The question seems almost non-sensical, like asking if you know how to blink. But, the way you breathe while sitting at your desk is much different than how you should breathe while on a run, or when you squat with 300 pounds on your back. And, we’re not just talking about breathing heavier as you get tired.

Your breath is far more powerful than you think because breathing is so deeply tied to many essential structures of your body, including your spine and ribcage. It might seem impossible, but the way you breathe can do everything from preventing back pain to make you significantly stronger on squats, deadlifts, presses, and almost every exercise imaginable.

Before you complete another workout, it’s time to find out if you’ve been breathing the wrong way, and what you can do to make a small change that leads to incredible results.

The Power of Your Breath

Most fitness tips do not provide instant gratification. It takes a lot of reps and sets, sometimes across a span of years, to change your body.

And while no workout will instantly slash fat or make you more muscular, there are a few techniques that, like magic, can have an immediate impact on how well you train and feel. The Valsalva maneuver, which is a way of breathing, is one of those techniques.

Part of the reason it has such a dramatic impact is that for the majority of people, how to breathe when you exercise is completely overlooked.

When you learn about training, almost everything focuses on the usual suspects:

• How much weight you’ll use
• The reps and sets
• The exercise selection
• What equipment to use

All of these are important parts of training and exercise. But, all of these cover what you do. They tend to avoid how to do it.

While there’s no shortage of exercise explanations you can find online, it’s rare that tips on correct form provide a detailed explanation of how you should breathe.

But, the way you breathe on different exercises can make all the difference between staying pain-free and seeing more progress. Enter the Valsalva maneuver.

To understand how and why this technique is the key to no back pain and lots of strength gain, it’s time for a quick test.

The Soda Can Test: How to Know Your Spine is Safe

To understand why learning how to breathe properly is important, all you need to do is think about a soda can. When it’s pressurized and sealed, it’s very strong. You can stack several bricks on top of it and it won’t budge. But, if you open the can and let that pressure escape, the weight would crumple the can underneath.

Think about breathing in the same way: do it right and you’re unstoppable, do it wrong and you get crushed.

Correct breathing can make every exercise a safe and effective movement. Think about it: No one argues whether exercise is “good” for you, but plenty of people debate whether certain exercises should be avoided because of the risk of injury.

For example, you might know the squat as one of the best exercises for developing strength and building muscle. Or, you might think of it as an exercise that causes back pain. That alone means that plenty of you avoid squats (or avoid doing them with added weight) when, in reality, it’s not the exercise that’s the problem; it’s how you’ve been taught to do the movement.

“Everybody tells you to inhale on the way down, and exhale on the way up,” says Mark Rippetoe, owner of the Wichita Falls Athletic Club and author of Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training. “That is complete and utter BS. If you do that, you will hurt yourself.”

Now, Rippetoe isn’t suggesting you shouldn’t breathe. What he’s saying is that the typical breathing cue is incomplete and leaves out many vital details. And that if you’re just breathing — and not practicing the Valsalva maneuver — then you’re at risk.

“When you Valsalva, you’re protecting your spine,” says Dr. Belisa Vranich, clinical psychologist and author of Breathe: The Simple, Revolutionary 14-Day Program to Improve your Mental and Physical Health. “Most people don’t understand that you have to take a big breath in to be able to protect your spine [when you lift].”

When you inhale deeply, you create what’s called intra-abdominal pressure. The term describes forces within your abdominal cavity or the area surrounded by the muscles on the side of your abs (your obliques), your pelvic floor (on the bottom), diaphragm (on top), rectus abdominus (the area known as the six-pack), and several back muscles.

When you have a heavy load on your back, this pressure is your friend. It’s no different than the soda can.

WIthin your abdomen, the pressure you create with a deep inhalation helps keep your spine rigid and stable.

“Air is support to the back,” Rippetoe says. So the way you should lift when you squat is to inhale deeply and brace your torso, hold that breath (and bracing) on the way down, then either continue to hold it on the way up or exhale through pursed lips when you hit the most challenging part of the lift.

Before you try the Valsalva maneuver, there’s something you should know: in order for it to work for you, you first have to master an even more fundamental skill.

Are You Breathing Well? (Here’s How to Find Out)

Consider this Breathing 101. Because you know how to breathe, it will be quick. But, if you want the Valsalva maneuver to work, then you need to make sure you’re breathing correctly.

To understand how you breathe, it’s important to visualize your diaphragm as two separate parts.

Your diaphragm divides your insides into an upper (thoracic) cavity and a lower (abdominal) cavity. Think of it as the muscle that powers breathing. When you inhale, your diaphragm pushes downward against your abs, drawing air into your lungs and creating more space for them within your body.

“The lungs will fill like a vacuum once the diaphragm drops downwards,” explains Dr. Kathy Dooley, a chiropractor and anatomy instructor based in New York City.

However, a number of things, such as bad posture, can prevent your diaphragm from doing its job effectively.

“When your abs are gripping your diaphragm, it will not let you take a big inhale,” Vranich says. “If you go to take a big inhale, you’ll have to take it with your shoulders because your diaphragm is being squeezed.”

So what should it look like? If your belly moves outward when you breathe in, it’s a sign that your diaphragm is working correctly. It might make you feel self-conscious because it will look like you’re creating a gut, but you’ll feel and perform a lot better.

On the flipside, consider what happens when you don’t breathe correctly. The result looks something like:

This is known as “vertical breathing.” And it achieves the biologically necessary goal of getting you oxygen (because, ya know, you still need to breathe and your body won’t let that not happen). But, it creates a host of other problems.

The Risks of Poor Breathing

If you’re a vertical breathing, it can be a literal pain in the neck. That’s because this type of breathing tightens the muscles in your neck and shoulders. If you have your massage therapist on speed dial, vertical breathing may be why.

This style of breathing doesn’t deliver oxygen as well as a diaphragmatic breath, so you’ll have to inhale more frequently, which can elevate your blood pressure, pulse, and level of anxiety.

Even crazier? Your diaphragm attaches to your spleen, liver, and small intestine, and doing it wrong can cause a domino effect of health problems.

“If you’re breathing up with the chest, you may not be creating the ‘massage’ for your lower organs to encourage your smooth muscle (tissues in the gut) to act like it should,” Dooley says. “You’d be surprised by how much breathing affects your gastric emptying, and how much breathing affects things like IBS (irritable bowel syndrome).”

And then, of course, there’s how bad breathing affects your ability to use the Valsalva maneuver.

If you’re breathing “up,” using your chest, shoulders, and other muscles to pull air into your body, you can’t create the type of intra-abdominal pressure that will protect your spine when you lift—even if you took in the biggest breath you possibly could.

“If you’re building good intra-abdominal pressure, you don’t necessarily need to raise your chest upwards [when you inhale],” Dooley says, who adds that the reverse is also true: If you’re raising your chest upwards, you’re not building good intra-abdominal pressure.

Here’s a simple way to tell whether you’re using your diaphragm well. Look in the mirror and watch yourself breathe. If your chest and shoulders are moving up and down in a way that looks like the illustration above, you have some work to do.

How to Breathe Better (And Lift Weights Better Than Ever)

Here are 3 exercises that can help you breathe better and keep your shoulders down.

Breathing Exercise #1: Diaphragm Extensions
While Vranich teaches several techniques, perhaps the simplest method is an exercise that requires you to lie on your back and just breathe. (Yup, it’s really that simple.)

To perform the move, lie flat on your back and place any light object—it could be a book, a pillow or whatever you have handy—on top of your belly button. Rest your hands at your sides and cast your gaze slightly downward, so you can see the book somewhere in your field of vision.

Inhale deeply into your belly, raising the book as high as you can. When you exhale, watch the book lower. Keep breathing in this manner for a few minutes.

Vranich recommends you don’t worry about your pace of breath at first, just notice how breathing into your lower body feels. You may find that performing the technique slowly brings a sense of calm.

That’s because slow, controlled breathing initiates a “rest and digest” response from your body called the parasympathetic nervous system. For this reason, you may want to try breathing in this manner before bedtime, or even at the end of your workouts (when it can help bring your heart rate and signal to the rest of your body that it’s time to chill).

To start, try using it for a minute or so at the front of a training session to teach (or remind) you of how diaphragmatic breathing feels.

Breathing Exercise #2: The 90-90
As the name suggests, the “90-90” indicates that you’ll have a 90-degree bend in your hips, and a 90-degree bend in your knees. And you’ll need a Swiss ball.

Lie on the floor, place your heels atop the ball, and adjust your feet so that you have those right angles at your hip and knee. Dooley shows you how to set up for the exercise in this video:

The object is to inhale into your lower abdomen. Rather than just trying to press upward with the belly, think about filling the whole abdomen in every direction. When you inhale, your abs, your obliques, and the muscles in your lower back all should press outward.

“What we’re looking for is for the abdomen to fill in 360 [degrees] on the inhale,” Dooley says. “These muscles all around you are muscles of exhalation, therefore they need to expand when you inhale to build proper intra-abdominal pressure.”

Stay in the 90-90 until you feel like you’re getting the hang of breathing with all of those muscles, or for as long as your workout will allow. If you typically don’t have a whole lot of time to train, don’t worry about it. Even a minute will be helpful.

Breathing Exercise #3: The Dead Bug (AKA Dying Bug)
This exercise takes the good intra-abdominal pressure you’ve learned and applies it to moving your arms and legs.

To set up for the move, you’ll lie on your back with your hips and knees bent 90-degrees. (No Swiss ball for your heels this time.)

You can hold your arms straight overhead, or press them against your abdomen to feel the pressure you’re creating. Inhale, then exhale slowly as you lower the heel of your left leg to the floor, lift it back to your starting position, then lowering and raising the heel of your right leg.

You’ll do all of this (moving both legs down and back up) on a single exhale, maintaining stiffness in your core as you move. Once you’ve completed the movement with both legs, inhale and repeat. Perform 5 to 10 reps, where moving your left and right leg is one rep.

“This is a fantastic drill for learning how to build intra-abdominal pressure and build core stiffness but ambulate the limbs,” Dooley says. “It has a lot of carryover into things like squatting and deadlifting because you’re trying to maintain core stiffness and abdominal stability while you’re trying to ambulate the limbs.”

How to Valsalva Maneuver Like a Pro

If you know how to breathe deeply into your lower abdomen, then the first cue of the Valsalva is pretty simple.

“Big breath in,” Rippetoe says. “Before every rep, take a big breath.”

Just as you did when you performed the Supine 90-90, the breath should fill your lower abdomen in every direction. That’s half of the battle.

The other half is bracing properly. Here’s where the work you did in the Dying Bug comes into play. You want to engage your abs, your obliques, and the muscles in your back, holding them all stiff as you start your descent downward. Exhale when you reach the top. Then inhale and repeat.

As with anything, the little details matter. The Valsalva maneuver is not something you want to hold throughout a set. Exhale after every rep. Then, inhale and reset before your next rep.

One of the knocks on the Valsalva is that it elevates your blood pressure, which most of us tend to think is a bad thing. And it is, but only if your high blood pressure is chronic. In other words, if you walk around every day with a systolic/diastolic combo that’s well above 120 over 80, then you’ll want to consult with your doctor.

But, the blood pressure lift from the Valsalva is temporary—when you perform it, the pressure goes up. When you stop, it returns to baseline.

However, if you have a known risk factor like an intracranial lesion, then yes, you should speak with your doctor before trying the Valsalva maneuver. Same if you have hypertension that you haven’t addressed. As with anything, exercise common sense and communicate with your doctor if you have any concerns.

READ MORE: 

How Low Should You Squat, Really?

The Truth About the 7-Minute Workout

The Tension Weightlifting Technique: How to Make Every Exercise More Effective

The post Valsalva Maneuver: This Technique Will Fix Your Back Pain appeared first on Born Fitness.

1. You have shoulder pain and want to do something about it. 
2. Your shoulders don’t hurt, and you want to keep it that way.

Either way, you’ve come to the right place if you want to end your shoulder discomfort and be able to move freely and perform exercises without pain.

I’ve spent my life working with a mix of rehab patients and strength athletes, which means my job requires me to become an expert in pain management and prevention.

Because let’s be honest: no one likes shoulder pain, and — even worse — no one likes doing a bunch of exercises that don’t seem to solve the problem. 

Shoulder pain has two different variations: you might experience acute pain (“Ouch! I did something and now my shoulder hurts.”), which makes it feel like your shoulder is only an issue when you perform certain moves. Or, you could have chronic pain, which is a constant discomfort or an achy soreness. 

Many people who perform a bunch of rotator cuff exercises to protect their shoulders are misusing their time.

In either situation, there are many commonalities that lead to both types of shoulder pain. There are many shoulder movements that can have a massive impact on whether you’re able to perform an exercise without causing damage or irritation.

The mechanics of your shoulder are complex, which means exercise technique matters a lot. But as you’ll soon see, there’s one factor that’s most important to healing and keeping your shoulders healthy. 

Exercise or Execution: Why Your Shoulders Really Hurt

Let’s begin with a simple disclaimer. I’ve spent my life helping people rehab and live pain-free, and no matter who I work with, it’s clear that no Internet article can diagnose and fix your problems.

If you’re here for a little achiness or prevention, then this will help. But, if you’re experiencing severe pain that hurts all day — or you’re recovering from a major injury or surgery — then you should get checked by a medical professional to see what’s going on and first consult with your doctor or physical therapist. 

