up.
- The bar should rest on upper trap muscles and the rear heads of the shoulders.
- Push from your glutes (butt), not your knees; your hips should raise first and everything else should raise with them.
- Fill your stomach with air before descending and keep it tight with your chest out while pushing up.
- Push up with your eyes focused 30-45 degrees above normal eye level.
- Try to keep your knees behind your toes to avoid injury.
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Tags: Conditioning, leg training, legs, squats, technique, weightlifting
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 8 Comments »
Wednesday, March 11th, 2015
The problem with most rotational movements is that they produce shearing forces on your lumbar spine. One of the foundations of biomechanics is that you don’t place your spine into a simultaneous state of rotation, flexion, and side bending, and you especially don’t add an external load.
This eliminates a number of popular abdominal exercises such as dumbbell side bends and the twisting abdominal machine. Exercises like the Russian twist should be performed with care, making sure that the trunk is flexed rather than the spine.
There is a quick and easy solution to the inherent problems with twisting exercises – don’t twist.
Enter: The Pallof Press!
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Tags: abdominals, abs, injury prevention, spine
Posted in Bodybuilding, Exercise Technique | 1 Comment »
Monday, October 21st, 2013
Want thick, dense abs that stand out like a washboard? Want a ripped midsection with veins and shredded striations? No? How about this: Want to look good naked?
Well, you will never achieve any of those goals if you train your abs once a week with three sets of crunches for 100 reps, or if you eat like a horse. Avoid these 6 common abdominal training mistakes and your abs will dial in. Whether you are a bodybuilder, an athlete, or a novice, chances are you are making several of these mistakes in your training right now. Take heed!
The Top 6 Abdominal Training Mistakes
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Tags: 6 pack, ab training, abdominals, abs, Conditioning, fitness, six pack, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding, Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Weight Training | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, October 1st, 2013
Want big arms? Want lean, shredded arms? Then don’t make any of these arm training mistakes. Here are 6 great arm training tips for bodybuilders, fitness athletes, sports athletes, and newbies alike. Forget the myths, stop the mistakes, and train your arms proper!
The Top 6 Arm Training Mistakes
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Tags: arms, biceps, exercise, exercise technique, mistakes, myths, triceps, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding, Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Weight Training | 7 Comments »
Monday, September 16th, 2013
Having great shoulders really makes you appear sleek and powerful. However, chest and back training does not suffice when attempting to build spectacular shoulders. You must train the shoulders directly, intensely, and often. Be attentive of these 6 common mistakes that people make when training shoulders.
The Top 6 Shoulder Training Mistakes
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Tags: deltoids, exercise, exercise technique, overhead press, shoulder, shoulder press, shoulders, training, Training Articles, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding, Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Weight Training | 5 Comments »
Tuesday, September 10th, 2013
Your chest is a large and complicated muscle. Considering its size you would think it would be easy to stimulate growth. Do some flat bench, another secondary movement, and your chest starts growing. Unfortunately the pecs are a much more muscle group area than that. In fact it is downright complex.
Training the pectoralis is a major puzzle to most bodybuilders, thinking a couple sets of bench press is all it takes, or going to the other extreme by dedicating a full day to 20 sets of different bench press variations. In this piece we would like to expose the answer to this puzzle by discussing the six most prevalent chest training errors and then providing tips to avoid them.
Read carefully; you will be surprised how many mistakes you are likely making.
The Top 6 Chest Training Mistakes
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Tags: chest, chest training, exercise, exercise technique, mistakes, myths, pec training, pecs, training, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding, Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 8 Comments »
Tuesday, August 27th, 2013
Do you limit yourself by avoiding horizontal or vertical back movements? Did you know that your traps and lower back also need to be strengthened? Are you stuck on lat pull downs as your main back exercise? Can’t do a pull up?
Tsk, tsk, tsk…
Avoid these 6 common back training mistakes and you will have a much better chance of looking like Atlas and performing like an Olympian.
The Top 6 Back Training Mistakes
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Tags: back, back training, chin-ups, chinups, exercise technique, pull-ups, pullups, Weight Training, weightlifting
Posted in Bodybuilding, Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 4 Comments »
Tuesday, May 28th, 2013
How NOT to Squat
8-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman said it best: “shut up and squat.” [1] After all, there’s nothing better for building lower body mass. Squats force you to use numerous stabilizing muscles and exhaust hamstrings, quads, and glutes.
To get the most out of squats, however, they must be executed with correct form. Avoiding these common squat mistakes will take both your performance and physique to the next level.
Mistake #1: Not Engaging Your Core
The core is the body’s center of gravity and is where movement originates. [2]If you have a weak core, it will be much harder to keep the weight stable. It also places you at a greater risk for hip or lower back injury.
To properly engage your core when performing a squat, concentrate on sucking your belly button towards your spine. A strong core will be able to maintain this posture throughout the exercise. If you have a weak core, using a weight belt around the waist protects the spine and keeps you from relaxing the core.
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Tags: exercise, fitness, legs, squat, squats, squatting, technique, weight lifting, Weight Training, weightlifting, workout
Posted in Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Weight Training | No Comments »
Sunday, January 6th, 2013
If you are the type of person who enjoys physical fitness, then you’ve no doubt tried several different types of exercise, from basics like jogging, cycling, and swimming, to instructional classes in yoga, Pilates, and step aerobics, to workout DVDs for P90X or Insanity. But if you’re looking for an up-and-coming exercise regimen that is going to continue to challenge you for a while, then perhaps Crossfit should be on your radar.
