Get More Out of Your Workouts: Perfect Your Technique

 

A lot of people miss out on getting the full value from their exercises because of their form - a few simple changes to how your do your exercises can increase muscle growth and strength. 

Squats

A mistake that a lot of people make is trying to bend their legs to crouch down. Instead, try to imagine sitting down on a chair - keep your shins as vertical as possible, and counter the imbalance by leaning your upper body forwards, but keep your body straight and your abs engaged throughout the exercise. When you come up. pop your hips forwards to complete the exercise. Look straight ahead throughout the exercise.

Lunges

A lot of people transfer the idea of squats and leaning forward to lunges, which is a mistake. Keep your front heel down, and do not lean your body forwards over your knee. You should not be able to see your front foot. Keep your body straight and vertical, and your abs engaged. Try not to rest your hands on your thigh, and look ahead throughout the exercise. The motion of the back leg should be a controlled bend, not just sagging down.

Push Ups
Instead of simply concentrating in moving up and down, you can improve this exercise by adding a little push to the end to increase the shoulder and back workout. After you've bent your arms, and when you've straightened them back out, try to push your upper back towards the ceiling a little more. Ensure that it is a slow and controlled push. So the movment is not simply up-down, it is up-push further up-down.

For more ways to make your exercise more effective, check out 5 virtually instant ways to improve you workout.

Thank you to Yelkaim for the image.

Push Up Masterclass - 5 Push Ups You Should Add to Your Routine

We've put together this Push Up Masterclass for those of you doing the Push Up Challenge, and everyone else that just wants to add some variety to their work outs and train different muscle groups. While the basic idea is the same (rest on your hands and feet and lift your own bodyweight), these exercises put more strain on different muscle groups.




The Classic

We all know this one - hands shoulder-width apart, legs and body straight with your feet together. There are quite a few variations on this if standard push ups are getting easy or if you want a change:
- Press your elbows against your sides
- Move your hands closer to the centre
- Only rest on one leg

Once you can do all of those, it may be time to try one-handed press ups. See the exercise below if you prefer to build up to it!


Monkey Push Up

Put your feet together and sit upright on your heels with your knees apart. Then, put your hands on the floor in front of you (with your arms in between your knees) and bend your elbows to press down and push all the way back up to the original sitting position. The push up itself will need some speed to get you back to the original positions.


Shoulder Push Up

This is something that a lot of beginners tend to do, which (ironically) is actually harder than the Classic push up. Start off in Classic position, but bend your body at the hips at a 90-100 degree angle (it may be easier to do this with your feet apart). Press down and push up, keeping the bend in your body and your legs straight. This push up is fantastic for your shoulders.


Lizard Push Up


This push up involves walking forwards, so ensure you have enough room to do so. Start in the Classic position, and move your right hand and your left leg forwards (bend the leg outwards to do so, but ensure that your foot is just going forwards), move forwards into your new position and press down with your right leg still outstretched and your left hand still lower down (so you haven't 'finished' the step yet), push up, then move the other hand and foot forwards and repeat. If you have trouble, just imagine a lizard walking.

One-Handed Push Up

One-Handed Push Ups are generally the preserve of the incredibly strong and balanced, but there is a good way to work up to them. Start in the Classic position, but put your knees on the floor and slightly apart - bend your knees at 90 degrees. Put one hand on your hip, and the other in the centre in front of you, press down and push up. Always ensure that you do equal amounts on both hands.


Always stretch and warm up properly before exercising, even if you are only doing a few push ups!


If you want to build your strength and stability, and incorporate new exercises into your workouts, visit one of our classes. More information can be found on http://www.ultimatekickboxing.co.uk/ .

Push ups

If you're serious about increasing strength and endurance, push ups are a fantastic way to help. A lot of students have trouble performing press ups when they start, but with consistent training, they're fairly easy to learn.

If you train for 3 days a week, for 6 weeks, most people will be able to work up to doing 50-100 consecutive press ups. The most important part is to maintain good form - sagging bodies and half-press ups will not help you build strength - and to exercise often.

This work out is based on a person being able to perform 10-20 good, consecutive press ups.

Week 1:
For days 1 and 2, do a 10 min warm up (try our tabata warm up to do it in 4 if you're short of time) and then complete 5 sets of push ups.
Set 1 - 10
Set 2 - 12
Set 3 - 7
Set 4 - 7
Set 5 - as many as you can do (at least 12)

On day 3, add 2 push ups to each set.

Week 2:
With week 1 behind you, you've alread started building strength and increasing your endurance. Throughout the 6 weeks, ensure that you're maintaining good form, but don't hesitate if you need to take slightly longer breaks in between sets.

For days 1 and 2, warm up again and complete the following sets:
Set 1: 14
Set 2: 16
Set 3: 12
Set 4: 12
Set 5: as many as you can (at least 17)

On day 3, add 3 to each set again.

Week 3:
Half way! By this point you should be feeling a difference. Don't slip up though, and make sure that you are doing 5 sets 3 times a week.

On days 1 and 2, warm up again:
Set 1: 20
Set 2: 25
Set 3: 15
Set 4: 15
Set 5: as many as you can (at least 25)

On day 3, increase the set values:
Set 1; 22
Set 2: 30
Set 3: 20
Set 4: 20
Set 5: as many as you can (at least 28)

Week 4:
Week 4 is where you begin to really push yourself every single day - unlike the first 3 weeks, the set values increase every day.

Day 1:
Set 1: 21
Set 2: 25
Set 3: 21
Set 4: 21
Set 5: as many as you can (at least 32)

Day 2:
Set 1: 25
Set 2: 29
Set 3: 25
Set 4: 25
Set 5: as many as you can (at least 36)

Day 3:
Set 1: 29
Set 2: 33
Set 3: 29
Set 4: 29
Set 5: as many as you can (at least 40)

Week 5:
To continue pushing yourself, now we've increased the number of sets but decreased the set values slightly - you'll be able to do more press ups but over a slightly longer period, with more rest.

On day 1 and 2, complete the following sets:
Set 1: 19
Set 2: 29
Set 3: 22
Set 4: 22
Set 5: 18
Set 6: 18
Set 7: 22
Set 8: as many as you can (try for at least 50)

On day 3, increase all the set values by 2.

Week 6:
We've included a total structure change on week 6, which will take you up to 100 press ups with breaks in between the sets.

Increase the number of press ups by 1 in each set, until you're at 10, and then work back down. Your set values will be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1. However, by this point and due to the new values, you should be taking much shorter breaks. Try doing the same number of sit ups instead of resting.

Congratulations - if you just did that, you just completed 100 press ups. Why not test yourself on day 4 of week 6 to see if you're up to 100?

And if you need inspiration, have a look at this guy.