What is plank?

Written by ladies personal trainer Justina Triasovaite.

Exercises that do not require any special place, environment, equipment or focus are the best ones, plank is one of them. Plank is an exercise that strengthens your entire body – from building your back strong to firming up your lower back. It is a form of exercise similar to a pushup in which you maintain a position for the maximum possible time. Its one of my most favourite exercise for abs.

Muscles engaged

transversus abdominis muscle
gluteus medius and gluteus minimus muscles
the adductor muscles of the hip
Internal and external obliques

How-to perform

There are several forms in plank but the basic one as mentioned above is similar to a pushup. To perform this exercise, get down in apushup position on the floor and bend your arms at 90 degrees resting your weight on the forearms. The position of your elbows should be in a way that they are directly beneath your shoulder . Your body’s position should be in a way that it forms a straight line from head to your feet. You goal should be to hold and maintain the same position for at least 2 minutes. Few of the other forms of planks are; leg raised plank, one sided plank and elbow plank.

Benefits

Improves posture
Activates core muscles
Enhances appearance
Decreases risks of back injuries
Boosts metabolism

Common mistakes

It is very important to maintain a perfect form while performing a plank otherwise you will lose all the body benefits.

One of the major mistakes that people do while performing a plank is that they let their hips drop. The actual form of your hip should be in a way that it is in line with your heel and head.
You do not position your hands in a proper manner, either they are too apart or you stagger them.
Another mistake is bending of knees. Bending the knees reduces the effectiveness of your body.
People think abs is all about your back and forget that if you tighten your stomach muscles, you can work on your abs.
Many people put pressure on their shoulders and round them, this strain your shoulders and neck.

Variations/progressions

There are several variations in plank; here are a few of them picked for you by female personal trainer Justina Triasovaite.

Basic: more like a pushup in which you bend your arms in a 90 degree position resting weight on the forearms

Plank with a leg raise: similar as a basic plank but each leg has to be raised 5 – 6 inches off the floor one at a time

Spiderman: start off with a basic plank and then move your knee one by one towards your elbow without twisting or moving upper torso. Then bring back the leg down and do the same with other leg

Rocking: start with a basic plank position and slowly rock back and forth by moving your head away and towards from your hands.

Who should do this exercise

Plank is a form of exercise that can be done by all whether you are at a beginner, intermediate or advanced level. For those who are at the beginning stage of doing workouts a 1+ minute is good for them, for intermediates 3+ minutes and for advanced level 5+ minutes. Give it a go! add extra 10-20 sec each time you atempting to perform this exercise.

If you enjoyed this article click here for more chest exercises written by female personal trainer Justina

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All you need to know about lunges

Written by ladies personal trainer Justina Triasovaite.

A lunge is a form of exercise in which one leg is positioned forward with knee bent and foot flat while the other one is positioned behind. It is used by several people with several purposes. Yogis use it for asana regimen, weight trainers use it for fitness and athletes use it for cross training in sports.

How-to perform

Just like other exercises, lunges also have several variations but a basic form of lunge is:

where you keep your upper body in a straight position

shoulders relaxed at the back and chin up.

put your one foot in front lowering your hip until both of your knees are bent at about 90 degrees.

Please check out the video below where famele personal trainer Justina is demonstarting different varieteis of lunges:

Benefits

There is a numerious great benefits you will get after performing this great exercise on weekly basis:

Improves hip flexibility

Greater core strength

Strengthens gluteal muscles

Gives a firm rounded shape to your hips

Improves balance and coordination

Targets most of your lower body muscles

Common mistakes

Lunges can be quite complicated exercise for a begginer, make sure you follow the rules...

· Biggest mistake while performing a lunge is that you think you are dropping your knees too much but you are not. The correct form is to get your back knee almost touch the floor.

· Many people fall down with their upper body because they do not keep their core strength engaged.

· People think justbending down one knee is the form of a lung, whereas, the correct form is to bend enough where your knee is aligned with you ankle.

· Sometimes the lunge is too long or too short.

· Because your body is not at a balance and your back is not straight, your front knee gets shaky and eventually leads to a fall.

· Body weight is not distributed accurately.

Variations/progressions

· Walking lunge (my favourite) : do a basic lunge as mentioned above and then start walking before your bent leg makes contact with the floor.

· Reverse Lunge: it is similar to walking lunge just that you have to step backward at exactly the same width as you take in moving forward.

· Rear elevated foot lunge: put your one foot at a bench or a step keeping your toes pointed, foot flexed pressuring the ball of your other foot. Bend down on your foot that is not on the bench or step until it almost touches the floor and then drive back up through the other leg to the starting position.

· Slider lunge: stand with your feet hip width apart. Place the slider under your foot and push it back until hip is completely stretched and knee almost touching the floor. Apply the pressure on the slide and bring your leg back to the original position.