With that out of the way, let’s make sense of your shoulder pain.

Shoulder pain is common among people who lift weights. It’s not just amateurs or weekend warriors getting hurt. It also applies to Powerlifters, CrossFitters, Bodybuilders, and even the Highland Games guys. And studies of highly-trained Olympic lifters show that they also struggle with shoulder pain.

The exercises that tend to cause the most trouble are pressing movements like the bench press or standing overhead press (also known as the military press).

Here’s the thing about those exercises: the movement itself usually isn’t the problem. In fact, the movement is quite simple—you just push the weight in a straight line. It’s pretty hard to mess that up.

So, if the movement isn’t the issue, then what is? It’s the position you’re in when you go to perform the exercise. Let’s take the overhead press and start with a simple example of why this causes problems.

The Shoulder Question You Didn’t Consider

An easy way to understand your shoulder pain is to think about running. If you rarely (or never) run and then are asked to sprint multiple times, what is likely to happen? Maybe you pull a muscle, feel a strain, or suffer some other injury that occurs from going from one extreme (no use) to another (high-intensity reps).

The same is true for overhead movements. Most people go through their days without bringing their arms over their heads at all. Instead, they spend the day in various hunched positions: looking at phones, staring at laptops, slouching in desk chairs.  

Over time, you lose the ability to extend your mid and upper back (this is known as your thoracic spine). To “extend” your upper back here would look like a “head up, shoulders back” position. Its opposite is the shoulders-rounded-forward hunchback that is your existence.

The thoracic spine directly impacts what your shoulders can (and can’t) do. If you’re unable to extend your thoracic spine, that in turn limits how your shoulder blades can move. The more your upper back starts to look like Quasimodo, the more difficult it is to get your shoulders into the proper position to press a weight overhead.

In other words: you struggle with the movement because your shoulder blades don’t know how to move correctly. I’m going to get technical for a moment to explain exactly why this is such a pain in the ass…or in your case, your shoulders.

Just know this: if you can’t move your shoulder overhead correctly, all the other small structures around your shoulder blade are working overtime, and like most things in life that get overworked, they quickly become pissed off and that’s why you have shoulder pain or get injured.

Why Your Shoulders Lack Mobility

Nerd alert: If you want to skip the detailed reason why your shoulders are not moving correctly, simply skip the next 4 paragraphs.

In order to lift your arm 180 degrees overhead, the scapula, or the triangular bone on the backside of your shoulder that kinda looks like a wing, must rotate about 60 degrees.

You get into trouble when you can’t get this movement to occur. If your thoracic spine is rolled forward, it limits your ability to move your scapula (AKA the shoulder blade).

As a result, in order to get your arm overhead, you’d have to move the entire shoulder joint—which requires a lot of its structures to move through a bigger range of motion than they can manage properly.

This also limits the ability of the upper arm bone (humerus) to make solid contact with the socket of the shoulder (glenoid fossa) to help bear the load of the weight being moved. As a result, the soft tissues of your rotator cuff and joint capsule have to pull double duty.

[Nerd alert over]

Think of your shoulder blade rotation like hip mobility on a deadlift. If you can’t move your hips back far enough so you can grab the weight, something else has to move in order for you to get down and grab the bar. This is why so many people hurt their back on deadlifts.

That “something else” usually winds up being your lower back. And, if your back is doing the work of your hips, you’re going to get hurt.

The same goes for shoulder movement. If soft tissues and joint capsules are doing the work that the bigger muscles like your deltoids were intended to do, you may get away with it for a while. But, you’re eventually going to have a problem.

Why Rotator Cuff Exercises Are Misused (The Fire Hydrant Rule)

Using the explanation above, this is why many people who perform rotator cuff exercises to protect their shoulders are misusing their time.

No amount of band rotations (those exercises where you bend your elbow 90 degrees, grab a resistance tube, and then rotate the forearm to pull the tube away from the body) will improve your thoracic spine mobility.

Sure, doing those moves will help your rotator cuff be strong and powerful. But, it’s the equivalent of grabbing a bigger bucket to catch water from a fire hydrant instead of just turning off the hydrant itself.

If you address the things that are really causing poor shoulder mechanics, you can stop the problems at their source.

Why Bench Press Causes Shoulder Pain

The bench press can cause similar issues for the shoulder, but for a slightly different reason.

In order to set up properly for the bench press, you have to pull your shoulder blades together and down in order to create a strong and stable base of support.

Here’s what you should do before every bench press set. (The first 15 seconds of this video are the most important):

There are just two problems:

1. Not everyone realizes that pulling the shoulders together and back is part of the setup. (And if that’s you, now you know. Go forth and conquer.)
2. Some do know this but don’t have enough thoracic mobility to pull their shoulder blades back and tight.

In either case, without the proper setup, the front of your shoulders wind up paying the price.

If your shoulders aren’t pulled back and locked in, when you lower the weight toward your chest, your upper arm bone has to move around within the shoulder capsule to allow the bar to get down.

This can result in the arm moving forward—a motion called anterior glide. And anterior glide puts a lot of pressure on the tissues meant to keep the joint together, like the biceps tendon and rotator cuff muscles, causing them to be irritated or even damaged.

How to Fix Your Shoulder Pain 

Here’s the good news: Many of the problems with the overhead press and the bench press are rooted in issues with your thoracic mobility and shoulder blade movement. This means fixing those issues will help you feel better during both of those exercises (and plenty of others, too).

Instead of loading up on 15 different variations of rotator cuff exercises, let’s address both of these common movement problems—thoracic and scapula issues—at their source. Then, you can set the stage for more appropriate shoulder pressing movements with less discomfort.

Shoulder Pain Solution #1: Breathe (But, do it correctly)

The first thing you should do to correct your thoracic positioning is to spend just a few minutes doing a little breathing drill, which my friend Tony Gentilcore is going to demonstrate for you here:

https://youtu.be/EtpB8dM4cEM

You’re probably thinking, “Breathing? What?” But stay with me.

Your breathing holds a big influence over the position of your torso. Not breathing correctly tends to limit thoracic motion, which as we discussed earlier has a direct effect on shoulder motion. So, when you perform these drills:

• Breathe deep, with long slow inhales and forceful exhales.
• Go slow and focus on getting more movement versus just doing the reps. Quality should always come before quantity.

Shoulder Pain Solution #2: Foam Roll Like a Pro

Next up you’re going to bring in the foam roller to work on the tissues in your thoracic spine directly. Pay close attention to how we’re going to use it.

Those are called T-Spine Extensions. Let’s talk about what the movement is not:

• It is not you rolling around a whole bunch. In fact, watch that video again. Notice that the roller doesn’t move at all.
• It is not you trying to get a bunch of movement by flaring your ribcage out. You want to keep your abs engaged throughout this drill so that the movement is coming entirely from your upper back.
• It is not your goal to touch the ground with the back of your head. You’re not trying to be Gumby here.

What you are trying to do is get a little more up-and-back movement out of your thoracic spine. That’s all. The motion will be subtle and may be difficult to feel at first.

But work at it, and you’ll soon feel a little more freedom in your upper back and shoulders. That’s what you’re going for here.

Advanced Exercises To Relieve Shoulder Pain

You’d go a long way toward having better shoulder mechanics just by adding the moves shown in those two videos to your warm-up. But, if you want to go further, you can jump into the deep end of the pool with this clip from The Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint:

In this video, you’ll find more awesomely impactful breathing drills—including one that works the smaller muscles in the thoracic spine, so much that a guy actually starts shaking.

The clip starts out with those. And, if you’re the type of person who secretly loves band rotator cuff exercises, be pumped: Later in the clip, you will find band exercises, except these will have a lot more impact on improving your shoulder movement and position overall:

• Beginning at 7:08, you’ll find the “Band W,” which activates the muscles around your shoulder blade and the lower part of your trapezius.
• At 8:56 you’ll see Tony demonstrate two more band exercises—the Windshield Wiper and the Wall Walk—that will light up the muscles in and around your back, especially your serratus, or the muscles on the sides of your ribs up by your armpits. Bonus: A strong serratus helps give you a “V” shaped torso.
• Lastly, when you reach the 12:12 mark you’ll get a move that lets you correct some of these issues in one shoulder at a time—a helpful way to correct imbalances.

These movements can act as a warm-up for your workout, fillers between sets of presses to help keep the motion gliding along nicely, or as the workout itself if you’ve been experiencing pain and want to improve your mechanics.

But again, if your shoulders always hurt, you should speak with a qualified therapist. There may be something more specific you could be doing, and you’ll want to make sure these aren’t going to do any harm. (The moves are very safe, but it’s worth checking.)

Here’s one more thing to keep in mind whenever you perform a shoulder exercise: Use your abs.

If you have limited movement from your thoracic spine, a common mistake is to just lean back with your lower back and avoid doing anything with your upper back.

This is both risky and counterproductive since you’re simultaneously putting extra pressure on your lumbar spine while also decreasing tension on the muscles you’re trying to work in the first place. By bracing your abs, you can help limit this and be sure that you’re getting movement in the places you actually want to move.

READ MORE: 

How to Fix Your Posture

6 Exercise Upgrades for Better Results

Foods That Fight Inflammation

Dean Somerset is a kinesiologist, strength coach, author and public speaker who specializes in injury and medical dysfunction management through exercise program design. The seriously in-depth “The Complete Shoulder & Hip Blueprint,” which Somerset and Gentilcore teamed up to create, is available online. Born Fitness is not an affiliate and has no financial stake or interest in the product, other than our general want for Dean and Tony to succeed in life since they’re good guys who offer great info.     

The post The End of Shoulder Pain appeared first on Born Fitness.

But, it doesn’t take long to realize that the squatting commandments you’ve been hearing for years are very flawed. Case in point: ever been told that your “knees shouldn’t go over your toes” during the squat? Somehow, this idea has lived for decades despite the fact that it’s not true.

Automatically assuming that your knees shouldn’t go over your toes is a great way to ensure that you put a lot of stress on other structures, such as your lower back (as a result of hips), hamstrings, or even your calves. If you’ve tried this approach, you might find that squatting suddenly feels very uncomfortable (note: uncomfortable is different from difficult). And, that’s never a good thing and likely a sign that the movement you’re forcing isn’t going to make your body feel good.

Research supports why allowing your knees to go over your toes isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In one study, participants were restricted from moving their knees in front of their toes. The results? It led to a slight reduction in knee torque (22%) but at the cost of a massive increase in hip torque (1070%).

This suggests that if you apply a movement standard for everyone, it’s likely to cause stress in unintended ways, and this massive increase in stress is likely to lead to injuries, aches, and pains.

It’s perfectly fine for your knees to go over your toes as long as your heels are planted on the ground and your weight is balanced over your natural center of gravity.

The only squat stance that is “right” is the one that is suited for your body. That means it’s time to unlearn what you’ve been taught and start figuring out a better way to squat for your body. Once you do, everything feels better, hurts less, and you’ll become stronger.

Is Squatting Good For You?

“Is it good to squat?” is a fair question, but one with an easy answer. Yes. Sitting down and standing up is one of the most basic movements in life.

Whether squatting is good is not a debate, but form and depth are topics of intense disagreement. The biggest thing you need to remember is that everyone is going to squat a little differently. Your squat form might not look like the ones you see in the pictures or those little “squat form demonstration” illustrations. 

Your knee attaches to 3 main muscle groups: your hamstrings and calves in the back the quadriceps in front. These muscles also play a key role in your hip movement. Translation: When your muscles contract, they work together to balance out force and keep your knees (and other structures) healthy.

Remember the study we mentioned above and how it increased hip torque by more than 1,000 percent? Trying to follow those how-tos might be why your squat form doesn’t feel quite right—or perhaps why squats feel painful. Following a movement built for someone else’s body type isn’t a good idea.

This, of course, is the reason why squats hurt so many people, get a bad reputation, and why you are often tempted to skip this move in your workout, even though you should do it.

No one is going to give you an extra million dollars for squatting deeper.

Making matters worse, the more that you read about squat form, the more likely you are to find conflicting information. On one side you have the purists. They’ll tell you that you must squat “ass-to-grass.”

At the opposite end of the spectrum, are the overly cautious types who worry that squatting too low will damage your knees (it won’t, by the way). And there are plenty of others who will advocate for stopping at seemingly every other point in between—thighs parallel to the ground, or just below it, or well above it (known as quarter squats), and on and on.

No one is “right” but everyone is wrong unless they are showing you how to figure out the right squat depth and stance for your body.

“There’s no one right way to squat—and there’s no one wrong way, either,” says Dean Somerset, C.S.C.S., an exercise physiologist in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. “It’s all about finding what works for your body.”

What’s right for you depends on your goals, strength, and level of mobility, which are things you can influence. But, not everything that determines how well you squat is within your control.

Your body’s bone structure will affect how you move too. Because of all that, many of the standard squat cues you hear about where your feet should be or what direction they should point may not actually work for you. (But don’t worry, we’ll show you what will.)  

The bottom line: Forget the politics. Forget all the “one-size-fits-all” opinions. There are a lot of ways you can go about fixing squats when they hurt. We’re going to break down the different types of squat depth and share a test that can help you start to personalize your approach. 

By the time you’re done reading, you’ll know the right range of motion for your body, so you can get the most out of the squat.

