personal training – Page 6 – Never Give Up PT

Understanding Change

In my previous career I worked as a support worker for adults with learning difficulties and autism. This gave me an insight on human behaviour and how to understand people with a different perception to the world we live in.

One of their main challenges was to be as independent as possible despite being in a society demanding that they change. The organisations offering support to these people and many of their workers were fully committed to enabling their service users to live as independently as possible. They weren’t looking for everything to be done for them. They might have just needed some support and encouragement to live THEIR life in a strange ‘neurotypical’ world. And yet society can often want to change people.

The people I supported often got frustrated at certain rules and laws that had to be applied and demands that were put upon them to be more ‘normal’. I didn’t change anybody that I worked with. I just enabled them to do what they wanted to do safely. Any positive changes to their lives that they wished to make would be encouraged by me and I would support them through it. That was my job.

Becoming a Personal Trainer was, I thought, an entirely different role and of course, on the surface it really is. It is only when you get to understand human behaviour that you begin to find similarities. And then all of that level of understanding comes right back.

“We keep trying to change people’s behaviours without a full understanding of how and why those behaviours arise”

The fitness industry does just as much damage as it does good. It is full of crooks and scammers who pray on people wanting to change their appearance. From miracle pills and drinks, bogus PT’s, weight loss coaches (failed PT’s), social media influencers, celebrity fitness DVD’s and Doctors spewing 5:2, Fast 800 and intermittent fasting all over the tabloids. We are bombarded with us changing how we look. Perhaps, in their eyes, we should all look a certain way. Or, let’s be honest, they want to make us feel so bad about ourselves so we pay them in a desperate attempt to be ‘fixed’ by them.

But they don’t know you or I. Why do I keep getting promotions for fat loss pills that work within a week (there’s before and afters to prove it) on my Facebook feed every day? Do they think I need it? Even as a PT who, for most days, feels comfortable in my own skin feels a little self conscious. How must the regular person feel?

I get miracle hair growth lotion ads too which is definitely more appropriate for my feed and yet I have no desire to have a full head of hair. I don’t want it. They. Won’t. Change. Me.

But they want my money. They want me to want to change my appearance.

And although my role as a PT is to exert change to an individual, it isn’t their appearance that I’m looking to change, even if that is what they come to me wanting.

“The journey isn’t so much about becoming anything. It’s about unbecoming everything that isn’t really you, so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place.”

Goals need to be set when you begin a fitness journey. But once you have set those goals you must put it in an envelope and safely store it away for a while. Today you don’t need it. Today, you just need to know what you have to do TODAY. Know it, plan it and stick to it.

My job isn’t simply telling someone to run faster, lift heavier or eat better foods. I need to know WHY they should want to run faster, lift heavier and eat better foods. If I am to support them on their journey, then I need to know their perception of themselves. I offer support but also realize that I cannot tell anybody what to do. My job is to allow the individual to makes their choices, embrace the victories and process the failures. It is THEIR journey.

I don’t change anybody that I work with. I just enable them to do what they want to do safely. Any positive changes to their lives that they wish to make is encouraged by me and I support them through it. That’s my job.

Starting Your Week The Right Way

Our days are often played out at a hundred miles an hour. When we begin our working week it speeds through so quickly we can look back and regret not having time to commit to your workouts, talk to friends, give your granny a call or prepare nutritious food.

We can make it slightly easier for ourselves if we plan our week. Going into a new week without a plan could be the reason why you don’t stick to a nutrition plan or an exercise routine. Here’s my top tips to get you focussed on your week ahead!

1. Batch Cook.

I would recommend dedicating a couple of hours a week to batch cooking. In this time you can make two or three different sauces that can be used at a later date. I have plenty of takeaway tubs that have been saved over the years that make perfect containers for this. It means that, even after a busy day, you can still create a nutritious meal with little fuss. Just defrost your sauce and add the veg, meat, pasta etc. My favourites are bolognese, curry, chilli and macaroni cheese.

2. Plan Your Workouts And Stick To It.

“I might go to the gym if I have time” usually means you don’t have time. Something crops up or you create a reason not to go, so you don’t get round to going. Make it easier for yourself. A workout doesn’t have to be in a gym. I often post 10 minute workouts on my training app and run programmes that work around an individuals lifestyle. https://www.trainerize.me/profile/nevergiveup2/?planGUI

Planning workouts with a partner or friend with similar fitness goals works because you are able to keep each other motivated and you are less likely to cancel and let them down. Hiring a good PT also adds accountability.