Who should do this exercise

Lunges are the best exercises for your butt and legs. It can be done by anyone whether you are a beginner, intermediate or advanced. For beginners it is suggested to do basic planks, for intermediates walk or reverse lunges and for advanced level professionals it is suggested that they use weights or dumbbells to make it more energetic.

If you enjoyed this article click here for related article written by female personal trainer Justina

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All you need to know about bench press

Written by ladies personal trainer Justina Triasovaite.

How can anyone ignore the classic exercise of training your upper body? Bench Press is the certainly one of the best lift that you can do to your upper body. It is the time to achieve your dream muscular body with a dash of endless effort. The real charm of bench press lies in building a strong and massive upper body and much of the gym-freaks and great lifters spend their time perfecting the Bench Press Game with female personal trainer Justina.

Muscles engaged

The chect press involves the working of numerous upper-body muscles but the ultimate focus lies on the pectorals main muscles of the chest. When performed on routine-basis, it imparts thickness, muscle clarity and strength to the chest. As a combinational exercise, bench press also involves the triceps and deltoids that are a part of completing the movement properly. In addition to this, bench presses also engaged biceps that serve as active stabilizers and finally it involves the secondary muscles including rhomboids, serratus anterior and rotator cuff as well.

Triceps
Pecs
Rotator cuff
Rhomboids
Serattus anterior

How-to perform

Hosting a bucket full of benefits, chest press is easy to perform if you are good enough to master the simple trick that we have shared.

Simply lie down and sit at the extreme end of your flat bench
Squash your Shoulder-blades and lift your chest up high while tightening your upper-back
Grasp The Bar
Place Your Feet properly or simply keep your feet flat on the floor using a shoulder-width posture
Exhale out while lifting the bar up

Benefits

The major benefit of doing bench press is maximum overload on chest muscles. This exercise allows you to aim the pecs with chunks of weight. Bench press has eventually no comparison as it entails the ability to aim chest muscles with heavy loads

It is an amazing exercise to develop muscle mass on your upper body that means improving muscle growth and adding some real mass to your body.

Bench press is best known for increasing and improving push strength as it strikes the chest mainly along with shoulders and triceps. As a result, these muscles turn stronger for a few other exercises such as barbell overhead press or dips.

It provides you with bragging rights. Oh yeah! If you have certainly made your way with proper training and technique, there’s no shame in bragging and telling the whole world about your ultimate bench press strength.

The amazing health benefit linked with chest press is that it reduces cholesterol levels and frequent training reduces the risk of diabetes.

Common mistakes

One of the frequent mistakes made by weight-lifters is thinking “less is more”. Do not over train yourself at all as it can lead to serious aches and injuries.

Another blunder made while performing bench press is neglecting “warm up” completely. By performing lighter warm-up sets you will be able to store your energy for the heavier weights and a massive finish.

The most common mistake is lowering the bar incorrectly on the chest. Make sure you don’t expand your shoulders and pecs while benching.

Variations/progressions

Kick away the conventional method of bench press and try out the listed bench press variations by best female personal trainer Justina

Reverse Grip Bench Press: Push away the boring method of training the upper chest and try out reverse grip bench press that increases upper pec activation by 30% when compared to traditional method of bench press.

Close Grip Bench Press This fantastic variation focuses on developing triceps. Grab the par with both hands held close together and continue the movement which would require your triceps to work and function harder.

Who should do this exercise

Walk in to the gym; look around and yes you are free to indulge in bench press exercise. There is no limitation and this exercise is great for everyone including beginners or trainers alike.

If you enjoyed this article click here for more chest exercises written by female personal trainer Justina

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Email: [email protected]
Mobile (text or call): 07944 916 9906
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All you need to know about shoulder press

Written by ladies personal trainer Justina Triasovaite.

Meet the best-known and wondrous full body exercise named as “Shoulder Press”. This combinational exercise involves the procedure in which your arms and shoulders press the weight over head whereas the lower back, legs and abs are meant to balance your posture while performing it. It is flawless exercise for those who look for developing big and muscular shoulders with strong arms.

Muscles engaged

An amazing way to attain balance in strength levels comprises numerous shoulder press variations either seated or standing, with or without support.

Back
Mid deltoids
Triceps
Rotator cuff
Scapular muscles
Traps and lats

How-to perform

Try out shoulder press super-easy technique with your female personal trainer Justina

Grab a dumb bell in both hands
Get seated on bench that offers back support
Set the dumbbells upright on top of things
Now lift the dumbbells to shoulder height (one at a time) while utilizing your thighs to raise them up in to the position

Benefits

Shoulder press offers you with a full body workout. This Olympic-styled lift appears more than an upper body building exercise and is known for delivering s full body workout.

An amazing benefit of shoulder press is that it improves your lockout strength. Thus, it helps in increasing your ability to extend your elbows repeatedly.