The Deep Squat

Being able to execute a full deep squat is a good thing, but it might not be your thing. Doing the move requires a full range of motion at all four of the body’s major load-bearing joints (the ankles, knees, hips, and shoulders) and proper mobility throughout the spine. Those joints, your muscles, and your brain all have to work together to achieve this position:

That demonstration comes from Georges Dagher, C.S.C.S, a chiropractor and strength coach based in Toronto. He likens the deep squat to brushing your teeth. “From my perspective, the deep squat movement is a toothbrush for our joints, ensuring they are all moving without any sticky or restricted areas,” Dagher writes in the Journal of Evolution and Health.

Just as you brush your teeth every day, Dagher suggests performing at least one bodyweight squat per day, as deep as you can.

If you look at the photo above and think “no way,” don’t stress. Lots of people have strength or mobility issues that can make achieving a deep squat challenging—at least at first.

The good news? By simply working on your deep bodyweight squat form, going as deep as you can with control, and holding as long as you feel reasonably comfortable, you’ll help address and improve those issues.  

“The positions we place our bodies in will have an effect on various elements such as muscles, which can improve our comfort in the squat,” Dagher says.

You can also get more comfortable by adjusting your stance. Somerset explains that the standard squatting position— “stand with your feet shoulder-width apart…” —doesn’t apply to everyone. It’s more of a general recommendation or an average, he says, not a hard-and-fast rule.

To help his clients reach a deeper, pain-free squat, Somerset has them experiment with different stances until they find one that feels right.

“Think of it like going to the optometrist, when they put the lens in front of your eyes and ask which one is better,” Somerset says. “There’s no one standard prescription. It’s about finding the right one for you.”

Here are the two main elements Somerset asks clients to adjust when they dial in their stances for ideal squat form:

• The direction of your toes: Try them pointing straight ahead first. Let’s call that 12 o’clock. Squat as deep as you can. Now turn your feet outward slightly – think left foot pointing at 11 o’clock, right foot pointing at 1. Try the deep squat again. Now angle them even farther outward, to 10 and 2. Squat again. Notice which position feels the most natural and allows you to sink the deepest.  

• The width of your feet: Start with them set shoulder-width apart. Then, gradually try wider distances, giving each the bodyweight squat test and noticing which feels the most natural. One thing to note: The wider your stance is, the more the exercise will emphasize your glutes (the muscles in your butt), and the less work it’ll put on the quads (muscles of your upper leg around the knee).

Here’s more good news: Even if your range of motion is limited, you probably squat more throughout the day than you think. “Most of us can squat to at least a 90-degree angle,” says Dagher. “We do that every day, every time we climb into our car or get up from a chair.”

Each of those moments is an opportunity to practice lowering yourself into a 90-degree squat with control. Think of them as box squats you do throughout the day; don’t just plop onto the cushion, says Dagher. Doing this throughout the day can shore up your stability and make you a better squatter in the future.

Why You Can’t Squat Deep

Bodyweight squats are one thing, says Dagher, who says that, with the right adjustments, pretty much everyone can go into a deep squat. But, Somerset points out that weighted squats are a different story.

“For some people, their squats fall apart under a certain amount of loading,” he says.

You see, even if you’ve maxed out your mobility in your joints, when it comes to doing weighted squats, you may not be as comfortable—or as powerful—at the deeper end of the squat as you’d like, says Dagher.

Why? It comes down to simple genetics. Some people are built with better squatting hips than others.

Quick anatomy lesson: The place where the femur (the big bone in your thigh) meets your hip, called the hip socket, looks something like a spoon going into a bowl. The top of the femur (called the femoral head) neatly fits into the pelvic socket (acetabulum) and is held in place by ligaments.

Everyone’s hip sockets are different. Some of them are deeper than others. The deeper your socket, the harder it will be for you to squat, since the femur bone will hit the pelvic bone. To go back to our “spoon in bowl” analogy, the stem of the spoon (your femur) runs into the rim of the bowl (your pelvis).

People of Scottish and French heritage typically have deeper hips, according to world-renowned spine expert Stuart McGill. Meanwhile, people from the Ukraine, Poland, and Bulgaria tend to have shallower sockets that allow them to painlessly sink into the deep part of the squat.

McGill says it’s no coincidence that Eastern Europe is home to some of the best Olympic lifters in the world.

A deep hip socket has different advantages. It’s helpful for walking and standing and great at producing rotational power (the type of force you need to hit a baseball or swing a golf club). And having deeper hip sockets doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t squat deep. But, it does mean you’ll have to work harder on the move—and may feel pain when you perform it.

The Squat Form Test

There’s a simple way to gauge the depth of your hip sockets. Simply get onto your hands and knees in an all-fours position, engage your core, and slowly rock your hips back toward your heels. You can see Dr. McGill explain how to do the move at the 2:50 mark of this video (although the entire clip is worth a watch if you have the time).

While it’d be great if you too could do the move under the guidance of the world’s leading researcher on spinal health and performance, you can do this assessment on your own. Simply set up your smartphone to your side, hit record, and do the move.

As your hips lower, you may reach a point where your lower back starts to round. The technical term for that is “spinal flexion.” When it happens while you’re squatting with a barbell on your back, the position is known by the delightful name “buttwink.”

Fun as that word may be to say out loud, buttwink while squatting under load can be bad news. “That’s when your hips stop moving and your start compensating with your back instead,” says Dagher. Disc injuries or even fractures of the spine can result.

How Deep Should You Squat?

The buttwink is why you should not view the weighted deep squat as something you must perform.

As McGill says, a lot of great ATG squatters “chose their parents wisely.”

“The extreme amount that I see people deep squatting is just unprecedented,” McGill says. “The risk is greater than is justified by the reward. No one is going to give you an extra million dollars for squatting deeper. If you need to do that for competition, then that’s one thing. But if your objective is health, then it’s pretty hard to justify.”

The same isn’t true for deep bodyweight squats, however. “Buttwink here is not an issue,” Dagher says. Go ahead and wink away when you’re working the deep squat without weight with the goal of improving your mobility and comfort in the squat.

But, where your back begins to go into flexion when you’re doing the all-fours test, that’s where you’d want your descent to stop if you were performing weighted back squat. If that means you can only squat as low as a box, no problem. 

If the box isn’t high enough, you can take a cue from Jim Smith, C.P.P.S, and stack mats on top of the box until you reach the right height. As your mobility and ability to squat lower improve over time, you can pull mats off the pile. No matter what height you reach, Somerset says your main objective should be one thing: control.  

A deep range of motion isn’t meant for everyone, so don’t overthink your squat form. In fact, for many people, trying to reach more depth can be counterproductive–or even dangerous. And for no reason.

Less depth doesn’t mean less strength or muscle. But, it also doesn’t mean creating such a short range of motion (like moving 2 inches, so it looks like you’re bouncing up and down) that you’re not creating tension in the muscles, challenging your body, or doing the exercise in a controlled manner. That’s just called cheating.

“Keeping the squat controlled is more important than the depth or the amount of weight being used,” says Somerset.

Hit the height that’s right for you, with the stance that’s right for you, using a weight that you can manage. And then work the deep bodyweight squat. You’ll soon find that you’ll improve your squat form, will move better, and you will become a lot stronger, too.

READ MORE: 

Why Do Squats Hurt? (And How to Fix the Problems)

6 Exercise Upgrades for Better Results

The Tension Weightlifting Technique: How to Make Every Exercise More Effective

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post The Mystery of Squat Form: How Low Should You Go, Really?   appeared first on Born Fitness.

Before you think we’re railing against common advice for the sake of being counterintuitive, we’re not saying warmup exercises are bad. We’re just saying the way they are implemented is flawed and, in many cases, not supported by research.

In fact, all the way back in 2012 in the International Journal of Sports Physical Therapy, more than 100 studies were reviewed and the takeaway was:

Stretching has not been shown to be effective at reducing the incidence of overall injuries.⁸⁸ While there is some evidence of stretching reducing musculotendinous injuries,⁸⁸ more evidence is needed to determine if stretching programs alone can reduce muscular injuries.³

If you want the benefits of warming up without dreading the typical process, we’ve tested dozens of different protocols on thousands of online fitness coaching clients and have found that there is a better way. 

The Benefits of a Warmup

The value of preparing your muscles to move can’t be understated. Your body needs to be ready for the stress of lifting weights, running, or performing a sport. If your muscles are warm and prepared, then they can generate more force and move more weight.

More importantly, preparing a muscle to move, produce force, change direction, or push the limits just doesn’t happen on its own. When you try to force it. That’s when injuries happen. 

A cold muscle is like a cold rubber band. To understand, think about the elasticity of a rubber band. You can stretch it, and the more you pull back, the more energy you can generate.

Now, imagine freezing the rubber band overnight. It changes everything. What was once easy-to-move is now stiff; what once took an incredible amount of force to break can now easily snap.

So, warming up your muscles is a good idea. But, how you do it doesn’t need to follow the usual routine.

How To Design A Better Workout Warmup

Most warmup routines are long and onerous (not to mention uncomfortable), which makes it something you dread. And because it’s right there at the beginning of your workout, it can feel like a reason to not show up at all, or you skip the warmup…and find yourself injured. We’ve all been there.

So, what if you changed everything about your warmup routine.

Yeah, you heard us right. We’re not saying you have to stop warming up. As we’ve pointed out, warm-ups are great. But, they aren’t so helpful if they sabotage your workout motivation.

So, we recommend a different option. Instead of a long warmup, we focus on just 1-2 exercises to get started. Here is our favorite 1-exercise warm-up.

And then, thanks to the advice of our longtime friend and contributing fitness expert Tony Gentilcore, we add workout fillers.

Fillers are a way to address trouble spots and tight areas during your workout, simply by doing them between sets. So, instead of worrying about all of the exercises you need to do before starting your workout, you implement strategic exercises into your workout to help you move better, prevent injury, and train harder.

Basically, you make use of your one- to three-minute-long rest periods by doing some easy muscle activation drills or mobility work. (Note the word “easy.” These are not meant to be supersets.)

“We always provide warm-ups for clients, but we also know not everybody does them,” says Born Fitness Head Coach B.J. Ward.

“That’s where fillers come in. We can plug in some movements that are going to help them move better and get stronger pain-free while they rest between sets. It doesn’t “feel” like you’re doing much but we end up sneaking in a lot of extra work in.”

If you’re new to workout fillers, Gentilcore goes a little deeper into the basics in this post, which also covers fillers for deadlifting. In a second post, he explains other techniques to help you squat better.

If you’re already familiar with fillers, then you’ll still want to tune in. Why? Because his deadlift tips are on-point. If you’ve struggled with squats or deadlifts, or just felt “off” whenever you’ve tried them, the mobility drills he shows could help you get moving and grooving better. (And if there’s one thing to know about our man Tony, it’s that the dude can deadlift like a boss.)

The Best Warmup Exercises

If you’re already sold on fillers or just want a great movement to prepare you for your favorite (or hardest) exercises, Coach Ward has your back. Here are some additional moves he recommends as fillers within workouts, or as a primary warmup movement before your workout. (Click a move to see a video demonstration.)

Warmup Exercises For Squats 

1. 90/90 Hip Switch
2. Combat Stretch Ankle Mobility

Warmup Exerciser for Deadlifts:

1. Dead Bug Breathing

Warmup Exercise for Bench Press:

1. Adductor Quadruped Rockback

Surprised? Here’s Ward on why a lower body mobility move can help you when you bench: “Most of us sit all day. The more mobility work we can throw in to unglue our hips, the better. And secondly, opening up the front of your hips can help you get into a better position on the bench press. We ask lifters to get their feet under their knees and squeeze the glutes during the bench press setup. If you’ve opened up the front of your hips it’s easier to lock into this position.

How to Perform Warmup Movements

For each warmup movement, perform 3-5 reps per side. Do only as many sets as necessary so that you feel a little more fluid, your muscles feel warm, and your range of motion has improved. In many cases, just 1-2 sets will suffice.

While we have these fillers paired with the “big 3 lifts,” you don’t have to bench, squat, or deadlift in order to use them. Try them between sets of any similar upper or lower body exercise.

And remember, for a super-efficient warm-up, here’s our favorite movement that will get your body prepared in less than 5 minutes.

Interested In A Custom Coaching Plan?

At Born Fitness, we know every individual is unique. There’s no one-size-fits-all plan. Our team can develop a plan around your lifestyle to help you reach your goals.

If you like the idea of fillers that we talked about above but aren’t sure where to start, more personalization and hands-on support through our online coaching program may be right for you. Every client is assigned two coaches — one for nutrition and one for fitness. Find out more here. 

READ MORE: 

The Surprising Science Benefits of The 5-Minute Walk

The Art Of The Deload

The Best Stretch For Your Body (In Less Than 5 Minutes)

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post Quick Warm-Up Routines That Will Change How You Exercise appeared first on Born Fitness.

Many exercise programs place you — and your body — in positions that leave you vulnerable.

That’s not to say you should never squat with a barbell on your back, perform deadlifts, or do a variety of other exercises.

But, it does mean that recognizing when you are at risk — and how to avoid putting yourself in a position to get hurt — are the first steps of assessing whether a program is right for you. After all, if you can stay healthy and exercise consistently, you will see results.

Before you start another workout, let these tips be your guide to staying healthy, picking the right moves for you, and progressing to the more intimidating when they no longer feel like a challenge.