Also, never underestimate going for a walk. This might be the perfect way to start a fitness journey if you can plan and stick to regular walks throughout your week.

3. Avoid A Sunday Night Syndrome.

Sunday night syndrome is also known as anticipatory anxiety. It’s a very real thing to many people. If you get the feeling of dread as you think about entering a new week then try these techniques…

a) Practice meditation on the Sunday evening (or whenever your week is starting). You don’t have to be a Buddhist Monk or spiritual to be good at it. There are some very good apps or YouTube guides that will talk you through it. Just find a quiet place and think about controlling your breathing. Visualize the positives in your life and how these can contribute to your week ahead.

b) Look forward to an event by booking a treatment such as a massage or a spa. Having an enjoyable activity to focus on can get you over difficult times in your week.

c) Avoid alcohol before your week begins. Although you might think that a few drinks on your Sunday evening is relaxing and helps you cope with your anxieties, it actually has the opposite effect. Sleep can be more unsettled, your food choices are not as good and your emotions are in less control. Alcohol can lead to you believing that things are worse than they actually are.

4. Give your granny a call as part of a Sunday night routine. Once you’ve prepped your meals, put the lycra in your gym kit and had a moment of calm, not only will your granny appreciate the call but you will feel a whole lot better for doing it. After all, once you’ve heard about Derek from number 63’s dodgy hip and Maureen from bingos arthritis you’ll feel so much better about yourself!

It’s Time To Print Out The Score Sheets!

It’s that time of year again. The snacks come out, the score sheets get printed, the kids stay up later, the bunting goes up, I get to wear a blonde wig and we complain about nobody liking the UK.

It’s Eurovision time!

My wife and I were always an unlikely couple. I was the gym rat who went to mainstream clubs and watched football with my mates in my spare time. My wife had an alternative dress style, went to indie bars and loved arts and crafts. We met whilst working together and I don’t think our colleagues ever thought it would last. But we had a secret connection and it was our love our Eurovision.

Ok, ok, maybe that’s not entirely true. Our similar interests also included Japanese horror movies, Pearl Jam and Nirvana, pool and darts, food and Desperate Housewives (the American TV series, not just desperate housewives).

But whilst these interests have ebbed and flowed between us over the years, our love of Eurovision has grown. Maybe this is what makes our marriage complete. Well, that and our two kids. And food probably.

For the past 15 years we have scored every event of Eurovision. We even have a folder each with our score sheets in them. In the past we have had house parties on Eurovision night, but that was a disaster. Everyone wanted to talk over the songs as they mocked the artists. We dropped theses mates and found better ones, of course. But they can’t come around on Eurovision night. We won’t make that mistake again.

This year it will be an alcohol free event too. It just so happens our abstinence for the foreseeable has fallen on the date of Eurovision. It’s also fallen on the dates of the FA Cup final, the last couple of games of the Premier League and the Champions League final!

Ah well. We do like to prove to ourselves that we can go a few weeks without a tipple. We enjoy a drink at the weekend to unwind, but actually the feeling of being fresh and lighter from the habitual weekend drinking is very empowering. It’s our reset button, Eurovision or not.

So we will be dancing and wearing Abba wigs totally sober tonight, which might make us sound even more weird! But one thing’s for sure, with events in the world being as they are, an evening of countries coming together to stage the campest event ever is a very welcome sight.

The Test

My eldest came out of the school gates looking very pleased with himself. He ran towards me waving a piece of paper shouting “Daddy daddy, I got 10 out of 10!”

At the beginning of the week he had been given ten words to learn for a spelling test today. As well as my wife and I going through these words daily and his teacher teaching them he was well prepared for a test.

Schools, higher education and any learning environment have a similar system. We learn, practice and revise until we are tested on the subject. When you leave education, however, I find it a very different experience. Life gives you the test first, and then you learn the lesson.

Imagine my son having the test first and then learning the words after? It seems unfair, right? Ah, and yet our experiences in life are full of these examples.

What I try to provide as a Personal Trainer is a platform in which to learn, develop and achieve. An individual’s fitness journey has, admittedly, moments of enduring the test before knowing the lesson. In some ways that helps us deal with the challenges of success and failure. If we knew how to do it we’d already be doing it, so learning from life’s tests is a part of the process. And the process isn’t a smooth, linear path.