The only real caveat with this intense form of exercise is that it is all too easy to injure yourself if you’re not careful. Since you are pushing yourself to your physical limits with timed circuits that require you to fit as many reps into the allotted time as possible, you’ll find that you tire long before you’re through. So it’s not only important to know your limits, but also to observe proper form in every exercise. Here’s why.
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Tags: Crossfit, exercise, fitness, form, health, safety, technique, workout
Posted in Conditioning, Crossfit, Exercise Technique, Fitness Tips, Injuries | No Comments »
Monday, May 14th, 2012
Want massive forearms?
Aside from freaky traps, lumpy forearms are an excellent way to tell if someone is strong. Forget about pecs, biceps, even legs. If you are hella strong, you will most likely have thick, meaty traps and forearms. In order to get sick forearms, you have to use a variety of grip and forearm training.
Here is an interesting exercise called the Double Rope Climb. This is great training for both forearms and grip. Unfortunately it is Not easy to implement unless you have two strong ropes and something on which to anchor them. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t last long if I tried this.
This is another exercise that could be performed on back day, for conditioning drills, on “arm day” if you have an “arm day”, in a grip training routine, during circuit training, or integrated into a HIIT routine.
Watch out for that rope burn!
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Tags: finger strength, forearms, grip, hand strength, training, videos
Posted in Conditioning, Exercise Technique, Videos | No Comments »
Monday, July 18th, 2011
I am not going to get into a long detailed post today. Instead I am going to supplement my top 6 back training mistakes post with another guest post about back training by expert Mike Robertson. I’m not cool enough to get Mike to post on my website though, so I have to link to the post from another blog entirely.
Find it here: 3 back training mistakes you could be making.
Mike tells you how people go wrong by training without a neutral spine, without a neutral pelvis, and without paying attention to detail. This is just another example of how every aspect of your physiology has to be healthy and aligned, or you risk injury.
About Mike Robertson
Mike Robertson received his Masters Degree in Sports Biomechanics from the world-renowned Human Performance Lab at Ball State University. He is also the president of Robertson Training Systems and the co-owner of Indianapolis Fitness and Sports Training, which has been named one of America’s Top 10 Gyms by Men’s Health magazine in 2009 and 2010.
About Rick Kaselj
Since the guest post is actually posted on his site, this is a lead in to another awesome fitness blogger, a guy named Rick Kaselj who is an expert on sports injuries. Hopefully he will write a couple guest posts for Project Swole soon. I’ve requested some serious rehab / prehab articles and I know if he can find the time to write them, you will be amazed.
Tags: back, exericse, fitness, injury, mistakes, spine, Sports, training, Weight Training, weightlifting, workout
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, May 4th, 2011
Along with pull ups, rowing is one of the best exercises to train the back. The king of rowing exercises is the standing barbell row, but the problem is that too few people perform them properly.
You might see the following common technique flaws in people executing barbell rows:
- standing upright – you gotta bend over just short of 90 degrees
- rounded back – lower back weakness or hip tightness can cause this
- momentum – using the lower back, glutes, and hamstrings for momentum
You can fix all of these issues by changing your barbell row into an inverted row. The inverted row is not a perfect replacement for the barbell row – it removes posterior chain stabilization from the movement and limits the load you can use – but it is a suitable replacement if you need one, and believe it or not it gives us yet another reason to accept the existence of the Smith Machine… OK, maybe not.
Let’s find out why and how to use inverted rows in our training routines.
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Tags: back, back muscles, back strength, back training, exercise, exercise technique, fitness, inverted rowing, inverted rows, rowing, rows, technique, workout
Posted in Exercise Technique, Weight Training | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011
How to do Box Jumps
Box jumps are a great exercise for your legs, and can be performed on just about any variable flat surface. They hit your posterior chain – calves, quads, glutes, and hamstrings – pretty hard.
Box jumps can be used for cardio workouts, neural activation training (NAT), high intensity resistance training (HIRT), and high intensity interval training (HIIT) circuits. They are often used in CrossFit WODs (Workout of the Day), and are a staple exercise in plyometric training. Plyometrics have a wide range of athletic and real sporting applications; they are used, for example, to increase jumping ability, leg strength, hip drive, and explosiveness.
Box jumps are a simple movement. They require you only to jump from one flat surface up onto another flat surface, then either step or jump back down, depending on the purpose of the exercise.
What if You Can’t Perform Box Jumps?
To excel at box jumps, you have to develop strength, flexibility, speed, power, coordination and balance. Without a basic foundation in these core exercise stills, you should not attempt a box jump, and whatever you do, don’t follow the box jump tips at eHow unless you never want to know how to do proper box jumps.
Be sure you are comfortable with bodyweight squats. If you can’t do bodyweight squats then you’ve got a real problem and should not be attempting box jumps.
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Tags: ankles, box jumps, calves, glutes, hamstrings, hips, jumping, knees, legs, plyometrics, posterior chain, quadriceps, quads
Posted in Conditioning, Crossfit, Exercise Technique, Weight Training, Workout of the Day | 1 Comment »
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