In my last article Weight Lifting Routine I talked about more efficient ways to set up your lifting routines. Today I am going to share with you some of my favorite horizontal pushing exercises.
In the chart below you will see two lists, a unilateral list and a bilateral list. Unilateral exercises require the limbs to work independent of each other while bilateral exercises have both limbs working together. It is important to do a combination of both types of exercises as most all of us have a weaker side.
| Bilateral | Unilateral |
| Barbell Bench Press | Dumbbell Bench Press |
| Barbell Incline Chest Press | Dumbbell Incline Chest Press |
| Pushups | Dumbbell Alternating Press |
| Dips | 2 Arm Band Chest Press |
| Close Grip Incline Press | 2 Arm Cable Chest Press |
| Close Grip Bench Press | TRX Pushups |
Remember form is more important then reps and the amount of weight lifted. In my next post I will include my favorite horizontal pulling exercises.
Stay Motivated,
Karen
Filed under Exercise Help by 
Weight Lifting Routine
The correct weight lifting routine is probably the most important thing you have to worry about if you want results. Upper – lower body splits, tri's and chest, bi's and back days are gone.
Not only are we busier and have less time to spend in a gym we are now smarter and realize we don't have to train each individual muscle group to get great results. In fact training that way will lead to more overuse injuries.
A proper weight lifting routine should focus on the movements of the body not the actually body parts.
Their are 7 fundamental areas I like to focus on:
- Horizontal pressing
- Horizontal pulling
- Vertical pressing
- Vertical pulling
- Knee dominant exercises
- Hip dominant exercises
- Core development/ anti-rotation
By focusing your routine around the 7 areas as opposed to the individual body parts you get a more balanced and complete functional workout. Our muscles do not function in the real world in isolation so therefore we should not train them in isolation.
The movements can still be split up so you have control over how many days per week you do your weight training workout 2,3 and even 4 day splits are possible.
It is also important to train both bilaterally and unilaterally. Bilaterally meaning a barbell chest press where both sides are pushing together and unilaterally meaning an alternating dumbbell chest press where the arms are working independently of one another. Again both of these can easily be put into a 2,3 or 4 day split. If you always train with bilateral movements only you will never reach your full potential. If one side of the body is stronger than the other, (which is usually the case) you will always be pushing/pulling harder with that side of the body. Over time this unbalanced approach will lead to greater chance of over use injuries.
In my next post I will give you examples of some of my favorite horizontal pushing and pulling exercises.
Stay Motivated,
Karen
Filed under Workouts by
As we move into a new decade are machines going to become a thing of the past? New technology, better education, more resources and money are all things that have led to the extreme advances in the fitness industry. Just look at the results of our last Olympics, records were broken like crazy.
I can almost guarantee with 100% certainty that the Olympic athletes breaking all those records did not train using the machines found in the gym. Even more so, I can almost guarantee with 100% certainty that those machines are not even found in the gyms they train in.
I certainly do not have any machines in my studio, granted it is small and machines would make for a tight fit. But even if I had a gym this size of a football field, I still would not have any machines. At one point in time machines had their purpose and to an extent still have a small purpose. (I will get to that in a bit). Even in the 60's and 70's as crazy as they were those belt generated jiggling machines had their purpose.
My husband just had his ACL replaced, I have him doing leg extensions and hamstring curls on a machine at a gym. Rehab situations are a perfect use for machines.
So what's the problem with them? For starters as I stated earlier our education and technology has allowed us to create far better exercise equipment and the knowledge we have gained allows us to create much more effective workouts. Workouts that do not utilize machines found in a gym. With the direction we are headed, you will even begin to see the treadmill and elliptical machines becoming obsolete.
With that being said, then why is it, when someone signs up for a new gym membership their free orientation session involves nothing but the machines. The personal trainer (may be qualified, maybe not, more on that another time) in charge of new client orientation, gives the same bland machine circuit to every new client regardless of the clients goals, experience or even the shape the clients body is in.
This happens for multiple reasons, it is safe, easy, gets people using the expensive machines (that would otherwise sit idle) and people feel comfortable starting out on machines.
Regardless of right or wrong, if you want to train to see results get off the machines and start hitting some of the other equipment found in your gym.
Stay Motivated,
Filed under Health Secrets & Tips, Miscellaneous by
Last week we talked about the differences between stability and mobility. And as I said in the next few posts I would give you a few of my favorite mobility drills.
The video for today is an ankle mobility exercise.
In the video I am working one ankle at a time, it is OK to work both at the same time if you prefer. I like to keep them separate because the mobility is much worse in my left ankle. Set your foot about 6 inches off the wall and then just use a rocking motion back and forth until you can touch your knee to the wall. As you get better move your toe a little further from the wall.
As you rock be sure to keep your heel planted to the ground. In the video you will see where my heel comes off the ground a bit. When that happens just keep working it until you can do it without the heel coming up. You may have to move the foot closer to the wall.
The other piece you will notice in the video is the movement in my hips. I am rocking my knee in to the left, to the middle and to the right. I want to get as much mobility and movement back in the ankle as possible.
Perform 2-3 sets of about 30 seconds for each ankle. Mobility drills can be done 5-6 times a week if you would like. Good luck!
Stay Motivated,
Karen
Filed under Miscellaneous by
My title really should have been Mobility Vs. Flexibility Vs. Stability because you need to have a good understanding of all three to really understand any of them.
When people refer to mobility generally speaking we are talking about the joint and the joints ability to move through all of its desired range of motion.
When we refer to flexibility we are talking about the muscle and its ability to allow the joint to move to little or to much.
Let me give you some examples. For instance, I had an ankle injury in high school, because of the injury I do not have full range of motion in that ankle, a bony impingement will not allow it to flex all the way. The muscles surrounding the area have nothing to do with that problem. This problem is not correctable.
On the other hand my shoulders will not move through a full range of motion. In this case my external rotators are extremely tight. The joints are fine. With a good foam roller/stretching program this problem could be greatly reduced if not fixed all together.
Hopefully you are with me so far because I am going to take it a step further and talk about stability now. Stability is anti-movement it is the ability to keep a body part from moving in way we do not want it to.
The 3 words are all interrelated and very important to each other. Gray Cook was the first person to really break down mobility and stability. He discovered that certain joints in the body had to be very stable and limit movement while other joints had to be very mobile. Mike Boyle was the second person to really piggy back off of Gray and develop some real solutions to the problem.
Basically he said your body is like a stack of blocks starting at the ankles and working up:
- ankles – mobile
- knees – stable
- hips – mobile
- lumber spine - stable
- thoracic spine – mobile
- cervical spine – stable
With that information they both came to the same conclusion, that the majority of us live opposite. Ankles in-mobile, knees unstable and etc all the way up. If the hips are in-mobile you may have knee pain, but almost always have low back pain. An in-mobile thoracic spine will almost always cause pain in the cervical area.
The answer to all of this is really pretty simple make the in-mobile, mobile and the unstable, stable. How you accomplish this is also pretty simple. Use various mobility drills to add some mobility to the in-mobile joint and add in some stability work to the unstable areas.
Over the next few weeks in my upcoming posts I am going to give you some of my favorite mobility drills, I am going to try and give you one for at least each area where mobility is needed.
If you want stability drills for each of the unstable areas you will have to let me know in the comment box.
Stay Motivated,
Karen
Filed under Miscellaneous by