The shoulder press exercise provides the advantage of improved shoulder health and safeguard against injuries when performed correctly.

A major benefit of shoulder press exercise is that it strengthens bones. While lifting, the load placed on bones by the weights forces them to adapt just like muscles. As a result, bones turn stronger which reduces the risk of osteoporosis.

Lastly, another awesome benefit of performing shoulder press exercise is that it helps one develop upper body mass and strength. It’s certainly the best exercise for getting most noticeable results with a stronger and bigger upper body.

Common mistakes

The main mistake made while performing shoulder press is gym-freaks don’t identify and differentiate the primary and secondary movers of the exercise. Don’t overwork your front delts in shoulder press exercise.

Another culprit of shoulder press is focusing on weights and overlooking muscle stimulation.

Lastly, gym trainers utilize too much of momentum without realizing that each delt head is small and for that they need to minimize both momentum and assistance from other muscles of the body.

Variations/progressions

Ditch the boring and conventional methods of shoulder-press and this time try something new instead. Here are three shoulder press variations with a much-needed twist.

Glute bridge combo - Get creative with this variation combo with an additional benefit of working on your glutes while performing shoulder press. Offering an additional leg drive, this variation will let you cheat the bench press by bringing your butt up and excessively arching your back muscles.

Reverse Grip Squeeze Press - So here goes everyone’s favorite shoulder press variation! Reverse Grip Squeeze Press serves as a great way to hit your pecs and to pump up your body fully after an exhausting workout.

Eccentric-Focus Single Arm PressThis - This variation serves as an effective training tool by combining explosive leg drive along with upper body strength. This movement targets the entire body ranging from head to toe while pressing each arm individually with an added benefit of stimulating the rotary stability muscles.

Who should do this exercise

This exercise is best suited for gym trainers and professionals especially while trying out the advanced variations with shoulder press. Moreover, beginners can give it a try too with proper assistance of top female personal trainer.

If you enjoyed this article click here for more shoulders exercises written by female personal trainer Justina

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Email: [email protected]
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All you need to know about bend over row

Written by ladies personal trainer Justina Triasovaite.

Bend Over Row stands out for being the most effective weight training exercises that aims numerous back muscles. This amazing exercise is great for gym-freaks who are interested in bodybuilding and powerlifting. Know more about this wonderful exercise for increasing strength and size. Perform a single move for a bigger and stronger back!

Muscles engaged

The main muscle involved in this amazing Bend Over Row exercise is your middle back and muscles too.

Middle back
Lats
Biceps
Shoulders

How-to perform

Try out bend over row super-easy technique with your female personal trainer Justina

Grab a barbell with pronated grip
Bend your knees a little bit and move your body forward while bending at the waist
Keep your back flat and straight until it turns almost parallel to the floor
Keep your abs contracted
Head in neutral possition

Benefits of rowing

The first and foremost benefit of performing Bend Over Row is that it helps develop a strong back. It is definitely one of the best exercises as it boosts your strength within no time.

Bend Over row involves pulling weights as quick as possible without breaking the posture and therefore trains you for explosiveness.

Who doesn’t love getting a big and stronger back? It is counted among one of the best lifts for developing plumper back muscles.

This fantastic exercise teaches you how to bend at hips flexibly (in opposition to the waist).

·Once you master Bend Over Row exercise, you turn out much stronger to carry over other major movements with great ease.

Common mistakes

The major blunder done while performing Bend Over Row is smacking the knee bend. The perfect way of knee bending is 15-20 degrees and make sure this stays constant throughout the movement.

Standing over a bench while performing bend over row endures the risk of falling off the bench that might result in to serious injuries while you are lifting heavy weights.

Deadlifts and cleans are both great movements, but don't make the mistake of turning the bent-over row into a quasi-version of either. You do that by simultaneously rowing and rising up from your hips, which are sometimes done when you use a weight that's too heavy. That action actively engages the lower-back musculature, which to this point had been only isometrically contracting to hold your spine in place.

Variations/progressions

Inverted Row: This variation is perfect for beginners as it activates the back muscles of our body. Try out inhaling and exhaling to get most out of it while performing this amazing Bend Over Row variation.

Kroc row: Popularized after the name of Janae Marie Kroc, this variation calls for lifting grip compensating straps that weigh up to 300 lbs.

Chinese dumbbell row: This variation was introduced by the Chinese Weightlifting team with heavy weight lifts and excessive repetition scheme. Chinese Dumbbell row is famous for offering wider range of motion and awakening the muscles.

Who should row

Everyone should do bend over row at least 2 times a week. Beginner, intermediate or advanced. No exception. Make sure that you are building up slowly your resistance. start with light weigh barbell or dumbbells.

If you enjoyed this article click here for more back exercises

Need more info?

Email: [email protected]
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