I was in a really good mood the other day.  A lass who is a regular in the gym actually came up and asked how to improve her pressups!  Most people grimace and run a mile when I mention pressups to them!  So here is a rough and ready guide to pressups.  How to do them and how not to do them..

What parts of the body are involved?

Because they are an upper body pushing exercise, the main working muscles are:

• Pectorals (chest muscles)
• Anterior deltoids (front of the shoulders)
• Triceps (back of the arms, or “bingo wings”)

But many other muscles are also involved, mostly in supporting roles, including your abdominals.

Why are pressups so good?

• They are a big, compound move (they move more than one joint at a time).
• They match basic, everyday, practical moves, where we push something/someone away from us (one of my friends imagines she is pushing blokes away in the pub!)
• They can help teach the body to move in a more coordinated fashion.
• They can help increase bone density in your arms if you are at risk of osteoporosis.
• Depending on your current abilities, they can increase your muscular strength or endurance.
• They are free and you don’t need any equipment to do them.
• They are a good Keystone Ability.

How to do the ideal pressup.

First of all, remember that I am describing an “ideal” pressup here.  None of us are “ideal”.  I know I’m not.  But that shouldn’t stop us from trying our best.  If you have difficulty with an “ideal” pressup, don’t panic!  Just don’t stop trying either and you will get there in a few days/weeks/months.

The start.

Support your weight on the floor with your hands and toes.

• Your hands should be directly beneath your shoulders, but a couple of inches wider than shoulder width.
• Your arms should be vertical when seen from the side.
• Your whole body should be dead flat from your head to your heels, with no bends/kinks in the spine or hips.

Good Pressup – Body flat with no kinks.

Bad Pressup – Back and hips are bent all over the place.

The descent.

• Keeping your body rigid at all times, bend your arms until your chest is nearly touching the floor.  Remember, no sagging/bending/kinking at the belly/back/hips.
• At the bottom, your hands should be roughly in line with your nipples, your forearms dead vertical and your upper arms making a roughly 45 degree angle with the side of your body.
• Your shoulders should be tucked back and down.  In other words, they should not be hunched.

Good Pressup – At the bottom of the pressup, your body should still be flat and rigid.

Good Pressup – Your upper arms should make a roughly 45 degree angle to the side of your body.

Bad Pressup – The body is arched, hips are too low and arms not bent.

Bad Pressup – The upper arms are stuck straight out to the sides.

The Ascent.

• Keeping your body straight and rigid, push your hands into the floor and return your body to the start position.
• Make sure your body moves as one, single unit
• Don’t let your hips or your head/shoulders lead the way.

Good pressups from the side.

Good pressups from the front

How to make them easier.

• Do everything exactly the same, except put your hands on a step/ledge/box so they are further away from the floor.
• The higher the step, or the greater the incline of your body, the easier it becomes.
• As you get better/stronger, use a lower step.

The greater the incline of your body, the easier the pressup becomes.

How to make them harder.

• Do everything exactly the same, except put your feet on a step/ledge/box so they are further away from the floor.
• The higher the step, or the greater the decline of your body, the harder  it becomes.
• As you get better/stronger, use a higher step.

The greater the decline of your body, the harder the pressup becomes.

Now everyone go out there and do some pressups.  They are good for you!

Because of films, magazines and the media, about 99% of people seem to think that weight training = bodybuilding.  This is not true.  Bodybuilding is only a small subsection of weight training. 

Instead I want you to think of weight training as a car mechanics garage… 

Sounds odd I know, but bare with me…people take their cars to a garage for a number of reasons: 

• A simple tune up
• For their MOT
• For repair
• To improve everyday performance
• To improve racing performance
• To improve off road performance
• To change appearance slightly (simple paint job)
• To change appearance drastically (to totally pimp their ride)
  

  Pimped Car

   

And bodybuilding can be thought of as “pimping your ride”.  For both, the priority is on appearance and style while little to no thought goes into substance and performance. 

You can’t fail to notice them and they certainly look impressive…but neither of them are necessarily much good at anything else. 

But the point is, when you take your car to the garage, you don’t have to get tinted windows and a custom paint job installed. 

