Warm up exercises

Warming up has always been hit and miss between different individuals. Some swear by it and would not attempt a training session without a thorough warm up, whereas your other regular gym goer does the occasional shoulder circles with some light sets.

Personally I’m with the prior mentioned as I’m a walking hospital patient… So the need to warm up for me is mandatory because I really do feel the difference in terms of suppleness and muscle activation.

But the one issue with warming up these days is the large variety of exercises/types of movements that are argued to be beneficial or not. So whilst I was doing my reading this month (not specifically warm up related), I stumbled across a great article by Dr John Rusin of www.drjohnrusin.com . Ironically the article was called ‘The best dynamic warm up exercises you aren’t doing’ – he really wasn’t wrong! If you want the link I’ll add it in at the end.

Although Dr Rusin mentioned 3, I’ve focused on 2 of the exercises he suggested as personally between me and my colleague, these seem to have been the most beneficial.

1. Medicine ball squat w/ reach and slam
When you read this exercise’s name, you already kind of think ‘how many different things?’ but that is the true beauty of this exercise!

This exercises emphasizes two keep components of training: the squat and hip hinge whilst engaging a large amount of ‘core’ muscles (however you choose to define them).

As demonstrated in the video, the basic steps are:

1. Place medicine ball between feet, about shoulder width.
2. Hinge down from the hips, maintain neutral spine whilst placing hands on the ball. Hold for 5 seconds
3. Sink into a deep squat whilst maintaining a neutral spine and contact with the ball. Use your elbows to press your thighs outwards. Hold for 5 seconds
4. Maintaining contact with ball, remove one hand and reach backwards whilst following hands position with your eyes. Hold for 5 seconds and repeat.
5. Grasp the medicine ball and hold it directly in front of you whilst in a squat position. Perform squat to the top position and reach overhead will ball.
6. Slam the ball hard to the ground

Self critique… I probably should’ve held the rotations for a little long but proud of my spine position throughout the movement.

Give it a try yourself and tell me you don’t feel nearly every muscle in your body being engaged!

2. Bear crawl w/ glute kickback
Give this one a chance before you right it off. I understand why people would overlook any kind of crawl… yes you can look silly but personally I think it’s pretty badass looking. Oh and the fact your stomach and lower back muscles are firing overtime to hold you in this position, they’ll be ready for whatever you decide to throw at them after!

I love this exercise personally as well because it can be progressed and regressed. Adding the glute kickback makes it more difficult particularly in terms of balance, but it also makes you have to focus on squeezing the correct muscles to provide the movement. Vice versa, you can just stick to the crawl aspect and still get a killer benefit from this warm up exercise!

Another critique… I’m aware these are not perfect I know. I’m still learning them as much as I hope you will! I could do better with regards to kicking directly back as opposed to performing a hip extension motion with a bent leg.

Since I’ve tried this crawl out, I’ve become quite fond of these kinds of moves as a whole and have realised how I really underrated them before! Continually expanding my horizons and throwing them into classes I teach – again another positive response.

This post is just to share some great new knowledge I have picked up through my reading and I highly recommend you visit Dr Rusin’s website, particularly this page which further details these warm up exercises: https://drjohnrusin.com/. From here I recommend you type in warm up into his website’s search tool and you’ll find out lots more on the topic of warming up that can be highly beneficial to you, for example hip and shoulder mobility.

Until next time guys!

Keep fit,

Kallum

 

 

 

 

Push ups for dummies

Push ups! Probably the most basic movement you can think of in terms of exercise, and probably used most commonly for a punishment by your PE teacher. Yes we all love to hate them, but if I were to ask 100 people could they do a push up with perfect form, I’d reckon the majority would be unable.

As easy as they seem, they really aren’t!

5 common errors

A nice little article by Rebooted Body describe 5 common errors of the push up, which I definitely agree with. In short these are:

1. Incorrect hand position
2. (Too) flared elbows
3. Poor head position
4. Unstable pelvis and core
5. Use of knee-down push ups

Walk around a gym after being taught a correct push up and your eyes would hurt with the number of times you would witness these errors.

From my experience, the main issue that leads to these errors is that people only consider this an upper body exercise…. WRONG 

When performed correctly, like a lot of exercises, it requires the entire body (similarly with deadlifting, squatting and benching – argument for another day).

A simplified version of my message from this post – some variables can be altered e.g. shoulder position, but factors such as core and glutes being activated are a must.

“How do I make this a full body exercise?”

Squeeze your ass and firm up your tummy! – this will stop the sagging of your hips, or vice versa, prevent your bum from reaching for the ceiling. Thus, maintains that neutral spine (great phrase there).

If I were to make this simpler…. Imagine you were performing a plank but with your arms in a push up position. The tightness you have during that exercise is a perfect transfer to the push up! – maintain this tightness during the lowering and elevation phases.

Push up regressions
In this day and age, as great as weight training is, body weight exercises are not to be overlooked but unfortunately are by most people. By the time someone is benching kilos for reps, a person is just as likely not to be able to complete a full push up…

And knee push ups are not a good substitute – they undermine the tightness we are trying to achieve so the knee push up isn’t best for progressing.

There are a number of ways to practice the push up:

1. Top to bottom – set yourself at the top position of a push up. Slowly lower to the point you can no longer hold good form; maintain this position for 3-5 seconds.
2. Bottom to top – lie down with arms and feet in position. From here, drive up as hard as you can till you can’t push any higher; maintain this position for 3-5 seconds.
3. Negatives – similar to top to bottom but a slight tweak. Focus on lowering yourself as slow as you can manage, all the way to the bottom position. If you can’t reach the bottom, perform this as an incline push up!
4. Inclines – by raising your starting position, it allows it to be easier. Place your arms on a bench, a box or even a bar in a squat rack (allows you to change height) and practice your form until you can perform regular push ups.

