Warming up before exercise is crucial because it prepares your body for what’s to come. Stretching before physical activity ensures that all of the muscles are stretched out and ready to move, making it a great way to warm up before exercise. Whether you’re preparing to tackle one of the big 5 lifts, ensuring […]
When building strength, barbell squats are one of the most effective exercises you can do. Squats are a compound, full body movement that can help you build strength and muscle when performed with proper form. The barbell squat is one of the most effective exercises to increase raw strength and power because of how it […]
When it comes to pull-ups, we’ve all had the same experience of wondering which grip is best. Hands facing the body? Hands facing away? One hand each way? Even the amount of different bars can be confusing! The problem is, if we’re unsure exactly what to do, we might be getting it wrong. This could […]
Today we’re going to be talking about a topic which slightly divides the weightlifting world: Deloading. Some lifters will groan inwardly at the very mention of the word “deload”. Why? Because they see it as a waste of time. Many fear that taking a week to lift lighter and do less will harm their progress, […]
Kettlebell swings are an incredibly versatile and impactful exercise. Using an explosion of power resonating from a harmonious connection between your glutes, hips and hamstrings, they’re capable of boosting muscular power, increasing endurance and even burning the same amount of calories in 20 minutes (400) as you would on a cross country ski. Outside of […]
Once upon a time, overhead squats were mostly used by olympic athletes. However, thanks to the meteoric rise of CrossFit, overhead squats are now commonplace in all kinds of strength and weight training programmes. This is good news, and bad news. Good news because overhead squats are incredibly beneficial for core strength, balance, stability and […]
When gym goers head to the rack to lift weights, there’s normally a number of reasons why they’re doing it. It could be to enhance their general health, to increase their speed, or to enhance their endurance and explosiveness. However, out of all the possible reasons listed, there are usually two prominent ones: To increase […]
To the untrained eye, powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting don’t look all that dissimilar. Lifters of either sport will attempt to pull heavy weights from off the ground, they’ll both throw their weights down pretty aggressively when done, and to a certain extent, they’ll even both use the same types of equipment for training, like barbells, […]
Staying with this month’s bench pressing theme, it’s time to shine some light on another variation of the bench press: The close-grip bench press. As you may have guessed, the close-grip bench press involves performing the press with your hands much closer together on the bar in a narrower grip. Whereas the conventional bench press […]
A few months ago, I sent a survey out to my email list and the wider lifting community, asking them for their feedback on the most infuriating myths about ladies who lift. In my vast years of experience, I have lost count of the amount of times women have been dissuaded from lifting by remarks […]