And when you do resistance exercises, you don’t have to do sets of 8-12 and isolate your biceps/pecs/abs/glutes etc. 

There are loads of different reasons why people might train with weights, including: 

• To freshen up a stale workout
• For injury rehabilitation
• To be able to perform simple, everyday tasks
• To improve sporting/athletic ability
• To change their appearance slightly (giving a more “toned” appearance)
• To change their appearance drastically (to get huge and ripped)
  

  Pimped Body

   

And for all these different reasons for weight training, you would train in different ways.

For an introduction to these different forms of weight training, take a look at my Introduction to Weight Training.

And don’t forget, if you live in and around Skipton, contact me for Professional Coaching and advice.

A regular in the gym I work at came up to me asking for newer, more elaborate exercises, because the ones she is doing now “aren’t working”.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that there is nothing wrong with doing new, funky exercises…but do them for the right reasons.

Before overcomplicating things, get the basics RIGHT

The right reasons to do new, funky exercises is to help keep things interesting and to keep a smile on your face.

The wrong reason is because the basics “aren’t working”.  Because I can almost guarantee that the basics are working!  You just got to make sure you are doing the basics properly.

And sure enough, when I checked over the routine my regular in the gym was doing, she had been skipping over the tried, trusted and effective basics to spend more time doing weird and wonderful stuff.

But because she had neglected the basics, she simply didn’t have the physical capability to do the more complex stuff properly.

She had fallen foul of one of the most common problems…she was doing 3 hours of crap instead of 1 hour of quality.

“Doing more is not better…doing better is better.“

And this goes for most things in life.

Pompous old z-list movie actor:  “How dare you speak to me like that!  I’ve made 75 films!  What have you done?”

Young, talented, film director:  “I’ve made 2 films…Good ones!”

If you want to improve your diet, forget the little details like:

• Pills, potions and supplements
• Specially marketed “Meal Replacement Health Bars”
• Swapping your normal chocolate bar to one that’s “Low Fat”

Instead, sort out the basics like:

• Cutting out junk processed food
• Eating at least 5 portions of fruit and veg each and every day of the week.

If you want to improve your fitness, forget the details like:

• Is this machine better than that machine
• Should my heart rate be 70% or 75% of maximum

Instead, make sure you can handle being out of breath for at least 30 continuous minutes.

If you want to get bigger and stronger, forget the details like:

• Should my wrists be twisted this way or that way when I’m doing bicep curls
• Should I be using the pink or black dumbbells to do my tricep kickbacks

Instead, make sure:

• Your arms and legs are strong enough to hold and move your own bodyweight in many positions

Spend 90% of your time learning and perfecting the basics and then you will be able to follow the advice of one of the best coaches I have ever trained under…

“Do less, score more.”

A regular in the gym I work at came up to me asking for newer, more elaborate exercises, because the ones she is doing now “aren’t working”.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that there is nothing wrong with doing new, funky exercises…but do them for the right reasons.

Before overcomplicating things, get the basics RIGHT

The right reasons to do new, funky exercises is to help keep things interesting and to keep a smile on your face.

The wrong reason is because the basics “aren’t working”.  Because I can almost guarantee that the basics are working!  You just got to make sure you are doing the basics properly.

And sure enough, when I checked over the routine my regular in the gym was doing, she had been skipping over the tried, trusted and effective basics to spend more time doing weird and wonderful stuff.

But because she had neglected the basics, she simply didn’t have the physical capability to do the more complex stuff properly.

She had fallen foul of one of the most common problems…she was doing 3 hours of crap instead of 1 hour of quality.

“Doing more is not better…doing better is better.“

And this goes for most things in life.

Pompous old z-list movie actor:  “How dare you speak to me like that!  I’ve made 75 films!  What have you done?”

Young, talented, film director:  “I’ve made 2 films…Good ones!”

If you want to improve your diet, forget the little details like:

• Pills, potions and supplements
• Specially marketed “Meal Replacement Health Bars”
• Swapping your normal chocolate bar to one that’s “Low Fat”

Instead, sort out the basics like:

• Cutting out junk processed food
• Eating at least 5 portions of fruit and veg each and every day of the week.

