It is impossible to do something perfectly AND learn from it. If it was ‘perfect’, what have you learned? And yet I see many lifters expecting to be able to do a new drill or a new weight lifting technique perfectly (or near enough) first time. Chasing perfection basically means that you are trying to […]
Many people come to me to improve their squat technique. There are so many of you out there who want to squat more weight (yay!) but you have plateaued at a particular weight, or the weight seems to be increasing at a glacial pace. When I meet someone who has plateaued for a long time […]
Imagine a wet noodle deadlifting 100kg! Knees, hips, back all moving from side to side and collapsing over. I’ve seen quite a few ‘wet noodle’ deadlifts in my time. They are more common in women, because women tend to be more mobile and curvy (e.g. narrower waist relative to hips).
I meet a lot of lifters who want to go to max all the time. I understand the temptation. You are on a roll, on the steep part of the strength curve, and you want to see how far you can push it. PBs are exciting, they are something to celebrate! But going to max […]
Recently I’ve been seeing a lot of people using a deadlift stance that is too wide. This limits the amount of weight you can pull off the floor and in some people can put unnecessary strain on the knee ligaments. I often get clients coming to me who have been lifting before and want to […]
At our last powerlifting team training session, I had the athletes doing sets of 4-6 reps on the bench press at 85% of max. It’s quite tough! One of my athletes did her first set, ably spotted by her training buddy. Rep 5 was a bit of a grinder but she managed it. I was […]
This article is about the rear foot elevated (rfe) split squat and the split squat – the variations I use with my clients, how I use them, and the reasons I use them. I hope you will take plenty away from this article, but do bear in mind that there are many other variations and […]
Picture the scene: a typical Monday evening in a commercial gym. The place is rammed! Yes, there are so many treadmills that one or two are still available, but you are here to lift weights and get stronger, dammit! A treadmill ain’t gonna cut it. The weight room is also rammed. Every bench is taken, […]
Many clients come to me saying that they can’t squat below parallel. It turns out that after working with me for a session or two, around half of them can squat below parallel. And the rest have all improved their squat depth significantly. I’d love to say I’m some kind of mad genius, but my […]
As a strength personal trainer, I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me “I don’t want to lift heavy because I am afraid I will injure myself”. But it’s perfectly possible to injure yourself with a warm up weight, lifting weights the right way with proper form is the […]