The Revolving Door of Pain

There are really only two ways you could hurt yourself in the gym. Call them “Whoops!” and “Wearing Down.”

“Whoops!” refers to times when you do something like drop a dumbbell on your foot and break your toes (not that it would ever happen to you). If you dive into the data, you’ll see these events are breathtakingly rare.

Research published in The American Journal of Sports Medicine found that just of 0.2 percent of lifters were admitted to emergency departments—over the span of 18 years. Four times more people wind up in emergency rooms due to bathroom-related injuries every year. Seriously.

You’re far more likely to wind up in AN EMERGENCY ROOM due to a “bathroom-related injury” than you are from lifting. Weightlifting is a tremendously safe activity.

Bottom line: Weightlifting is surprisingly safe, so you don’t need to spend much time worrying about “whoops!” events.

The real danger — the revolving door of injury — is by “wearing down” — and it can oftentimes be prevented.

Wearing Down refers to those times when a move just feels…not quite right. Like when you perform an overhead press and your shoulder says, “stop!” Or when your elbows hurt when you bench. Or when you finish a set of squats or deadlifts and it feels like your lower back got more of a workout than your legs.

These pains can start out subtle and may seem like no big deal, but they can grow into something serious (think: strains, sprains or tendinitis) over time. So it’s important to tune in to these cues. Then you can address them before they become full-blown issues.

“The vast majority of strength-training related injuries are due to overuse or poor technique, and can build up over time into more serious problems,” explains California-based exercise physiologist Pete McCall, M.S., C.S.C.S., C.P.T.

The good news? “Wearing Down” injuries are entirely preventable. Rather than muscling through those times when your body sends you a warning shot, you can identify what they are trying to tell you. Then you can correct the problem.

Or, in some cases, knowing that there are different variations of an exercise can help you avoid pain in the first place. You wouldn’t do algebra before you could add, so why are you doing complex lifts before you master the basics?

Here, McCall and other top strength coaches share the most common causes of weight-room pain for each of the four major movement patterns—squats (or “knee-dominant” moves), hinges (“hip dominant” moves like deadlifts), push exercises, and pull exercises—and explain what’s happening. Follow their advice and you’ll ensure that the lifts you perform do what they’re meant to do: Build you up and make you stronger.

Knee-Dominant Exercises: Squats, Step-ups and Lunges

What you feel: Knee pain (especially around the kneecap), low back pain

What’s causing the problem: “Most knee injuries for knee-dominant moves stem from improper tracking of the knee joint,” explains Mathew Kite, C.S.C.S., an exercise scientist and general manager of D1 Sports Training in Dallas, Texas. Basically, your knee should go in one direction, but winds up going in another instead.

In the case of the squat, your knees collapse inward, a position called valgus. Valgus knees place damaging side-to-side stress on your joint, particularly on your patellar tendon.

Worst of all? “Going valgus” isn’t your knees’ fault. The real culprit is a set of weak glutes.

When your glutes aren’t as strong as they need to be to handle the load on your back, your knees automatically fall inward in order to help you lift the weight. This is okay if it were to happen only occasionally, like on the last rep of your last set while setting a new max. (You’ll see some powerlifters’ knees go inward onsets when they’re really going for broke.) But other than that, you don’t want this to happen.

Making matters worse, having weak glutes can cause you to lean too far forward when you squat. While a little bit of a forward lean is OK, having too much of one can put excess pressure on your lower back.

There’s one more thing that can cause you to lean forward excessively when you squat: poor ankle mobility. You’ll know this is your problem if you feel that it’s difficult to keep your heels on the floor as you lower your butt to the floor, McCall says.

WANT TO AVOID KNEE PAIN? DEVELOP A STRONGER BUTT.

What you can do: Your first goal is simple: “Develop a stronger butt to save your knees,” says Kite. Building up your glutes will help your knees track correctly (think of them angling toward the pinky toes when you squat or lunge). To strengthen them, try adding frog pumps, glute bridges and hip thrusts to your workouts.

If you have a bar on your back, focus on pulling it down into your traps. That will help stabilize the upper part of your torso and prevent it from tipping forward, Callaway says.

If you’re having a hard time keeping your heels on the floor, McCall recommends foam rolling, stretching, and doing mobility drills for your calves prior to squats. Try taking them through their full range of motion with toes-elevated bodyweight calf raises.

Lastly, you don’t need to squat with a barbell on your back. Goblet squats — which are typically done with a dumbbell or kettlebell — are variation that is knee and back friendly, and it makes it easier to squat without your knees collapsing or body leaning forward.

Hip-Dominant Exercises: Deadlifts, Hip Thrusts, and Glute Bridges

What you feel: Pain in your lower back (a.k.a. the lumbar spine) or neck (cervical spine).

What’s causing the problem: “An incorrect set-up,” says Meghan Callaway, CPT. “Many deadlifters set their hips too low and end up ‘squatting the deadlift’—or they set their hips too high [and wind up rounding their back in order to reach the bar]. Both can place the body at a greater risk of injury.” Having a rounded back or overly arched back stresses your spine in its weakest positions.

What you can do about it: Your goal here is to maintain what’s called a neutral spine, which has a natural (but not excessive) curve inward at the lower back, then slightly outward at the shoulder blades, and back inward at the neck.

“Maintaining a neutral spine is what’s going to keep that back healthy and ready for the next workout,” Kite says.

To achieve this when you perform a hinge-style movement like the deadlift, you want to think about getting as much movement as possible from your hips with as little movement as possible from your knees. Drive each rep with your hips, pushing your butt as far backwards as you can.

A good way to learn this pattern is to set a foam roller (or anything that’s straight, like a PVC pipe) against your back so that it has three points of contact with you, touching the back of your head, your shoulders, and your tailbone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TfzOviOVes

Another way to make sure that you are running the show with your hips rather than lower back is to make sure the weight remains as close to your body as possible during deadlifts, Callaway says. When you lower the weight, image the bar almost scratching against your shins, which will help keep the bar closer to your body throughout the movement.

If deadlifts are difficult, there’s no need to pull the weight from the floor. You can place a barbell or dumbbell on boxes or platforms. What this does is limit the range of motion to help you be in a position of power.

That way, you can perfect the movement without getting into a position where you are overly rounded. As you can stronger and better, you can lower the boxes — or, you might find that you never need to pull the weight from the floor. Unless you’re an Olympic lifter, there’s no reason to hold to this belief unnecessarily.

Or, you can do a staggered stance deadlift. The joy of this variation is that it provides the benefits of a single-leg deadlift (where less weight is needed), without the advanced difficulty of balance. The back leg works like a kickstand to make it easier to move in a way that doesn’t make your body vulnerable to injury.

“Push” Exercises: Bench Press Variations, Push-ups, Shoulder Presses, Triceps Extensions

What you feel: Shoulder pain, elbow strain, wrist discomfort.

What’s causing the problem: Not keeping the wrist, elbow, and shoulder stacked during bench and shoulder presses can also introduce instability in the shoulder joint, Kite says. Bending your wrists can also introduce pain.

What you can do about it:  Think tight, tight, tight—all of the way from your wrists to your core.

To get your wrists in order, you need to start by gripping the bar correctly. Here’s an instance where what “feels” natural—and what most people do—is actually wrong.

Watch Starting Strength author Mark Rippetoe explain how to properly grip the bar for a press starting at 1:57 in this video. Note that the process depends you placing your palms on the bar first, rather than wrapping with your knuckles first. Properly placing the bar across your palms will stack the weight on the bones of your forearm, making for a more powerful (and far less injury-prone) press.

From there, you’ll want to keep your core muscles engaged, obliques braced, and rib cage down (no flaring!). “This will help prevent the spine from hyperextending,” says Callaway. She adds that if you can’t press a weight while keeping a natural curve in your spine, you need to decrease weight. It also wouldn’t hurt to build your core strength with the help of exercises like the dead bug and Pallof press.

Still concerned about pressing? For one, barbells are not necessary. You can challenge your muscle just fine with dumbbell variations or even bands or cables. If your shoulders are vulnerable with the bench press, try a floor press, instead, which will limit the range of motion. Worried about overhead pressing? If you have a landmine (or you can just place a barbell in the corner of a room), try this press variation, which is easier on your shoulders and elbows.

“Pull” Exercises: Rows, Pull-ups, Face-pulls, Biceps curls

What you feel: Shoulder pain, wrist discomfort, tennis elbow

What’s causing the problem: “Not controlling the lowering (eccentric) part of the lift,” Callaway says.

Many people put their body at risk by not controlling the lowering phase of the pull-up. If you are allowing your body to free-fall from the top position, that could be part of your problem. Doing so exerts additional force on the joints from your shoulder blades, shoulder, elbows, and wrists. The effect can hold true when you’re doing biceps curls, rows, and any other “pulling” exercise.

What you can do about it: Start by using lighter weights. If you can’t control a weight both up and down, you’re just asking for injury. In general, if you can’t control the weight for 2-3 seconds on the descent, the weight is probably too heavy.

Next, if you know that lowering the weight can lead to injury, it only makes sense to emphasize that type of training. Turn a weakness into a strength and you won’t get hurt. Here’s how it works: “Take three to five seconds to lower your body [from the pull-up bar] or the weight,” Callaway says. You can do this with almost any exercise. And the benefit isn’t just injury prevent; research shows that focusing on the eccentric can cause more of the good “microtears” that helps your muscles become bigger.

With each rep, pretend that you are pinching and slowly releasing an orange from between your shoulder blades. Then, keep your entire body tight and braced to keep your body in a more stable position and prevent swinging (ak.ka. don’t kip). Engaging your core properly will be especially helpful on “hanging” moves like pull-ups. Tony Gentilcore, C.S.C.S., explains the proper way to set up for these moves in this short video:

While pullups are an effective exercise, they’re not necessary. For bodyweight pulling, you can do inverted or bodyweight rows. The closer your body is to parallel to the floor, the harder the movement becomes.

Also, if you’ve experienced elbow pain (or something like tennis elbow) in the past, McCall recommends try performing some or all of your pulling exercises with a palms-up (supinated) grip or with your palms facing each other (neutral grip). The rotation of your palm changes the stress you put on your shoulders, and, therefore, makes the movement more kind to your elbows.

READ MORE:

The End of Shoulder Pain

Why Do Squats Hurt? (And How to Fix the Problems)

The Complete Deadlift Guide

K. Aleisha Fetters, M.S., C.S.C.S., is a Chicago-based personal and online trainer. She has a graduate degree in health and science reporting from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University and regularly contributes to Men’s Health, Women’s Health, SELF, U.S. News & World Report, TIME, and SHAPE. When she’s not lifting something heavy, she’s usually guzzling coffee and writing about the health benefits of doing so.

The post How to Prevent Knee, Back, and Shoulder Injuries appeared first on Born Fitness.

If you’ve ever thought about adding resistance band exercises to your routine — or are limited to working out at home and don’t have much equipment — you might be surprised by how much you can accomplish without any iron.

How Can You Use Resistance Bands in Your Workout?

Resistance bands can be used for at least four different types of exercises:

• Stretching and mobility
• Warm ups and muscle activation
• Resistance training and “getting a pump”
• Developing the “mind-muscle” connection (learning to better “feel” your muscles working)

Each of these goals require you to use the bands slightly differently, but with each example, you can accomplish quite a bit with just a few bands.

Resistance Band Stretches and Mobility Work

Resistance band stretches can help you overcome the hardest part of stretching — feeling like you are limited by the range of motion in your muscles. You know this as “feeling tight.” (A.K.A. “I’m not flexible!”). Funny as it might sound, the limitation might really be in your head, or in another part of your body.

Think about a simple hamstring stretch, where you lie on your back with one leg on the floor and raise the other leg to the sky. Most of the time you use your hands to provide resistance. Simply looping a resistance band around your ankle can create a different movement pattern (because the pressure of pulling comes at a different angle — from your ankle instead of behind your knee), which might allow you to generate more range of motion.

It’s not magic, but most people will find they can get a better stretch with the resistance band variation. That’s because a resistance band can help you go deeper into a stretch, provide support, or help reduce the load of your bodyweight when you perform a move. That’s why many trainers consider bands to be a “must” for maximizing your mobility.

There are limitless ways you can use resistance bands to assist you when you stretch. Here are two examples—one for your upper body, one for your lower body.

Banded Lat Stretch

https://youtu.be/gjRMe2Bcbu4

Loop a band around something at least 6 inches over your head, such as a pull up bar. Grab the band with one arm and step back, so that you band forms a 45- to -60 degree angle to the floor. Get into a staggered stance and put one knee on the floor. Your arm should be in a straight line and aligned with the band.

Lean forward slightly so that your torso is perfectly aligned with your arm. (It will look like the band is an extension of your arm. You could draw a straight line from your hips all the way up to the top of the band where it’s attached to the pull up bar). Hold this position so you feel a stretch in your back.

Do 5 deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, and then switch sides.

Band Supported Leg Lowering 

https://youtu.be/TY6RmPbKqe0

Lie flat on your back and then bring both of your legs up towards the ceiling. Your legs and body should form the shape of a “L.”

Wrap a band around the arch of one of your feet and hold it stable. Keep both of your knees locked out by squeezing your quadriceps muscles and pointing your toes towards your shins.

Lower your leg that does not have the band around it until either A) you feel tightness in your hamstring, or B) you feel pain in your back (this is bad) or don’t feel stable in your core. When either of those things happen, stop, then reverse the movement and lift the leg back up.