Click the link to watch the video demonstration –> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jrAMNN8AXI

 

So there you are, a basic rundown of common errors and ways to practice if you cannot perform a full push up! – give these a practice and apply to your training, and hopefully you’ll see some developments in your strength, not only for this exercise, but other exercises particularly pressing movements.

If you want tips of any other exercises, head on over to  these other posts by Muckerfitness:

• Lower back 
• Hip thrusts
• Bulgarian split squats
• Band walks (glutes) 
• Alternatives to sit ups 

Keep progressing forwards, it’s not as difficult as it once seemed.

Keep fit,

Kallum

Mango-jalapeño crab cakes!

 

The challenge to make mine look just like this (hopefully)

If I’m perfectly honest, I’m not a role model for healthy eating. I try to eat well enough but I’m not like most fitness people where you see them eating these wonderfully tasty, but healthy meals. My main reason, I’m not a real chef… I am learning though!

After reading a copy of ‘s Muscle and Fitness magazine (UK edition), me and my girlfriend decided to try one of the meals that they always provide pages on, and this month was all about fish.

Most of you have probably ran off thinking “ew fish…” Or something similar, but tell you what, this dish was beyond tasty and I will be having it again! Me and my girlfriend made our way to Tesco and got cooking! Here’s the recipe and basic instructions, good luck!

1. Preheat a small sauté pan over medium-low heat for 1 minute. Add olive oil and sauté peppers for 3 minutes. Remove from heat, and allow to cool. (Make sure you prep your veg, herbs etc first)
2. In a large bowl, combine all remaining ingredients except crab and olive oil spray (I didn’t use this). Once peppers have cooled, add to mixture along with the crab. Mix!
3. Using a cup or other measuring tool (roughly 55g), make individual crab cakes.
4. Preheat large sauté or grill pan over medium heat. Sear each cake for 3-4 minutes on each side, or until golden brown and warmed through. (be careful when flipping them!)

Presto! You have crab cakes and look like a fancy chef. Next to add sides to it: I chose to make sweet potato fries (add a tiny bit of salt and pepper for seasoning and over cook for about 30-40 mins). Great choice of low GI carbs these are (the better ones). I also added oven cooked asparagus which went down a treat.

Here’s the finished product… Slightly overdid the top but if I’m honest, I loved the little crunch anyway, and not bad for a first attempt!

The macros

In total this whole dish came to under 500 calories, with a good packing of protein! So be sure to give it a go as it’s a truly dish.

Keep fit,

Kallum

Why do we rely on scales?

Today, I am fueled by a rant that I started on yesterday.

How I felt upon seeing this post.

 

A simple little post on a buy/sell/swap page trying to sell innocent people a bogus ‘weight loss’ coffee product known as slim roast. If I’m honest, it really did piss me off if I’m blunt about it. Why though? Simply because the claims of coffee helping you to lose weight by ‘diminishing appetite, reducing sugar absorption, and reducing sugar cravings’.

Which milk is best for you?

It’s definitely been a while since  I’ve  last posted; 6 months in fact. Two good reasons for this:

1. I have just finished my 1st year of Uni in the last month
2. I suffered from crippling writers’ block

But recently my brain has spurred into life with some new ideas. Thinking about it now I probably would have benefitted from writing some of these down somewhere…

HIIT and Ignite The Fire

Hi guys!

Back again after another long break. But this time I have a good excuse; end of semester exams and Christmas.

With my head buried in the books for the last few weeks, I knew I wanted to post an update of what I had been doing but unfortunately I could not manage to find the time. However, with all my exams out the way, my belly full of beef, turkey and ham, I can happily sit down and tap away at my keyboard.

Motivation Monday

It’s Monday again! That means it’s time to start the week over again, head to work, do your chores and toil through another week worth of training… Oh joy.

However, I found a great little picture the other day which might give you a more positive outlook on your training week! After all, Monday is often a day we could do with a little extra motivation.
  
 
See… 50 valid reasons for you to make sure you drag yourself to the gym when you’re feeling tired this week and get in that awesome workout, maybe break a few PRs or try a new exercise, possibly even meet one of your goals! Either way, today make sure you kickstart your week with a great workout so the rest of your week can follow in similar style! 

If you’re looking more motivational pictures to keep you going, or a few laughs to keep your spirits high, head on over to Instagram! —-> @muckerfitness as we have been running our IG page for a few weeks now with great response and interaction! Maybe it’ll give you that boost you need! 

  

As always, we wouldn’t be complete without a Twitter page either… Surprise, surprise we are @muckerfitness! 

  
From me personally, enjoy your Monday and I hope you all have a great week, whether it be at home, work, school or the gym!  

Keep fit,  

Kallum 

Which comes first, cardio or weights?

Recently I have spent large amounts of my time reading line after line of this book I was recommended (thank you Jon Goodman of the PTDC). I was skeptical when I bought the book off Amazon for a total of £8.53. But, by far it has been one of the best purchases I have ever made​

The Battle With Weight Loss

“I’ve lost 2 pounds this week”

To start off on a blunt note, I really lose my rag when people are only focused on their weight and what the scales say. But then the professional in me feels sorry for those who do because it’s how society and our system has bashed this information into our heads. Weight isn’t everything, I prefer focusing on fat loss… 

‘Toning’, a fitness myth

This is one topic which bothers me, and I’m sure bothers many others involved in the fitness industry. The fitness industry is full with both males and females wanting the same thing:

I don’t want to get bulky, I just want to be toned