My job is not just to bask in the glory of a trainee’s goal being achieved like a PB or a weight loss target, but it is to navigate us through the difficult times. That’s not easy to do on your own. It’s doubly difficult when, even though you’ve put the hours in and worked with a plan in place, things still don’t go smoothly. Yes, you get given the words, you revise like mad, and you don’t always get full marks in your exam.

The problem is when you get given the words to learn, you revise like mad, don’t pass the exam and you give up. A few months pass by and again you get given the words, work hard and study but still don’t quite make the grade. Before you know it you are a year older and you are still stumbling through the tests, quitting, starting again…the cycle continues.

This, for me, is where the role of a coach is vital. There’s plenty of people that will count your reps on a rocking ab machine. But a coach will provide knowledge, technique, expertise, experience and the ability to get you to your goals. Even when the test becomes tough, they know what to do to get you through to the other side.

My son might only get 9 out of 10 next week, even if he works hard in his revision. But that in itself is a lesson. How I react to it and how he dusts the disappointment off is the difference between his future success and failure. If he learns how to deal with that disappointment it becomes even more important than learning the word he got wrong.

Life is ironic. It takes depression to know happiness. It takes stress to understand calm. It takes failure to recognise success.

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Negative Reps

In an earlier article I discussed the three types of muscle contractions during exercise. Of course, all three have a huge bearing on how well we progress in our training goals of strength, hypertrophy, fat loss or endurance. But when it comes to those exercises that just seem to be a little too tough to master, I may have a solution…

…the negative rep AKA eccentrics.

Eccentric movement is the lengthening of the muscle. This is commonly seen as the lowering of a load such as bringing the bar to your chest in a bench press. Performed by experienced resistance trainers to work through a plateau or to challenge their muscle fibres, negatives can be a great inclusion in your training programme, especially for the exercises that you just can’t seem to master.

Pull Ups

Because the pull up is one of the most common exercises that I hear people say is one that they find extra difficult, I’m going to use this as my example. Pulling your own body weight up can be one of the most difficult exercises to do. A mistake that I see regularly with a pull up is the lack of core engagement. To an extent, you can get away with poor core engagement on many exercises. You won’t get the results that you want and injuries are much more prevalent in those who do not engage their core during exercise, but moving a weight from A to B is still possible. Performing pull ups, however, requires full engagement of your core to be able to do it. The best way to practice this is through negative reps.

Core Engagement

Your core can be described as everything but your arms and legs.

Some of the most common ways that I have heard in how to engage the core is to brace yourself as though you are expecting a blow to the abdomen. Another is to imagine squeezing an orange under your arm pit. And for your glutes, you just need to squeeze the hell outta those butt cheeks! Try them now… no-one is looking!

Negative Rep Pull Up

Standing on a box below a pull up bar, grip the bar and get into a flex hang position as pictured below. You should breath in at the point of your flex.

Hold this position for a few seconds (each practice you want to be able to hold for a little longer) and slowly lower yourself into a dead hang position (arms fully extended) whilst breathing in.

Legs can be controlled easier if your feet are locked together, as above. Flailing legs can distract you from your core brace, grip and breathing.

Once you have completed one rep you can come down from your dead hang and repeat the process. Practicing these negative reps will create grip strength, core stability, confidence and time under tension which will all contribute to your progression onto full pull ups. The only thing that will make you fail will be your lack of patience, so don’t allow it.

A pull up is a classic gym exercise that not only looks impressive it confirms your technical skills and your strength, but to get there sometimes we have to put in the hard yards. So my advice?

Stay positive, go negative!

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Understanding Muscle Contractions

Understanding muscle contractions are important if you are on a fitness journey that includes muscle growth, strength, fat loss, mobility and sports specific training. Once you understand the basics of muscle contraction I am convinced that you will speed up your ability to meet your goals. And I say basics because you don’t need to be a fit pro, a scientist or professional athlete to know your own body. Hopefully a little bit of reading of articles that leave out the jargon can help you to understand. So let’s jump straight in!

Your muscles perform three types of contractions when you exercise.

* Concentric

* Eccentric

* Isometric

A concentric movement shortens the muscle to force an object to move. Think of the bicep curl. As you force the weight towards your shoulder your bicep shortens to create a squeeze.

An eccentric movement lengthens the muscle and stretches the muscle fibres. Imagine the lowering of the weight during a bicep curl or the squatting part of a squat or leg press. This phase of the rep is regarded as the part that induces the most muscle growth as the muscle fibres are fully activated in lowering a weight under control. This is where delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS) are most like to occure and specific eccentric training is a popular training phase for many athletes.