Ideally, you’ll take 2 seconds to lower your leg, then take 2 seconds to lift your leg back up using your core muscles. Perform 1-2 sets of 5 repetitions per leg as a part of your warmup, or pair with a lower body movement such as stiff-legged deadlifts.

Resistance Band Exercises for Muscle Activation

Resistance band exercises can be used to strengthen or activate hard-to-hit muscles. For example, your shoulders are two areas that most people have troubling “feeling.” Because of continuous tension, bands are an effective way to help activation and work those muscles without supporting muscles taking over.

Band pull-aparts are a fantastic way to warm up your shoulders. Remember how bands help create more tension throughout the movement? Tension means more blood flow. More blood flow means you’re muscles will feel warm. It’s like adding oil to a squeaky break.

When performing the movement, make sure you don’t have too much slack in the band, because if you do that takes the tension off of your shoulders. The band pull-apart is also effective because it works your shoulders in a pattern that is often overlooked.

Think about how much time you spend at your desk with your shoulders slouched. The band pull-apart works the opposite range of motion, meaning it helps pull your shoulders back into their correct alignment, improving your posture.

Better posture means less pain. And because you’re pulling the band apart, that means you have maximum tension with minimum weight. This is something that isn’t always easy with weights like dumbbells.

Band Pull-aparts 

https://youtu.be/vBhetF3Cyew

Here’s how to do it: Grip the opposite ends of a long (about 40 inches is typical) resistance band. You can mix up your hand position, from prone (thumbs facing one another) to neutral (thumbs facing the ceiling) to supinated (thumbs pointed away from one another).

Position your hands about shoulder width apart, or at a distance where you feel a little tension in the band. From there, pull your hands outward as wide as you can.

Pause and squeeze the muscles in your upper back and shoulders, then reverse directions and bring your hands back toward one another (back to the starting position), and repeat. Focus on keeping your shoulders down and back throughout the entire movement.

Perform 3 sets of 15-30 repetitions.

Mini-Band Lateral Walks

Remember how pull aparts were great for your shoulders? These lateral band walks can do the same for your glutes and help them wake up.

Place the band above your knees. Spread your legs wide enough that you feel tension across the band. (Consider this an athletic position, like a baseball player about to field a ground ball.) Take one leg and step out to the side. Then, follow with your other leg, making sure you maintain tension on the band throughout the movement.

Walk for 10-15 steps in one direction (i.e. from left to right) then switch and go for the same distance in the opposite direction (from right to left).

Goblet Squats

Place the mini-band around your legs just above the knees. Hold a dumbbell vertically against your chest with both of your hands supporting the weight underneath. Press your elbows inward against your rib cage, which activates the muscles in your upper back.

Squat down by pushing your hips back and pressing your knees outward against the mini-band. Doing so activates your glutes and helps you steer clear of knee pain. Lower yourself down until your elbows touch the insides of your knees, then press through your feet to stand back up.

Resistance Band Exercises for Building Muscle

No matter what some people might insist, weights are not the only way to build muscle. Weights are effective because they add resistance. Bands also provide resistance, meaning they also can help you build muscle.

In particular, bands might be most effective when doing higher rep training, such as performing 20 to 30 reps (or more) per set (this is known as “metabolite training”).

Research has repeatedly shown that building muscle is somewhat dependent on volume — or the number of reps x sets x weight. Because you have 3 variables you can manipulate, bands provide a way to increase volume (through more reps) without needing more weight.

This approach works for any muscle in your body — from arms and shoulders, to your chest, back and even your butt. Just ask anyone who’s ever tried Bret Contreras’s glute burnout. Here is another example of how you can use bands to achieve some metabolic glute work:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BYPHRU-B8w3/?taken-by=l2fitnessyeg

Resistance Band Exercises and the Mind-Muscle Connection

The mind-muscle connection is something that not everyone is familiar with but it can make a huge difference in your training. Basically, it’s about using your brain to drive more effort from your muscles. If that sounds a little crazy, rest assured it’s a real thing. (Here’s proof.) And with the help of resistance bands, you can develop it.

Resistance bands are useful way to build that connection because the farther you pull the band and the more it lengthens, the harder your muscles have to work.

The increased tension provides a strong peak contraction at the top of every rep. You’ll really feel those muscles working. Want to take it up another notch? Add in a pause at the top. (Ooh, it burns!)

What are the Limits of Resistance Bands?

Like anything, there are always some limitations. For instance, resistance bands don’t necessarily challenge your muscles through a full range of motion.

Lifting weights consists of a raising portion (the concentric) and a lowering portion (the eccentric). The eccentric phase of a lift is the part where you are lowering the weight back down, and it’s beneficial for both muscle growth and improving muscle control.

They feel lighter on your muscles as the bands themselves get shorter. As we discussed above, that may be great from an injury prevention standpoint. But since eccentric muscle actions are where we elicit the most muscle damage in training, using bands alone might limit the amount muscle you can build.

Bands can also make measuring your resistance a little tricky. Part of adding muscle is creating a challenge for your muscles. That’s why bands work — they add resistance. At some point, however, your body will adapt to resistance. This is why you might stop seeing results. Your body adapts, and you need to keep creating a new challenge in order to fight off plateau.

There are many ways to do steer clear of plateaus, however. You can make an exercise more challenging (if you are doing band rows with both arms, you can switch to a 1-arm version with the same band, which will make it more difficult), or you can add weight. This is where dumbbells and barbells have an obvious advantage, as you can just use bigger weights.

But don’t stress too much. Your hand placement, the distance between you and where the band is anchored, and how far the band is stretched can all be used to increase or decrease the resistance. You can also user thicker bands (which has more resistance) or even add multiple bands.

At some point — yes — you might need to add more weight to create a bigger challenge. But as long as you continue to find ways to challenge your muscles (which can also occur by doing more reps and/or sets of an exercise), your resistance band workout will keep delivering results.

The Resistance Band Workout for Building Muscle

Want to give resistance band exercises a try? Here’s a sample upper and lower body workout designed for building muscle.

Upper Body Resistance Band Workout
1) Band pull-aparts: 4 x 15-20 reps x 60s rest
2A) Band pushups: 3 x 10-20 x 45s
2B) Band 2-arm rows: 3 x 15-20 x 45s
3A) 1-arm band row: 3 x 8-15/arm x 45s
3B) 1-arm band chest press: 3 x 8-12/arm x 45s
4A) Band overhead triceps extension – 3 x 12-20 x 45s
4B) Band biceps curls – 3 x 12-15 x 45s

Lower body Resistance Band Workout
1) Mini-band lateral walks: 4 x 15-20/side x 60 seconds
2) Band leg curl: 3 x 15-20 x 60s
3) Rear foot elevated split squat (can add band for resistance): 4 x 12-15 x 60s
4A) Band good morning: 3 x 20-25 x 60s
4B) Walking lunges: 3 x 10-15/leg x 60s
5) Band iso hold Pallof press: 4 x 30s/side x 60s

READ MORE: 

How to Build the Perfect Bodyweight Workout

How to Master the Art of Old School Muscle Building

The Tension Weightlifting Technique: How to Make Every Exercise More Effective

References

1. Pull, Ranson (2007) Eccentric muscle actions: Implications for injury prevention and rehabilitation.


2. Schoenfeld BJ (2010) The mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training.


3. Schoenfeld BJ, Grgic J, Ogborn D, Krieger JW (2017) Strength and Hypertrophy Adaptations Between Low- vs. High-Load Resistance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.


Landon Poburan is the owner of L2 Fitness in Edmonton, Canada. The L2 Fitness Summit is a video series that includes 11+ hours of muscle building ideas from our friends Dr. Mike Israetel and Dean Somerset. If you’re a coach, or just super into getting swole (Israetel) while staying awesomely mobile and balanced (Somerset), then you may seriously enjoy this product, which is on sale for $50 off through December 10th at midnight. And coaches: You get CEUs! Full disclosure: We here at Born Fitness get absolutely nothing for telling you about this product — we are not affiliates and have no financial stake involved. 

Landon Poburan

Personal trainer, nutrition coach and owner of L2 Fitness located in Edmonton, AB Canada.

l2fitness.com/

The post How to Use Resistance Band Exercises in Your Workouts appeared first on Born Fitness.

And if you already perform and love the deadlift, you can spend the same 3 minutes reading and learning why the exercise is even better than you thought. Or you can skip on ahead to the deadlift form guide. Your call.

Ready? Let’s set a timer for 3 minutes…

Reason to Deadlift #1: You’re going to get way stronger—and therefore live longer.

The deadlift is a true total body exercise that builds full body strength (both your lower and upper body will benefit). And getting stronger is NEVER a bad thing.

In fact, getting stronger is far better for you than you may think. Researchers have found a correlation between grip strength and mortality, as in those with stronger grips tend to live longer. And one thing you will definitely get from deadlifting is a strong grip.

(Not to mention stronger quadriceps, hamstrings, forearms, traps, and glutes, just to name a few.)

Reason to Deadlift  #2: That strength will come in handy throughout your (now longer) life.

There are two types of people in the world: Those who struggle to move a couch, and those who deadlift.

But let’s say you never move couches. At some point or another, you’re going to need to pick something up off of the ground. When you do, you’ll be far better suited to do so because you deadlift.

The deadlift takes a basic human movement (picking something up) and makes you far more capable at it. That means you’ll be far less likely to get hurt.

In fact….

Reason to Deadlift #3: Deadlifts actually protect you from lower back pain.

How many people do you know who complain about back pain?

That’s right, seemingly everybody.

A review of 28 studies found that, from age 30 onward, the percentage of people within an age group who are dealing with chronic low back pain increases with each passing year.

So here you are, avoiding deadlifts to save your back, but yet you still have lower back pain.

Why? Probably because you’ve been avoiding deadlifts in the first place.

Don’t believe us? Consider that studies indicate that properly training the deadlift can outright fix low back pain.

How? By strengthening the spinal erectors, or the muscles that maintain the integrity of the spine. They travel the entire length of your spine, tucking under the lats and traps, and running all the way down to your lower back.

According to research, the deadlift trains this musculature better than anything. Two studies looked at spinal erector activation during the deadlift, and found that the exercise induced high amounts of upper spinal erector activity in a way not seen with other exercises.

The studies also showed strengthening in the lower back.

“But wait,” you say. “I’m not really ‘into’ weight training.”

That’s cool. And completely understandable. But before you say that weights aren’t for you, let’s just make sure you understand a few other things here…

Reason to Deadlift #4: Weight training helps you lose—and keep off—fat.

The stronger you are, the more lean body mass you carry.

The more lean body mass you carry, the higher your basal metabolic rate. That’s the number of calories your body burns on it’s own just to keep you alive—before factoring in things exercise and NEAT.

One study found that men who weight trained burned 350 more calories on average while just sitting around and watching television.

Some claim that it takes years of lifting weights to achieve this effect, but research shows otherwise. One study found that just 16 weeks of strength training produced a noticeable lift in the resting metabolic rate of a group of men aged 50-65.

And while people often think that cardio is king for keeping fat off (total myth, BTW), researchers who ran a cohort that encompassed more than 10,500 men across 12 years found that those who lifted weight gained less fat over the long haul.

Reason to Deadlift #5: Weight training improves other aspects of your health, too.

For example, one study found that muscle mass was inherently protective against diabetes.

Muscle also plays a crucial role if you ever have to recover from surgery or serious illness.

We could go on, but you get the point: Being strong is good. Having muscle is good. And deadlifts will help you build plenty of it.

That was a fun 3 minutes, right? We thought so too. Well, now that you know the value of deadlifts, let’s show you how to do them properly so you never fear them again…

Proper Deadlift Form: How to Fit the Move to Your Body Type

Maybe you’ve tried deadlifting in the past and thought the exercise just didn’t feel right. If so, you’re not alone.

The deadlift involves many muscles, all of your limbs, and every load-bearing joint (ankles, knees, hips and shoulders) in your body. There are a lot of variables at play. So having hard-and-fast rules about deadlift form is nearly impossible.

Your body is your body. That seems like an obvious fact, yet it’s one that’s often overlooked when it comes to form.

For example, two people who are the same height may have totally different torso and femur lengths.

Strength coach Bret Contreras does an excellent job of explaining that these different bone structures will result in totally different squat forms. The same is true for the deadlift.

A person who has a short torso and long femurs will have a more hip-dominant pull, meaning that their butt will be higher in the air and most of the force will come from their glutes and hamstrings.

Meanwhile, a person who has a long torso and short femurs would be able to get lower and involve their quads a bit more.

Reading this right now, you’re probably thinking, “How do I know whether I have a short or long torso?”

Glad you asked. There’s actually a relatively simple way to tell.

The technique can also tell you whether you’re better off using a sumo deadlift (very wide stance) rather than a traditional deadlift (where your feet are roughly hip-width apart) stance. (For more discussion about the pros and cons of each, see the section on “Stance” below.)

You’re going to need a measuring tape. Any standard one will do.

Measure the distance from the bony part of your hip to the floor. That’s your leg length.

Then measure from the same point on your hip to the top of your head. That’s your torso length.

Lastly, measure from the top of your shoulder to the tip of your middle finger. That’s your arm length.

Divide each of those numbers by your total height in inches. Then check the numbers against this table:

Your percentages will tell you whether you have a short, long or average-length torso. Same for your arms. (We can disregard your legs, since they are essentially the opposite of your torso — i.e. if the torso is long, your legs will be short.).