If you want to improve your fitness, forget the details like:

• Is this machine better than that machine
• Should my heart rate be 70% or 75% of maximum

Instead, make sure you can handle being out of breath for at least 30 continuous minutes.

If you want to get bigger and stronger, forget the details like:

• Should my wrists be twisted this way or that way when I’m doing bicep curls
• Should I be using the pink or black dumbbells to do my tricep kickbacks

Instead, make sure:

• Your arms and legs are strong enough to hold and move your own bodyweight in many positions

Spend 90% of your time learning and perfecting the basics and then you will be able to follow the advice of one of the best coaches I have ever trained under…

“Do less, score more.”

After yesterdays post about exercise during pregnancy, there was a question about what specific reps and sets of resistance should be done.

So here goes…

…I have a short, official, answer and a long, unofficial, answer.  Here is the short one:

There are no specific recommendations for sets/reps at present.

What this actually means is that in all the studies done so far, no one has been able to show if one sets/reps range is better/worse/safer/more dangerous than another.  So no one is going to say “do this” or “do that”.

So this leads me to my longer, unofficial, answer.

Disclaimer!!!

Please bare in mind that from this point on, I am purely giving my own opinion built from my own understanding of the subject.  If anyone out there knows for a fact that I am wrong, please let me know.

The factors I take into account are:

• Women should try to maintain their fitness/strength, rather than improve it.
• Joints can become “loose” during pregnancy.

With these factor in mind, I suggest that women could do far worse than simply

continuing with their usual sets/reps that they did before pregnancy, but decreasing the intensity as pregnancy develops.

eg – if you usually did 3 sets of 10 reps at 20kg…continue doing 3 sets of 10 reps, but with maybe only 15kg.

But because of the loosening of the joints, I would do exercises that involve both arms/legs simultaneously.  eg shoulder press/squats instead of tricep kickbacks or lunges.  This way, one limb can help/support the other.  My thinking behind this is, if  something happens to the joint in one limb, at least there is the other one there to take over/save the day.

This is the same reason you always find 2 pilots in airliners.

Of course, the above advice is fine if you have been doing exercise before you became pregnant (and I hope you have!).  But what if you are new to exercise?

If this is the case, my advice would be to go to your local leisure centre and find/join a class for mothers-to-be.  10 minutes of hands on, face to face advice is worth a million web pages!

Good luck and congratulations!!

People want or need to gain strength for a number of reasons, but they usually fall into one of two camps…

Practical reasons and aesthetics.

• Practical reasons – This includes health benefits.  A strong body is generally more injury resistant than a weak one.  Or a person may have had an injury and are now in rehab, needing to regain lost strength, or to improve strength beyond a certain threshold to help prevent future injury.  Or a person may need increased strength for their job (eg a soldier), or a person may be an athlete and greater strength means a greater chance of winning.

• Aesthetic reasons – These can be put simply as “looking better naked” and I think we all know about this already.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

However (and I’m going to sound sexist here again), there are a group of people (usually women who are naturally at higher risk of developing osteoporosis, or brittle bones) who are scared of improving their strength for fear of waking up one morning looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

This is like refusing to wear a seatbelt in case the edge of the belt saws their head off…they are avoiding a vital piece of safety because they are afraid of something that just will not happen.

Chest Press

But I digress.

Because of this and many other reasons (not least of which is the very good reason that many people do not know where to start) I am going to give you my absolute beginners guide to getting stronger.

Now different people want/need to get stronger for different reasons.  2 extreme examples are:

1. The 16 year old spotty kid wanting to look like Arnold.
2. The 60 year old little old lady simply wanting to be able to carry her shopping home and not injure herself if she falls.

Now these two examples are about as different as they can get.  Their aims might be totally different and their attitudes towards training might be polar opposites.

“Despite this they are both absolute beginners and their training programmes and aims should be virtually identical.”

When I say virtually identical, I obviously don’t mean in the actual weights used.  But I do mean what exercises to do, the number of times to do them etc.

Initial aims for an absolute beginner

• To learn to use the body in a mechanically safe and more efficient way.
• To strengthen the soft connective tissues of the body (ligaments, tendons etc)
• To strengthen the hard structural tissue (our bones)
• To strengthen the muscles that support and move the body.