An isometric movement is a contraction that does not require muscle to lengthen or shorten. Think of a plank or wall sit. There are no reps that use concentric or eccentric movement. These are particularly useful when sparing the joints from discomfort or injury but still strengthening the muscle.

Developing an understanding of these muscle contractions will give you a greater appreciation of time under tension (TUT). Powering through 12 reps in 15 seconds is fairly straightforward. However, this is not the best way to train. Once you imagine the muscle lengthening and shortening through repeated exposure to the load of the weight then you can create a clear ‘mind to muscle’ pathway. You begin to think about each rep rather than just move a weight from A to B and it might need you to cut out the ego lift and go lighter. Just because you’re benching 100k doesn’t mean your muscle has gotten much out of the process. If you aren’t in control of your muscle contractions then your target muscle is unlikely to feel the need to change.

I ask my online trainees what their rate of perceived exertion (RPE) is after each exercise. As I’m not physically stood next to these clients I cannot see how easy or difficult they found the activity. If they are rating their workout at around 5/10 I would ask them to slow the tempo of each rep before adding more load in an attempt to challenge them to a high exertion level.

TUT and muscle hypertrophy

Earlier I mentioned time under tension as a significant factor in muscle development. Longer TUT will create a more challenging experience and much more rewarding for muscle hypertrophy. If I were to learn French for ten minutes a day I would get much less knowledge of the language than if I were to learn French for 30 minutes.

So, if I were to complete a set in ten seconds I would get much less chance to elicit muscle growth than if I were to complete a set in 30 seconds. Every rep and set is an opportunity for muscle growth. Moving a heavy object is easy. Thinking about it requires muscle engagement.

I hope that this article helps. I have tried to remove unnecessary jargon as I believe that resistance training should be enjoyed by everyone and we shouldn’t need a physiology degree to do it. And not just do it, but do it to ensure you get the benefits from it!

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Repeat, Repeat, Repeat

My eldest must think I’m obsessed. At 8 he has certainly got a natural talent for football and he is always keen to have a kick about in the garden in-between matches and team training. He will often just want to take shots at me which is fine as I firmly believe that doing the bits that you enjoy the most is what keeps us interested. But I do try to get him to do the bits that aren’t really coached yet at his age.

Throw ins at under 8’s is a classic example. A throw in is usually a foul throw (which the ref allows due to their age), the length of the throw is week due to poor technique and the decision making in who to throw it to is questionable.

Passing is another example. Instead of trying to ‘Messi’ it past 5 opposing players in his own penalty area (8 year olds don’t like to pass) I want him to make good, confident decisions on when to pass and create openings.

To master these he needs coaching and, although I’m not an FA coach, I do know how to coach.

One piece of advice that I can take into any type of coaching, expert at it or not, is to repeat the process over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. And when you think you’ve mastered it, repeat it again.

We move on too quickly. Either because we think something is accomplished or because we haven’t discovered a purpose for continuing.

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My eldest also brings home words to learn for a spelling test at the end of each week. It’s the same process. Tying his own show laces, eating foods that are nutritious but he doesn’t yet like the taste of, crossing a road, learning French all need repeating to be good at it. Despite some freakish ability by some people to have a natural talent at something, the rest of us have to work bloody hard to be good at it. And even then, don’t think that those with a natural talent don’t practice hard at what they do. They do, but what they do is just their knack. Their ‘thing’. We’ve all got a ‘thing’, we just need to find it. But if we are to persue different interests or to progress in certain areas then the chances are you will need to practice like mad to be any good at it. My son has a tendency to move on too quickly. Perhaps most kids do. Just because he has read his ten words for his spelling test doesn’t mean that he knows them.

I’d love to play guitar. I’ve even bought a couple in the past that look great as ornaments. Actually playing it will require time, patience, practice and repeating. I don’t do that. My excuses are time, my natural abilities aren’t good enough and getting blisters on my fingers. I know that I would be able to play a little if I stopped with the excuses. Maybe I’d never be Ed Sheeran, but I would learn the chords and be able to enjoy playing the guitar and far quicker if I hired a teacher.

My excuses for not playing guitar are exactly the same excuses that I hear on a daily basis in the gym.

Time, not good enough and injuries.