Those two pieces of information can tell you whether a conventional deadlift or sumo deadlift will likely feel better for you (note: no matter what the chart says, you can always go by “feel”):

Both of those tables are from Professor Michael Hales’ excellent paper “Improving The Deadlift: Understanding Constraints and Physiological Adaptations to Resistance Exercise.” And he’s the first to state that they are not the be-all, end-all. They are merely lifting recommendations based on your body’s structure.

Other factors like strength and flexibility will also come into play. But this should help you see which approach should feel better based on what your momma gave you.

Keep in mind, this does not mean you have to “only” do conventional-style or sumo-style deadlifts forever. In fact, Hales and nearly everyone else worth their salt will recommend that you switch between the two styles occasionally.

Conventional and sumo work your muscles slightly differently (conventional requires more hip drive, while sumo involves the upper legs a little more), so using both can develop a more well-rounded base of strength.

Deadlift Form: Follow these guidelines before you pull

#1. Your stance

Conventional Deadlift Foot Placement: You can start with your feet shoulder-width apart. If you’re not sure where this is, try this: Jump in the air 2-3 times. Where your feet land naturally is the proper stance for the conventional deadlift. Your toes should point forward or outward slightly.

Sumo Deadlift Foot Placement: You can try out two different starting positions.

• Option #1: Place your feet as wide as possible, meaning your toes are nearly flush against the weight plates. Many successful sumo deadlifters pull from this position. But one obvious drawback here is the risk of dropping the weight onto your toes. So be careful.
• Option #2: Widen your feet as far as you can while still being able to keep your shins vertical when you lower yourself to grip the bar. The wider your stance is, the more your feet should point outward

One last note about where to stand. Set up so that the bar is about an inch to an inch-and-a-half from your shins. When you look down at the bar, it should be positioned right about the middle of your foot, blocking the laces of your shoes from view.

#2. Your grip

Figuring out where to place your hands is quite simple. Just take a shoulder-width grip.

Choosing how to grip the bar is a little more complicated, and may change throughout your workout. There are three main options:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWeS2EhF-_y/?taken-by=wilfredofitness

• Option #1: The double-overhand grip. This is the “best” grip most of the time. As you increase the amount of weight you can deadlift, you’ll eventually reach a weight where your grip strength becomes an issue. That’s when mixed grip comes in…
• Option #2: The mixed grip. Also known as “one overhand, one underhand” grip, this style allows you to pull heavier weights more easily. “Anybody who has trained the deadlift for a few months has had the experience of pulling on a weight that seemed too heavy even to break off the ground when tried with a double-overhand grip, only to find that it goes up surprisingly easy when the grip is alternated,” writes Mark Rippetoe in Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training.There are some drawbacks to the mixed grip, however. Research shows that the bicep activity in the supinated (underhand grip) arm is much higher during this lift. Over time, that could create muscle imbalances, so it’s a good idea to switch which arm is overhand from set-to-set or workout-to-workout.
• Option #3: The hook grip. This grip is not very popular and for good reason—it hurts, but it’s not without benefits. The idea behind the hook grip is that you can use more weight than a double-overhand grip, since your thumbs act as hooks for the bar. But here’s the thing: Much of the weight ends up pulling on your thumbs. The stress this places on the tissue, bones, and joints of your thumbs does not feel good. One way people attempt to eliminate the grip problem altogether is to use straps.

Our suggestion would be to train without straps, with a double-overhand grip, for as many sets as possible. When you get heavy, use a mixed grip and vary which hand is over. If, after switching to a mixed grip, you still can’t hold the weight, then use straps to continue deadlifting heavy and train your grip with other exercises (farmer’s carries and suitcase deadlifts are two good options).

What to Do When You’re Ready to Lift the Weight

Ok, you’ve placed your feet and gripped the bar. It’s almost go time. Here are five things to check before you rip that sucker off the floor.

#1: Your Head

Where it goes wrong: You know that whole “look to the sky” cue? Don’t do that. Looking upward extends your neck, which is a great way to give yourself a neck strain.

How to get it right: Keep a level head position and a neutral gaze. Your chin should stay tucked. Think “tall through the back of your head.” Or, just think about creating a “double chin.” Maintain that position by looking straight ahead, rather than up, through the entire lift.

#2: Your Shoulders

Where it goes wrong: There are two potential problems here. First is the “Whoops, I rolled my shoulders forward in order to grab the bar” issue. This sets you up to pull like Quasimodo—and you don’t want to do anything in the gym looking like a hunchback. The other is the “I just wasn’t paying attention to my shoulders at all” issue. This one often winds up going Quasimodo-like as well, especially if you’re using heavy weight.

How to get it right: Pull your shoulders in and hold them tight to your sides. “Squeeze your armpits as if you had oranges in them and were trying to make juice,” is a cue we love from the always-clever Tony Gentilcore that achieves this. By pulling your shoulder blades down and in (think squeezing a pencil between your shoulder blades), you decrease the distance between your shoulders and hips, which will help you move more weight more efficiently. Plus, you’re getting your lats more involved, which will help prevent rounding.

#3: Your Legs

Where it goes wrong: Some people just bend over and grab the bar without putting any tension on the muscles they’re trying to work. While you can get away with this, it won’t put you in a position to pull the most weight, or pull it effectively. There is a better way.

How to get it right: Standing at the bar, hinge at the hips by pushing them backwards (imagine you have to open a door with your butt and you can’t use your hands). You should quickly feel tension running up the back of your legs and into your glutes. That’s a good thing. Once you feel that tension, maintain it while bending the knees just enough so that your hands can reach the bar.

#4: Your Core

Where it goes wrong: Pulling without breathing in first. What’s wrong with that?

Think of a soda can. When it’s full and sealed, it can support a ton of weight no problem. But once it’s opened and all of that pressure is released, the same weight will crumple it with ease.

A big breath in creates intra-abdominal pressure. That pressure will make you more stable, protect your spine, and help you lift far more weight.

How to get it right: Step up to the bar and get into position. Take a big breath in. As you inhale, push the air down and out to fill your abdomen. This is important: you’re not filling your chest with air (think about how you react when you’re out of breath); instead, you want to fill your belly.

Engage your core to hold your breath in that position, then lift. Keep that breath held throughout the rep, from the floor, up to lockout, and back down to the floor. Take a new breath in before every rep.

#5: Your Hands and Arms

Where it goes wrong: Gripping the bar loosely, or just pulling the bar without taking the slack out first.

How to get it right: First, when it comes to grip, grab ahold of that bar like you mean it. Regardless of which type of grip you chose, you should be gripping the bar as hard as you can.

Next, pull the slack out of the bar. What does that mean? When you grip, don’t just try to crush the bar into dust, also pull it apart.

Now, it’s go time.

Executing the Deadlift

You really only need to think about two things when you pull the bar:

1. Push off the floor
2. Keep everything tight (especially your core and lats)

During a conventional deadlift, if you are thinking about “pushing the floor away,” it will help you generate tension throughout your hips and knees.

If you’re doing a sumo deadlift, it may be helpful to think of this as “spreading the floor,” since that means pushing outwards on the sides of your feet.

In either case, the goal is the same: to generate tension through your knees and hips.

Keeping your core, arms, and lats engaged will help you avoid what you might call the Angry Cat Deadlift.

In an Angry Cat Deadlift, the lats aren’t activated enough, or the person’s core isn’t sufficiently braced, and the first thing that comes up is their lumbar spine.

If your lats are engaged and your core is firmly braced, then you probably won’t run into this problem. However, if you do feel your lower back rounding, it’s a sign that you’re using too much weight. Lower the load, work at a resistance that doesn’t cause you to go cat-like, and build up over time.

When you reach the top of the rep, known as lockout, pay attention.

Some people seem to think that “locking out” means “leaning back,” but nothing could be further from the truth. Doing that hyperextends your knees and spine, which can compress those all-important spinal discs between your vertebrae.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BWeXIFLF_oJ/?taken-by=wilfredofitness

The goal, really, is to just stand up. When you’re standing tall while holding the weight, you’ve completed the rep. You do not need to try and shrug with your traps. Simply stand up straight, thrust your hips, and focus on squeezing your glutes at the end of the lift.

Lastly, when you reach the top of the rep, you have two options:

1. Dropping the weight
2. Lowering the weight back to the floor

Option #1 is generally considered bad form for most fitness trainees (and definitely will get you some angry glances from your gym’s owner, especially if you aren’t using bounce plates), but there are some times when you may consider it.

Certain training modalities use this pull-and-drop technique—Pavel Tsatsouline employed it with Olympic sprinter Allyson Felix to famous results.

But even if you’re not training for a gold medal, removing the eccentric (lowering) phase may decrease the likelihood of hamstring or lower back injuries. So if those are concerns of yours, you may want to consider using the drop. (And if you do, definitely look for bounce plates.)

But if you’re just looking to build full-body strength, you’re better off lifting and lowering the weight.

That brings us to Option #2. Remember all of that tightness you generated in order to hoist the weight? Don’t let go of it once you reach the top.

Having several hundreds pounds of weight in your hands is typically a bad time to lose rigidity.

Instead, keep all of that tension in your arms, lats, core and legs, and lower the weight to the floor. Continue to keep your feet pressed firmly into the ground. Maintain that tight grip on the barbell as you set the weight back back where it started.

READ MORE: 

How Low Should You Squat, Really?

3 Rules for Building Bigger Arms

The Tension Weightlifting Technique: How to Make Every Exercise More Effective

The post The Complete Deadlift Guide: Master The Full Body Exercise appeared first on Born Fitness.

You’ve gone to the gym and heard “hardcore” lifters insist that you don’t need an “abs workout” at all, and that a steady diet of compound exercises like squats and deadlifts will do the trick. Still, others say you can simply plank your way to abdominal greatness.

With all of the conflicting theories out there, it’s no wonder you are still searching for a clear answer on how to design an abs workout that will actually work for you.

The first goal of any good abs workout must be injury prevention.

What you want seems simple: a sturdy core that allows you to live the life you want…and it doesn’t hurt if you also look good shirtless on the beach. But it’s hard to know what to do when you spend so much time filtering through misinformation, outdated methods, and marketing hype from a fitness industry that knows everybody loves a six-pack. No one could blame you for feeling overwhelmed, hopping from program to program, or even giving up entirely.

Learning to train correctly will help you perform better, avoid back pain and other injuries, and be stronger in everything that you do—whether you’re squatting seriously heavy weight, shoveling snow, or picking up your child. You can learn how to do all of that and also drop unwanted belly fat, while finally answering the question, “what’s the right abs workout for me?”

What People Mean When They Talk About “Abs”

Your abs are really just one muscle—the rectus abdominis (RA).

The RA is what gives people that six-pack (or eight-pack) look. But functionally speaking, the muscle is just one part of a larger web of tissues often referred to as “the core.” Your RA works along with your obliques (you have both internal and external ones), a bunch of deep internal muscles like the transverse abdominis, quadratus lumborum, and multifidi, and even the lats, which play an important (and underappreciated) role in supporting your back.

Do you need to know all these names? Not unless you’re a fitness pro. But what you should know is that these muscles are like the cables of a suspension bridge keeping that all-important center column—your spine—in alignment. They also make it possible for you to stand upright, swing a golf club or baseball bat, chuck hay bales with a pitchfork, and do so many of the other cool things you can do as a uniquely awesome human.

Maintaining an appropriate balance of strength among these stabilizers is crucial to your health and performance. Every muscle matters, which is why most abs workouts are inherently flawed.

Training your abs directly through a movement like sit-ups or crunches (not the best bang-for-your-buck exercises) won’t accomplish what you want. Creating a great abs workout means progressing through 3 different phases. Follow the steps, and everything will function (and look) the way you want. Take shortcuts, and — well — you probably have a good idea of how the more basic approach falls short of expectations.

The 3-Phase Approach to Abs Workouts

It sounds funny, but you need to make sure that all of your core muscles are awake and not asleep at the switch. That’s why there’s a progressive approach, which puts you in control of your abs. Think of it like math. If you skip to calculus before you learn addition and subtraction, odds are you won’t be very good. But when you build up to the more difficult stuff, that’s when you really see great results.

Phase 1: Injury prevention
Here’s where you reinvigorate tissues that are often deactivated by your lifestyle. This is a way bigger deal than you think.

To understand why, look no further than your typical workday.

Your commute begins with you sitting in your car for 15 to 30 minutes (or waaaay longer if you’re one of 3.6 million “megacommuters” out there doing an hour and a half or more each way).

From 9 to 5 the routine is more of the same: You’re in a seat. You shoulders are rounded forward. Your back and spine hunch toward your screen. When all of the TPS reports are filed, it’s time for the drive back home.

Rinse and repeat this for eight to 12 hours per day, 260 or so workdays per year.

When you spend this much time sitting, deep core muscles like your transverse abdominis weaken from inactivity. Even very big, very visible muscles like your glutes can essentially shut off and stop working as they should (a condition the world’s leading spine health researcher, Dr. Stu McGill, calls “gluteal amnesia”). The result is bad posture, worse gym performance, and far greater risk of back pain. Let’s prevent that, shall we?