Seated Row

So whether you are the spotty 16 year old, or the granny.  Your initial aims should be very similar…building the foundations and doing the groundwork to allow specialisation later on.

What type of training programme?

There are loads of different training programmes available out there.  All of them will have their good/bad points and will be more/less appropriate for different people.  But I have found the following programme template to work quite well with absolute beginners:

• Thorough warm up.
• Chest Press   :   1-5 (sets)  x  5-10 (reps)
• Seated Row   :   1-5  x  5-10
• Leg Press   :   1-5  x  5-10
• 1 other exercise of your choice
• The Plank   :   60 seconds worth (broken into as many sets as needed)
• Static stretches.

Leg Press

And that is it.  The whole thing should be easily done in less than half an hour and it comprises of less than half a dozen exercises.  And the reason I use this template is as follows:

Number of exercises.

Keeping the number of exercises low means you don’t have to learn loads of new moves.  If you have to learn too many new exercises in one go, all that happens is that you end up forgetting them and doing them wrong.  This will almost certainly lead to future injuries and/or a waste of you time and money.

I have 4 main exercises in the above template, and then an extra “1 other exercise of your choice”.  This is because everyone has a different attitude/personality, and the most important thing is that you enjoy your training.  Use this final exercise to enjoy yourself.  Make the workout your own and do what you want to do.  Boys can do their bicep curls and girls can do their tricep kickbacks if they like.  Just make sure they are done after your main workout and they don’t interfere with it at all.

We don’t have to be perfect all the time.  As long as we are good most of the time, we can get away with being a bit naughty sometimes (just don’t let the naughty times interfere with the good ones!).

The Plank

Number of sets and reps.

One possible difference between my hypothetical 16 year old boy and little old lady would be here.  Pandering to a gross stereotype,  I might have the 16 year old doing 1-3 sets of 10 reps, while the sweet little old lady doing 3-5 sets of 5 reps.  The reason is:

• The boy is much more likely to let his ego take over and try too much weight too soon.  By keeping the reps up, this forces him to keep the weight down a bit and so means less chance of him breaking himself.
• The lady is more likely to tire sooner, so this way she gets to have more rest breaks.  This also means her form/technique is less likely to suffer.
• They both end up doing a similar number of reps, so they both get a similar amount of practice at doing the actual move.

Types of exercise.

All the actual exercises are big, compound moves.  In other words, each move uses lots of joints  and muscles working together at the same time.  The reasons are:

• It’s more time efficient.
• Helps teach mechanically efficient moves.
• It spreads the load across more of the body, so if they have any particularly weak parts, they are not exposed immediately to stresses directly to that weak spot.
• Helps develop strength evenly across the body.  Young boys tend to over emphasise their chest and biceps, while older women tend to over emphasise the backs of their arms.  This kind of “nit picking” is rarely a good idea for both practical and aesthetic goals.

What to expect during/after the first training sessions

• Don’t expect too much hard work.  Do less than you think you are capable of.  If you don’t you will probably pay for it the following morning in the way of aches and soreness.
• Don’t try too many different machines/exercises.  Do half a dozen at most, and learn the basic do’s and don’ts of them.  It is much better to do a few things properly and safely than loads of things crappily and dangerously.
• Even if you do less than you think you are capable of, there is a definite chance you may feel aches/stiffness after your first or second session.  So far, I have never been with anyone who was stiff after the third go.  Your body adapts to the work you give it very quickly.

What to expect during/after the first month

• You will “feel” stronger and be able to do more work and shift heavier resistance/weights.  This will not be because you have built more muscle (you will build virtually no muscle in the first month) but because the muscles you already have will have “woken up” and you will be using more of your original potential strength.  Anyone feeling “bulked up” in this first month is almost certainly just carrying more fluid in their body.  This will settle down within a couple of weeks.
• Your various limbs and bodyparts will start to feel a bit more coordinated and your body will hold itself less like a saggy, water filled balloon, but more rigid and secure.
• Any aches and stiffness you may have felt the day after your initial training will be a thing of the past and wont be occurring now.