But me playing guitar or not isn’t affecting my health. Learning the chords won’t help my body fat percentage go down. Breaking into the intro to Smells like Teen Spirit won’t make me look and feel better in my clothes and my mental health won’t be any clearer if I can play the theme tune to Coranation Street. So I haven’t found my ‘why’. I haven’t found my purpose to playing guitar, therefore my motivation for doing it, as great as it would be, just isn’t there.

Passing a football through cones isn’t as exciting as smashing a ball into the top bins past his dad, but my son will develop and understand the game much quicker. And if he sees his work pay off on the pitch in a game then he will want to practice even more. He will want to repeat the process that allowed him to make the pass, shot, dribble or throw that won the game. Hopefully he discovers his reason for playing football. It might make him feel good. He might enjoy being part of a team. He might enjoy the buzz and excitement on match day or he might know how important exercise is to his physical and mental health. As long as he knows why he keeps going back for more he will keep progressing.

For best results I can’t help repeating certain movements for my clients to perform. Yet despite the repatition it is important to keep the reason for doing it fresh in their minds and also creating new challenges.

Yes you can squat, now can you squat deeper?

That is a good bench press, now create a slower eccentric movement for time under tension.

You can perform 10 reps, now do 12 reps.

Exactly the same for my eldest at football. You scored with your left foot, now can you kick the ball with you right foot. It is still football. It is still repeating the process, but now we have a new challenge to consider. And it will take time. Practice and time. Lots of it.

Remember your reasons for doing something. If it is so important to you then you will continue the process and you must repeat, repeat, repeat until your body and mind knows exactly what it is that you are wanting from it.

If it’s important enough to you then you will achieve it. You’ll never give up!

Bouncebackability

Throughout my articles I have sometimes quoted the likes of Shakespeare and Einstein to highlight my point. Words or phrases, certainly by those who can articulate it much better than I, can resonate with people.

So I never thought that I would be quoting a word invented by ex footballer Iain Dowie. Bouncebackability was said by Dowie in 2003 to describe his team’s ability to…well, bounce back from defeat. It eventually made the dictionary. And we all have the ability to have it.

Never giving up when you feel at your lowest point, coming back from a desperate situation or bouncing back from a bad day are all within your capabilities. I just need you to realize it.

Things can spiral quickly or maybe it just feels like that. In my experience it can be something brewing inside that creeps out over time. Some days it feels like your head is just above water, but some days it feels like you’re drowning.

Your bouncebackability might be that you missed a gym session or two and, instead of quitting, you got back in there when the time was right for you.

Your bouncebackability could be that you had a week of poor meal choices and, instead of giving up on your health goals, you brushed the week off and started again with better choices.

Your bouncebackability might when you recognize that your alcohol consumption is beginning to affect your mindset and your health, but you make the decision to not bring any into the house for a week or two to reset.

Your bouncebackability could be a difficult time at home but you seek help from friends or somebody who will listen.

You have bouncebackability. You are resilient and strong. And sometimes to be able to show this strength you need to admit to your struggles. That, in itself, is the first sign of your resilience and strength.

What is put on the socials doesn’t impress me much. The guy who seems to have it all or the female who poses to her millions of followers have their low points too. They have struggles. Your friend who you think is always happy-go-lucky will have times of sadness or depression. Be kind to them. Cut them some slack if they haven’t got back to your message or they seemed a bit off with you.

They’ll bounce back. Just like you do.

Hannibal Lecter

Because I don’t know anyone’s specific goals in the gym I don’t randomly start telling them what to do. Even as a PT in the gym where I train and I suspect poor form or an alternative exercise might be useful I don’t approach a gym member and start telling them what to do.

If I get into conversation with somebody and we talk about training then I might offer advice if they want it. But otherwise I don’t intrude on their workout. Perhaps that’s bad practice for a PT who runs his business by people joining him for PT. My first day as a PT at Pure Gym I remember being told to go around and correct people’s form to get business. That lasted 5 minutes. I’m not a salesman. And anybody who trains in such gyms will probably know what I mean. You’re on the tready, earphones in trying to get a PB and Todd (that’s what his name badge says) tells you to go incline to work your quads. Todd, who needs to move around in the shower to get wet, can do one. When you’ve achieved your PB, go up to him and ask him what the names of the quadriceps are called. See if he knows.

Today, I didn’t have Todd approach me. He wasn’t even a PT. He was an old school weight lifter of about 70 years old. He had obviously lifted for a number of years but his body fat percentage meant that I couldn’t see his hard work. That’s fine. That’s what he does. He does what he does and I do what I do. So why did he want to disrupt my workout?