With the help of exercises that train the core functionally, you’ll re-engage those underused muscles and build a better balance of baseline strength. You’ll find these exercises in the section “Core Training for Injury Prevention,” below. You can include these movements as part of your warmup before a workout, or it can be a targeted program for 4-8 weeks if you find that these exercises are very difficult (because your small stabilizers and glutes are “turned off”).

Phase 2: Training for performance

Once you know you’ve brought all your core muscles back online and protected your body from the demands of the daily grind, you’ll kick things up a notch. Here you’ll work on exercises that will help you be stronger in the gym, play better

Once you know you’ve brought all your core muscles back online and protected your body from the demands of the daily grind, you’ll kick things up a notch. Here you’ll work on exercises that will help you be stronger in the gym, play better in any sport, and more able to carry heaping piles of grocery bags in a single trip. You’ll find these movements in “Core Training for Performance,” below. Follow this phase for another 4-8 weeks.

Phase 3: Training for aesthetics.

As we’ve discussed, building a shrediculous set of chiseled abs is the icing on the cake. (And yes, you can still eat cake and have abs.)

Here’s where you’ll re-integrate some of the ab-specific work that most people overdo. Rather than endless sit-ups or crunches, you’ll perform far more potent (and safer) moves. You’ll also learn some techniques for getting a leaner look that will help those abs really pop.

Note that element here builds off the previous one. You can’t just skip down to the third section of this article, do those moves and voila! 8-pack.

Be patient. Trust the process. You will wind up with a core that feels, performs, and yes, looks way better.

Core Training for Injury Prevention

Back injuries can be debilitating. A hurt back can make it difficult to stand up from a chair, much less train with the proper intensity to change your body. So the first goal of any good abs workout must be injury prevention.

Your dose of prevention takes place at the front of your workouts. Before you lift, you’re going to do what’s called core activation work. Core activation is essentially a series of core exercises that “wakes up” all of the muscles in your trunk by asking them to perform the type of tasks they actually do.

Your abs workout injury prevention focuses on the three “anti-’s”:

Anti-Rotation: One of your core’s main jobs is to prevent you from toppling over when you move in one direction, or an outside force acts on you. Think about how often someone accidentally bumps into you, and the next thing you know your back is in tremendous pain. Or when you rotate and something feels “off.” You can prevent these aches and pains. Anti-rotational exercises help you develop stability from the ground all the way up your trunk. Some of the moves we like here are pallof presses, half-kneeling iso-holds, and half-kneeling chops. Compound exercises like a single-arm dumbbell row also fit the bill.

Anti-Extension: When it comes to your spine, the term “extension” refers to a rounded back (think: the “cat” position of cat-cow). Anti-extension exercises train your core to resist this extension —something that will come in handy when you do an exercise like a deadlift, where “don’t round your lower back!” is a commonly heard cue. Try front planks, ab wheel rollouts, and stability ball rollouts.

Anti-Lateral Flexion: That’s the scientific way of saying “resisting sideways bending.” The quadratus lumborum and obliques are the key muscles responsible for this action. To train it, perform side plank variations, single-arm farmer’s carries, and carrying your groceries all in one hand.

There’s one other crucial factor here: Glute engagement. Your glutes are the biggest muscle in your body. They’re responsible for driving hip extension—the main muscle action for moves like sprints, jumps, deadlifts, and squats. Don’t do those exercises? It’s still important because you need hip extension for the simple act of standing up straight.

The only problem, as we mentioned earlier, is that most of us sit on our glutes all day, which leads them to effectively “forget” how to work (hence McGill’s term “gluteal amnesia”). When this occurs, your body can still manage to achieve hip extension, but it does so by compensating with your lower back. Improving glute activation is far and away one of the best things you can do to reducing back pain, improving performance, and building a strong, resilient body.

To activate your glutes, try quadruped hip extensions, frog pumps, clamshells, lateral band walks and x-band monster walks. For strengthening your glutes, go with compound exercises like squats, hips thrusts, deadlifts, and lunges with a focus on full hip extension and a glute squeeze at the top of a movement.

The above list should give you plenty of options for compiling a core and glute workout or warmup. But we’ve taken things a step further for you and built a couple of examples you can use before an upper-body or lower body workout. Try these before your next strength session:

Sample Abs Workout (Before Upper Body Workout)

1a. TRX Fallout, 2×10, rest 30 seconds
1b. Side Plank, 2×45 seconds/side, rest 30 seconds
1c. Hip Thrust, 2×10, rest 30 seconds

Sample Abs Workout Before Lower Body Workout

1a. Half Kneeling Pallof Press, 2×10/side, rest 30 seconds
1b. Lateral Band Walk, 2×10/side, rest 30 seconds

Core Training For Performance

Dr. McGill will tell you that “proximal stiffness enhances distal mobility and athleticism.” Translation: When your core is strong and you can make it as stiff as a board, you can move your arms and legs faster and more powerfully. That means a stronger push off the ground when you sprint, a harder throw when you hurl a baseball, and a better ability to leap from the ground to snag rebounds at your local YMCA.

Why? Think about the difference between walking across concrete and walking across a row of pillows. The hard surface allows you to push off forcefully, while the soft one causes that force to be deflected in a bunch of competing directions. That lost force is known as an “energy leak” in biomechanic terms, and it will occur at any point in your body that lacks sufficient strength and stiffness. A weak core is a big energy leak. (But with the help of this article, you won’t have that problem.)

There are three components of training your core for better performance.

First, activate deep muscles with the “anti-movements” we discussed above. They’ll help you resist unwanted movements, button up any energy leaks, and prepare your body to perform.

Second, integrate total body compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, chin-ups, overhead presses, lunges, and weighted carries. Upper body pressing exercises like push-ups and pulling exercises like rowing are also your friends. They develop power and strength and help you develop core stiffness that won’t buckle under load. Your core should remain braced as you move, providing a rock-solid foundation that holds your spine’s position and doesn’t buckle during exercise. In other words: a great abs workout means doing more than just abs exercises.

When it comes to weighted carries, there are almost limitless options. Heavy dumbbells, a trap bar, or (if your gym is really cool) farmer’s walk handles are some the best tools for building a strong, high-performance core.

Whatever type of carry you use, brace your abs for the entire set. You want to stand tall and pretend like you’re about to take a punch to the gut. Hold this position, stay tall, and breathe into your stomach for the set. The carry will force your deep intrinsic core muscles to stabilize your hip and spine with every step. The muscles of your back lower back and abs tighten to prevent unnecessary movement in your spine.

Third, add sport-specific core strength movements. If you’re an athlete who trains for a specific sport, you need to train movements that are similar to those that you’ll perform in the sport that you play. For example, if you play golf, tennis, or baseball, you’ll want to work on your rotational strength, since that’s what powers your swing.

Athleticism requires muscles, joints, ligaments, and nervous system must work together as a complete unit to be strong and powerful. One of the best ways to develop this power is with a medicine ball. It allows you to train the movement patterns specific to your sport at full speed, which helps you achieve the best-possible training response. Here are four rotational strength-building exercises that use a medicine ball:

Rotational Scoop Throw, 3 sets x 5 reps per side
Stand perpendicular to an open area or a solid wall with your feet shoulder-width apart and knees slightly bent. From this position, while holding the ball to your back hip, shift your weight to the back leg before explosively shifting your weight to the front leg and throwing the ball as hard as possible. Repeat for three sets of five reps per side.

Medicine Rainbow Slam, 3 sets x 5 reps per side
Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart while holding a medicine ball overhead with your arms extended. Rotate and slam the ball outside your opposite foot. Catch the ball and reverse the range of motion for three sets of five reps per side.

Overhead Medicine Ball Slams, 3 sets x 5 reps per side
The overhead medicine ball slam builds incredible power through your shoulders and lats while preventing flexion through your spine. Stand up tall with your feet hip-width apart. Hold the medicine ball in both hands. Raise the ball overhead, then slam it as hard as you can on the ground. Catch the ball on the bounce and repeat. Try the overhead medicine ball slam before doing upper body lifts like shoulder presses or chin-ups.

Medicine Ball Back Tosses, 3 sets x 5 reps per side
The medicine ball back toss builds explosive hip extension power, such as exercises like jumps and cleans but with less joint stress. Stand with your feet slightly wider than shoulder-width apart, holding a medicine ball overhead with your arms straight. Start the rep by squatting down and lowering the ball between your legs. Then explode upward to jump out of the squat while you raise your arms overhead to throw the ball behind you. This explosive movement works best to build explosive hip extension power and works well before lower body training lifts like a squat or deadlift.

Designing a Better Abs Workout

Now that you’ve earned your way to phase 3, it’s time for an abs workout that will prepare your core for the display case. To do so, you need a combination of two things:

You need to be lean. Men will start to see the outline of their abs around 12% body fat, while women will notice definition when around 17-18% body fat. For reference: magazine cover model types are often at 5-7% for men and 14-15% for women.

You need well-developed, muscular abs. Without a certain level of lean muscle, your abs won’t push through remaining body fat and give you the dense, toned look you’d like. So here’s where some of those “icing on the cake” exercises that emphasize the rectus abdominis come in handy (although, as you’ll see below, you’ll still be using safer and more functional moves than sit-ups or crunches).

Losing Fat to Reveal Your Abs

At the most basic level, creating a caloric deficit is the only thing that matters for fat loss. Despite what supplement companies or sketchy infomercials might tell you, research shows you can’t “spot reduce” and tell your body to only lose fat on that annoying spot just below your belly button. But what you can do is “spot enhance,” or build a muscle in a specific area while you lose fat throughout your entire body.

There are a lot of ways one can create that needed caloric deficit. The by-the-numbers approach is to determine the daily caloric intake required to maintain your body weight, then eat a few hundred calories fewer. (You can do this on your own using a body weight calculator, or under the guidance of a coach who can help you specific targets based on your wants and needs.) Assuming you’re moderately active and working out three or four times per week, a reasonable ballpark figure is a reduction of about 500 calories per day for men and 300 calories per day for women.

Don’t get carried away here. While most of us want to ditch fat in a hurry, those “lose weight fast” plans are deceptive. Despite what the latest diet fad will tell you, research shows the maximum rate of “healthy” fat loss is about 1-2% body weight each week. (That said, the more weight you have to lose, the quicker you can lose it.)

Another tricky factor here: The leaner you are, the slower your rate of fat loss will be. Using the percentages above, you can see how someone who weighs 250 pounds may be able to drop up to 5 pounds per week, while someone who’s 180 pounds may struggle to drop one.

For almost everyone, fat loss feels like it’s taking place at a rate that’s slower than you would like. But it’s better to go slow and sustainable than try and do it fast and then crash. (Some studies show that the average person spends 6 weeks sticking to a strict diet—then spends 14 weeks off of it.) So if you have a vacation 12 weeks from now and want to lose 20 pounds so that you look hot in your new bikini or when you’re standing shirtless at the beach, the time to start is now.

The Ultimate Abs Workout (AKA looking good without a shirt)

Your abs are like any other muscle—they need time under tension, metabolic stress (that nauseating yet delightful burn you’ve felt during sets of crunches), and muscular damage (something that sounds bad, but actually just refers to the process of creating microtears in muscle tissue so that they come back stronger) in order to grow.

Here’s how to make all of that happen:

First, you’ll continue to lift weights three to four times per week with compound movements. These big movements like squats, rows, and deadlifts build strength from head to toe, stimulate your abs, and provide the training response necessary to transform your body.

Second, keep doing “anti-movements” in your training to build a strong, stable and injury-resistant core.

Third, you’ll add in exercises that specifically target your abs to create the deep muscular separations needed for visible abs.

But as you’ve read over and over again in this article now, sit-ups and crunches aren’t your best options for achieving point #3. Why? Because those movements wind up bending your spinal discs over and over again, which McGill describes as a “potent injury mechanism.” So instead, here are five better exercises that focus on your abs without putting you at risk, which will help you build lean muscle for beach season:

1. Hollow Body Hold

A gymnastics move by nature, the hollow body hold teaches you to brace and hold neutral spine while contracting your entire rectus abdominis muscle.

Lie flat on the ground, looking up. Flatten your lower back and flex your knees, pointing your toes away from you. Straighten your legs while you lift your arms so that they’re perpendicular to your torso. Keep your back flat on the floor and lift your head and shoulders off the ground. Aim to do these twice a week.

2. Hanging Leg Raise

The hanging leg raise is a popular exercise for targeting your lower abs. By keeping your elbows slightly bent and shoulders retracted (i.e. held down and in, rather than creeping up toward your ears), you’ll also stretch the lats, build a stronger grip, and develop more muscular forearms.

Grab a pull-up bar with a double overhand grip, squeezing the bar as tight as possible and keeping the elbows slightly bent. Retract your shoulders, as if tucking them into your back pocket and holding them there.

From this position, lift your legs up just past 90 degrees, forming an L shape with your body. Pause at the top for two seconds, then lower with control. Too tough? Then try them with your knees bent, lifting and holding for 5-10 seconds if possible.

If you struggle to hold on to the bar, feel free to use the Roman chair version in which you’re supported by your elbows and upper body.

3. Stability Ball Rollout

Stability ball rollouts are a great way to build strong abs while preparing your body for a greater challenge: the ab wheel rollout.

To start, kneel on the floor (it may be helpful to place an Airex pad or yoga mat beneath your knees) and face a stability ball with your arms extended in front of your body. Your hands should sit atop the ball. Brace your abs to prevent your back from arching, lean forward, and roll your arms over the ball as far as possible, so that your entire torso lowers toward the floor. Then reverse the motion and pull your arms and torso back until you return to the starting position.