Conclusions.

The above is a good example of a beginners strength programme for virtually everyone, from spotty kid to little old lady.  But of course their different attitudes will react to the programme in different ways.

Young lads usually want to do too much too soon.  They will probably want to do the latest bodybuilder routine they saw in a glossy mag with a HUGE bloke on the cover.  Please realise that the latest bodybuilder routine done by HUGE blokes is not suitable for an absolute beginner! You will end up breaking yourself, I promise!  You need at least 6 months foundation work to get your body ready to do anything close to the routines you see in muscles mags.

Little old ladies may be against the idea of ever increasing the weights.  This is a mistake because we get strong enough, and no stronger, to do what we are actually doing.  If you never increase the weights you are lifting, you will never get stronger.

I hope my ramblings here have not confused you too much!  If so, just leave a comment and I’ll do my best to answer any questions!

First of all, I have to admit I have no direct scientific evidence of this…so I can’t prove a word of what I’m saying…but I know it’s true…its common sense.  So with that disclaimer out of the way, here is why my motto is:

“Movement & Variety”

…and why bigger is better!

In exercise and the gym, there are 2 main different types of move:

Isolation and Compound.

Preacher Curl

Isolation:  Where only a single joint and a single muscle group is used to perform a relatively simple move.  A classic example is the bicep curl (I know I have a thing about bicep curls…just bare with me, ok?).

Here, every effort is made to use as few joints and muscles as possible.  An extreme example is the “preacher” curl.  Here you sit down, jam your arms in a frame and make sure the only part of your body that is working is your biceps.

This means there is very little Movement & Variety.

Examples of isolation exersices include:

• Bicep curl (elbow moved, biceps worked)
• Tricep kickback (elbow moved, triceps worked)
• Leg extension/curl (knee moved, quads/hamstrings worked)
• Lateral raise (shoulder moved, deltoids worked)

Now, when was the last time you looked at your biceps?  If you are a bloke, it was probably about 5 minutes ago…and you can’t help but notice no matter how massively strong they are…they are still really quite small compared to other muscles like your legs, your chest, your lats, your abdominals or almost any muscle you care to mention!

Now the way i think of it is this…each of the muscles in our body is like an internal combustion engine (like in a car).  And like a car engine, our muscles burn fuel (calories) to work.

Moped

Now imagine a small muscle group working in isolation (eg your biceps during a preacher curl).  This can be compared to a tiny 100 cc moped engine working by itself.

Not much fuel (calories) are being used and not much impact is being made on the surrounding environment.

Lorry convoy

Compound:  This is where multiple joints and muscles are used in coordination with each other to perform a relatively complex move.

A classic example is the squat, where your hips, knees and ankles all bend together, and your spine has only itself to ensure it stays aligned and upright.

This means there is a lot of Movement & Variety.

Examples of compound exercises include:

• Press ups (elbow & shoulder moved, triceps, chest, abdominals, quads worked)
• Pull Ups (elbow & shoulder moved, lats, deltoids, biceps, forearms, abdominals worked)
• Deadlift (ankle, knee and hips moved, quads, hamstrings, gluteals, spinal erectors, forearms, abdominals worked)
• Squats (ankle, knee & hips moved, quads, hamstrings, gluteals worked)
• Standing sholder press (shoulder & elbows moved, deltoids, triceps, adbominals, spinal erectors worked)

Now, when was the last time you looked at your legs?  Do me a favour and just compare the size of your arms to your legs.  Do it now.  Your arms are a fraction the size of your legs.

So imagine large muscle groups, doing more work, requiring more fuel and working in coordination with each other (eg all your leg, bum and body muscles during a squat).  This can be compared to big artic lorry engine working in convoy with many other artic lorry engines!

It is burning loads of fuel (calories) and making a massive impact its environment.

And because more muscle groups are playing, the work that can be done is greater (it is being shared out over your body).  And with the greater workload, your body adapts faster and to a greater degree.

Which muscles are being used?