I had just finished a dumbbell press and he asked me how many reps I had just done.

“Ten” I replied. He laughed and told me that I should do double that amount. I laughed back and explained that I am currently staying in a specific weight and rep range for a few weeks. He then proceeded to lift something very heavy for a few half reps, barking and seething with each one.

His shoulders, wrists, knees and elbows were heavily strapped and he had a very tight lifting belt on. Had he been wheeled in with a muzzle he would’ve reminded me of Hannibal Lecter.

In the hour and half that I trained he hobbled over to at least ten different people and tried to instruct on their form, give advice or make quips on their previous set. Yet, without meaning any offence, Hannibal was pretty crocked. The straps give me the impression that there’s joint issues and wearing a belt during lat raises tells me his lower back must be weak and in pain. He might have lifted for many years and I hope he enjoys his workouts, but he didn’t inspire me to follow in his footsteps.

If I’m strapped up in 20 years time then I’ve not been training correctly for the past 20 years. But the old school training was a ‘lift heavy or go home’ sort of attitude. Rep ranges, splits, time under tension and nutrition isn’t really something associated with old school training.

I hadn’t seen Hannibal before. Perhaps his gym had closed, which isn’t unusual these days. The spit and sawdust gyms are being priced out by cheaper national gyms offering not just a gym, but swimming pools, fitness classes and in some cases squash courts, saunas and steam rooms. And the past two years has seen lots of small businesses suffer. The old school trainers are slowly making their way into the mainstream gyms.

Todd approaches people because he is trying to earn a living and build a career. Hannibal is doing it because he thinks he knows more than you from talking to some bodybuilder in 1970. I’m sure there will be a Todd or a Hannibal in your gym. You might have spotted them already. Todd will give up eventually and as for Hannibal, just throw him some fava beans and a nice Chianti and he’ll be on his way.

The Leg Press

If I were asked (which I am almost daily) what exercises are best for reaching a particular fitness goal my answer almost always involves using free weights. Free weights enables us to move in a non linea way which not only helps in avoiding joint pain/injuries but works the target muscles much more efficiently. Simply put, your muscles need to use more energy when working with free weights.

But that should not mean abandoning the resistance machines altogether. With a well constructed training programme they are still a very useful component in reaching fitness goals.

And one of the most useful of them all, in my opinion, is the leg press. In this article I will attempt to state my case for the leg press machine!

The leg press has one major advantage over the standard squat and that is foot position. Indeed, we can place a bar on the back or on the front side of the shoulders and we can can alter our foot position slightly during squats, but we can’t emphasize these positions quite as easily as with the leg press.

If you are uncomfortable with performing squats then I would suggest keeping them to body weight only or using lighter kettlebells or dumbbells. Squats, after all, are fantastic exercises. But if you want to either add weight or isolate different muscle groups in your legs then the leg press will allow you to do this with confidence.

Just like your arms, shoulders, chest and back your legs need to be worked not only by using compounds but with a variety of isolations. Below is an image to help you understand how your foot positions can help target different muscles in your legs… including your glutes!

Here’s another couple of pointers for performing the leg press…

* To grow Spartan legs you will still need to perform squats and deadlifts with heavy weights. Just like growing every other body part, skipping the free weight compounds for the easier adaptions won’t get the muscle growing for myofibril hypertrophy.

* People often use the leg press because they are suffering from back pain and therefore leave out the squats. But the leg press can cause back issues too if you lower the sled too low with very heavy weights as this can cause your glutes and lower back to lift from the seat, putting your lumbar disks at risk of injury.

* Never lock your knees. Not only will it take the tension from your target muscle but it will put the pressure onto your knees.

* And here is a very contentious one that might have the purists grumbling! But I see no issue with placing your hands on your knees at the lowest point of the sled. Why? Just like when you use a spotter to help you through a sticking point in a rep or when you perform a heavy set, you’re spotting yourself by placing your hands on your knees! It is only cheating if you use your upper body to assist in the push. Cushioning your eccentric rep is similar to your friend guiding your forearms on a chest press.

The bottom line is that the free weights section plays a huge part in our progression within our fitness goals, but resistance machines such as the leg press will complete a well rounded programme. Working your lower body is an essential part of any fitness goals as this is where most of your largest muscles are found, with the gluteals being the largest of them all. So make sure that squats and leg press are a part of your routine!

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