4. Ab Wheel Rollout
Ab wheel rollouts are an absolute killer for building strong, dense abs. Beyond building muscle, they force you to resist unwanted extension in the lower back.

Kneel down and hold the handles of the wheel with your arms locked out beneath your shoulders. Brace your abs and roll the wheel as far forward as possible without shifting your hips or arching your lower back, then roll back.

5. Cable Crunch
Remember the day when crunches and situps were all the rage? There are still effective ways to perform the crunch (see McGill curlup), but this is another variation that puts you in a position where you are less likely to hurt your back and you can add some load to increase the difficulty. Just like any exercise, progressive overload (adding weight) can help you build stronger abs — that pop.

Kneel facing the pulley and hold the ends of a rope attached to the high cable along the sides of your face. Bend forward, aiming your chest at your pelvis. Return to the starting position, then repeat the movement.

Here’s how it looks when you put all of those exercises together into a single workout.

Sample Abs Workout Routine

Perform this sample routine 2-3 times per week for 4-6 weeks.

1. Ab wheel rollout OR stability ball rollout, 2 sets x 8-12 reps, rest 90 seconds
2. Hollow Body Hold 3 sets x 45 seconds, rest 45 seconds.
3. Hanging Leg Raise 3 sets x 12-15 reps, rest 45 seconds.
4. Cable Crunch 3 sets x 15 reps, rest 45 seconds

The Takeaways

Think “core” before you think “abs.” Focus on anti-extension, anti-lateral flexion, anti-rotation, and glute activation exercises first. This helps prevent injury.

Next, comes performance. You’ll develop core strength along with full-body strength by performing compound lifts with your core properly engaged. Train rotation and other movements as needed for the sport of your choice.

Finally, build show-worthy abs by adding in some level of direct ab training while also continuing to develop the core’s ability to prevent movement. Follow a gradual approach to fat loss that helps you reveal your hard work to the world with a lean, defined midsection.

Above all else, you need a well-balanced training approach to build your best looking and best performing body.

READ MORE: 

Why Your Ab Workouts Don’t Work

Are Toned Arms Genetic? (And Why Arm Workouts for Women are Flawed)

Better Posture, Injury Prevention, and Building the V-Taper

Eric Bach is a personal trainer who works directly with clients in Denver, Colorado and around the world online. Eric specializes in helping busy men eliminate nagging injuries, get stronger, leaner and more athletic without living in the gym. To access his FREE five-day fat loss challenge, join by clicking here.

Resources

1. Alpert, Seymour S. “A limit on the energy transfer rate from the human fat store in hypophagia.” Journal of Theoretical Biology 233.1 (2005): 1-13. Web. 2017.
2. Spaniol, Frank J., EdU. “Developing Power to Turn.” NSCA Strength & Conditioning Journal 34.6 (2012): n. pag. Web. 5 Mar. 2017.
3. McGill, Stuart, PhD. 5th ed. Waterloo: Backfitpro Inc, 2014. Print.
4. Ramírez-Campillo, Rodrigo, David C. Andrade, Christian Campos-Jara, Carlos Henríquez-Olguín, Cristian Alvarez-Lepín, and Mikel Izquierdo. “Regional Fat Changes Induced by Localized Muscle Endurance Resistance Training.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 27.8 (2013): 2219-224. Web. 6 Mar. 2017.

The post The Abs Workout: Best Exercises To Transform Your Midsection appeared first on Born Fitness.

Sure, you try to work your entire body. And you use a wide variety of movements. But there’s always a reason why–despite your best efforts–you still don’t look the way you want.

Whether, you want to really look strong and powerful, sexy and sleek, or just be better about injury prevention so you have fewer aches and pains, it’s oftentimes the muscles you don’t see in the mirror that are most important (and most often underworked).

Overtraining your backside muscles could be the smartest upgrade you ever make to your workouts.

Before you suggest that rows, pullups, and deadlifts have you covered (all great exercises, by the way), it’s important to know why overtraining your backside muscles could be the smartest upgrade you ever make to your workouts.

Consider this a step-by-step process to help you identify common flaws or gaps in your training, and what you can instantly do to shift one of the most common weaknesses into a strength.

Mistake #1: Ignoring Mobility

Poor postural habits such a slouching for extended periods of time result in a forward bent upper back posture called kyphosis. It’s a messy name with some equally ugly ramifications. (Just think severely rounded upper back, which leaves you slouched over.) Spend enough time in a kyphotic posture and your spine will adapt and stiffen in this alignment.

Not a fan of the hunchback look? Good, then keep reading.

This common problem not only causes upper back pain but also weakens the important muscles that move and stabilize your shoulder blades, which can cause shoulder problems.  Keeping your thoracic spine mobile (the section from your shoulders to your tailbone) not only keeps your shoulders healthy but also provides a more effective foundation for performing your pulling exercises so that you can see better results.

Your Exercise Rx: Bird dogs, side lying windmills, thoracic rotation, thoracic bridge + prone cobra

Mistake #2: Not Adjusting Your Push-Pull Ratio

Heavy, frequent use of pressing exercises like bench presses may result in the appearance of better-looking muscles, increased size, or strength, but they also increase stiffness in your chest and front shoulder muscles.  Without an equal balance of stiffness and muscular development across your shoulder joint and upper back, you’ll inevitably develop rounded shoulders that not only looks bad but also turns your back on a foundational principle of injury prevention.

Here’s why: pressing exercises typically call for a push and cause internal rotation of your shoulders. It’s the internal rotation (which is part of so many exercises) that eventually causes your shoulders to round inward.

While everyone is different, a good ratio to consider is 2 pulling movements for everyone 1 pushing movement (at a minimum) for upper body exercises. If you’re looking at your lower body, the same idea applies, as you’ll want to do 2 to 3 pulling/posterior chain movements (think deadlifts) for every 1 pushing/quad dominant movement (like squats).

Most importantly: making sure you include exercises with external rotation. That’s because even though pulling exercises can be done at a high frequency, many of them (like pulldowns or pullups) force a lot of internal rotation of your shoulders, which can still lead to unwanted rounding, altered posture, and even pain and injury.

Your Exercise Rx (for external rotation): Face pulls, Prone ITY

Mistake #3: Forgetting the Bottom Half (Of Your Traps)

It’s easy to think of your back as just one giant muscle, but that’s not quite how it works. One of the most well known is the trapezius (traps), which most people just think of as the muscle that bridges the gap between your neck and shoulders.

Your trapezius muscle actually has three parts. Most people (especially guys) only attend to upper trapezius by doing endless sets of shrugs in an effort to look “yoked.”

If you really want to look yoked, keep your shoulders healthy, and improve your pressing strength, you have to hit your lower traps at least as hard as your upper traps.

Problem is, you don’t recognize the importance of your lower traps (or how weak they are) for injury prevention.

Think of it this way: your lower traps exist to help strengthen, support, and provide stability to your shoulder blades (scapula). Remember, how you just learned about the important of doing more pulling exercises than pushing? Well, you can do that just right, but if you don’t have strong lower trap muscle to stabilize your shoulder blades, you’re not only more likely to lift less weight, you’re also more likely to ignore one of the most important muscles for injury prevention

Ever had a bench press injury or shoulder injury from overhead pressing? One of the first places to look is your lower traps.

Your Exercise Rx: Hanging scapular retraction, scap pushups, and all the exercises from mistake #2.

Mistake #4: Cheating on Your Chinups

It’s not uncommon for you to be better at the shrugging upward motion than shrugging downward. Unfortunately, this is a big problem for almost all back exercises.

The upward motion weakens your shoulder girdle (the structure that helps control movement), thus making a strong pull almost impossible.

Want to know why you can’t pull more weight and remain stuck at the same weight? Here’s what you can fix to change that.

You can overcome this imbalance by positioning yourself at the top of the chinup with your chest touching the bar and your shoulder blades pulled backward and downward.  Perform prolonged holds (isometrics) and even weighted holds in this position and in no time you’ll find that you can pull more weight.

Your Exercise Rx: Isometric chinups (palms facing toward you) and pullups (palms facing away from you)

Mistake #5: Oversimplifying Your Rowing Technique

This is what most rowing looks like: Your arm hangs down to create a stretch in your back. Without much thought, you pull your arm back, leading with your elbow, and try to bring the weight back as far as possible and work your muscles.

It looks right. And it sounds right. But the result is actually causing a forward shift of your shoulder joint and increasing stress on the front of your shoulder, as well as creating a weaker pull. By initiating pulling exercises with retraction, or a pulling back of your shoulder blade and then completing the pull, you’ll have your arm in safer, stronger position to move more weight and build more muscle. Now, this does not mean you have to keep your shoulder in a retracted (pulled back) position the entire time. Every person’s body is a little different, so it’s important to allow you to move within your own range of motion. That means you have a stretch at the bottom, pull your elbow and shoulder blade back, squeeze at the top, and then return back to the starting position.

Your Exercise Rx: Dumbbell Rows and Cable Rows with scapular retraction

Mistake #6: Your Never Practiced Deadlift Progressions

Do a quick video search for deadlift on YouTube and you’ll find a myriad of gym stars showing off their horrible, injury-in-the-making technique. I’m not talking about serious lifters going after max lifts that are superhuman. No one is picture perfect when lifting 600 pounds. This is about correct movement.

Rounding your lower back to pull a barbell from the floor actually turns off the supportive musculature of your spine and exposes the passive structures (like the ligaments and the spinal discs) to excessive loads that–given enough time–could possibly end your strength training career.

It also gives you a much weaker pull from the floor.Try this quick exercise to improve your spinal alignment and increase your pulling potential.

Set up an empty barbell in a squat rack at knee level. Assume a baseball short stop’s stance with hands on your knees. Keeping your shins vertical, arch your back and drive your hips upward to increase the stretch in your hamstrings. This is your proper pulling position.

Take the bar from the rack in this position and stand by driving the hips forward.  Practice this pulling technique and start adding load to the bar.  Once you’ve ingrained this technique, start pulling from a lower position until you can pull from the floor with perfect technique.

Your Exercise Rx: Rack pulls

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post Better Posture, Injury Prevention, and Building the V-Taper appeared first on Born Fitness.

As time went on the fad turned out to be a trend you couldn’t ignore. Gyms made them standard fare, athletes started rolling before games, and next thing you know everyone was rolling with the movement.

At this point, you probably know it’s “good” for your body—but what does that actually mean? After all, you have limited time, so you want hard hitting answers. Because on thing is certain: you can foam roll all day but that won’t give you bigger biceps.

The biggest enemy of progress is lack of consistency and injuries. When you don’t warmup you’re placing your body at a greater risk of injury.

If you look at research, foam rolling and mobility work doesn’t show much in the way of, “Do this warmup and you will build more muscle.” Part of the reason is SMR (self myofascial release, the fancy name for rilloing) is relatively new to the workout world so research is limited. Stretching is as old as the sun, but there are so many mixed reviews that it’s almost more of a personal preference.

That said, understanding the benefits of foam rolling can make it easier to determine how 5 to 10 minutes of soft tissue work before a workout could be the first domino that accelerates the gain train.

Instead of viewing your warmup as cause and effective, think of it as part of a system, with each part playing a role in enhancing another element of muscle growth. Specifically, a great warmup prepares your body for the stress of lifting weights.

If your muscles are warm and prepared, then they can generate more force and move more weight. And on any program, you know this is a part of packing on new size.

Maybe more importantly, the warmup keeps you in the one place you need to be to grow: the gym.

The biggest enemy of progress is lack of consistency and injuries. When you don’t warmup you’re placing your body at a greater risk of injury. Why? A cold muscle is like a cold rubber band. Ever frozen something seemingly pliable? It changes everything. What was once easy-to-move is now stiff; what once seemed unbreakable can now easily snap.

This is the hidden value of foam rolling. A little pre-workout prep (or even work on off days) can help keep you injury-free. Is this full-proof? Of course not. I’ve seen guys who can come in after a 15-minute walk in the snow and bust out a 300-pound deadlift with no problem. But that’s the exception to the rule.

Put differently: There’s a reason athletes go through such a rigorous pregame routine. It’s not to make them jump higher or run faster. it’s to prevent injury in a situation where there’s lots of stress on your body.

If you want to lift without insurance, then that’s your choice. Personally, for 5-10 minutes, it’s not a risk I’d take.

Adam Bornstein

Adam Bornstein is a New York Times bestselling author and the author of You Can’t Screw This Up. He is the founder of Born Fitness, and the co-founder of Arnold’s Pump Club (with Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Pen Name Consulting. An award-winning writer and editor, Bornstein was previously the Chief Nutrition Officer for Ladder, the Fitness and Nutrition editor for Men’s Health, Editorial Director at LIVESTRONG.com, and a columnist for SHAPE, Men’s Fitness, and Muscle & Fitness. He’s also a nutrition and fitness advisor for LeBron James, Cindy Crawford, Lindsey Vonn, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. According to The Huffington Post, Bornstein is “one of the most inspiring sources in all of health and fitness.” His work has been featured in dozens of publications, including The New York Times, Fast Company, ESPN, and GQ, and he’s appeared on Good Morning America, The Today Show, and E! News.

The post Does Foam Rolling Help You Build Muscle? appeared first on Born Fitness.