So when I show new people round the gym I work at, I show them the instructions next to the resistance machines.  It colours in red which muscles are being used on this particular machine.  My best advice to them is always:

“Use the machines with the most red on it”

This will not only use the big, sexy strong muscles we all know and love (biceps, lats, quads etc) but also all the boring, dull but essential ones that we ignore (eg the rotator cuffs and stabilising muscles that don’t do anything more important than keep our body from falling apart!).

And in fact, as soon as they have got used to the machines, I try to make sure they do as many bodyweight and free weight exercises as possible.  These use loads more muscles in complex ways requiring more calories to be used up and more importantly, more coordination from the rest of the body!

Humans are notoriously crap at recognising the boring but important bits of complex systems.  We see and concentrate on the sexy flashy bits (like bankers selling mortgages to people without the money to pay them back)…but we forget the boring but essential bits (like bankers selling mortgages to people without the money to pay them back).

If all we do is little isolation exercises (like bicep curls) then we will improve a small and relatively unimportant muscle, our bodies won’t improve its coordination, we will miss out lots of vitally important (but unsexy) muscles, but get good at bending our elbows and not much else.

The Planche

If though, we do big, compound moves and practice big Keystone Abilities, then we will improve the strength, tone, stability and resilience of virtually our whole body.  And we will improve almost every move we make, from the dull, boring yet vital “getting out of the chair” to the incredibly sexy and hard “planche”.

So the moral to this long winded story is this:

if you want to burn more calories, make your body more practical, more injury resistant, stronger and better looking to the opposite sex

“make large compound exercises involving large complex moves the core of your workout”.

Only do little isolation exercises as an “optional extra” tagged onto the end of your workouts.  They take much longer and they produce far fewer results.

Seated shoulder press

If you are unsure about starting doing compound exercises, there is a very simple first step…stop doing exercises sitting on a bench!  If it is at all possible or feasible to do an exercise on your feet, then do it on your feet.  No more “seated shoulder presses” and stuff like that!

This picture is worth 1,000 words…this is a perfect representation of all our bodies…

Kevin and Perry – they won't do it unless they absolutely positively HAVE to!

If you ask Kevin and Perry nicely to clean their rooms a million times, they will ignore you million times.

The same goes for all our bodies.  If you do a million nice easy tricep kickbacks, your bingo-wings will also ignore you.

Our bodies won’t change unless they absolutely positively HAVE to!  And the way to convince them they have to, is to progressively push them harder and harder until they do change.

If you like/dislike what I have written, or if you agree/disagree, why not take a look at some of the other posts on my blog.  And if you really want to, you can subscribe to this blog (using email or RSS) using the tool near the top right of this page.

I was taking a client round the gym yesterday, and he asked me a common question…

“whats the right way to do a situp?”

The short answer to this is “there isn’t one“…the long answer is:

There is probably a million different ways to do a situp or crunch, and none of them are right, and none of them are wrong…they are just different.  Some versions will be:

• easier/harder,
• less/more effective,
• less/more suitable for people with injuries,
• lower/higher risk of injuries,
• less/more suitable for static or dynamic purposes.

The version you use will depend entirely on your current abilities and the ultimate outcome you want.

The way I think of it, the “right” exercise is the one you can:

• perform safely
• perform effectively
• achieves your desired results.

The “wrong” exercises are those that don’t tick the above 3 boxes.

For example, there was a lady yesterday who was standing bolt upright, holding a 1 kg weight and swinging her arm back and forth from the shoulder.  When asked what she was doing, she said she was trying to work on her triceps (bingo wings)!

Because this exercise ticks only 1 of the above criteria (it is safe, it’s not effective and won’t achieve her desired results), this is the wrong exercise.

BUT…

if she said she was warming up her shoulders and trying to maintain/improve shoulder mobility, then all 3 boxes would be ticked (it is safe, it is effective and will achieve her desired results), and this would now be the right exercise.

Different ways to exercise are like different tools in your toolbox.  A hammer is the wrong tool to screw in a screw…but that does not mean the hammer is a rubbish tool and you should throw it away.  It is a fantastic tool, in the right context.

The take home message is, don’t do an exercise because it looks cool and someone down the pub or on TV told you to do it…do it because it:

• is safe for you
• is effective for you
• achieves your desired result.

Now go away and enjoy yourself