April, 2014 | Shape Up Fitness & Wellness Consulting

4 Crucial Exercises to Train Your Glutes!

A lot of our personal training clients come here because they are dissatisfied with their physique, look for improved physical performance, or are simply looking to prevent problems with knees or backs. An important part to the answer is: the hip or more specifically the glutes, also known as your butt!

Today I want to introduce 3 exercises into your routine that can really make a difference!

Background of the glutes:

The glutes are responsible for:

stabilizing your hip during unilateral movements(e.g. running, climbing stairs, etc)
stabilizing hip bilaterally (e.g. golf, squats, deadlifts, )
are drivers in pretty much any movements out of the lower body.

If the glutes don’t fulfill their functions back pain, knee pain, and loss of performance are the consequences.

The aesthetic aspect would be the muscular, round butt. I am not talking about a big booty here but rather a firm rounding that transitions the back into the leg vs. just a flat surface 🙂

4 Exercises that make a difference with your butt

Barbell Bridges:

If you have moved on beyond the regular bridge because you are strong enough. this is a great exercise to activate the glutes and kick it up to the next level. Make sure the core is stable (neutral spine) and you continue breathing. Keep the weight on the heels and then fully extend the hip up. Do not arch your back at the top of the movement. When you position yourself on the bench initially make sure that your shoulders rest on the bench, not your head or neck.

Front Squat (thighs parallel or below)

This is a great exercise to improve your functional strength but cannot be performed by everyone. Make sure the back stays in a neutral spine. You are still able to breathe. At the bottom of the movement there should be no “hip tuck”. “Pressing” your feet apart while coming up during the movement helps with the glute activation.The stance is a shoulder width or a little bit wider. Make sure that you do not compromise a stacked spine just to accomplish more depth.

Single Leg Squat

To be quite honest, this is probably in some ways my favorite exercise and least favorite exercise. It is challenging and without little additional weight you can have some excellent stimulation for glutes, hamstrings and quads. The big advantage of this exercise is the fact that the spine gets only loaded minimally but balance represents big challenge. Using small weights as counterweights really help do this exercise.

Single Leg DB Deadlifts

Deadlifts like squats are often limited by our backs capacity to carry the weight. A single leg deadlift with dumbbells, kettlebells or a barbell takes that strain off and the load on the carrying leg is so much higher. Make sure to bend the standing leg slightly as you go through the movements, otherwise the activation will be primarily out of your hamstrings due to the pre-stretch. In addition there is a chance that you will pull the hamstring by keeping the leg straight, or rounding your back more because of lack of mobility.

30 Apr 2014

5 Steps to Transforming Your Lifts Into Greatness

A personal trainer’s rant about technique

I am male personal trainer, which in return means I have an ego when it comes to lifting weights. I like to lift heavy and I want to get better every day. Now, I am not a bodybuilder, I run too much and have a more ectomorph bodytype but I am a multi-discipline athlete who lifts weights 4 days a week, runs 3 days a week and does martial arts 3-4 days a week.[video_player type=”youtube” youtube_auto_play=”Y” youtube_remove_logo=”Y” width=”360″ height=”180″ align=”right” margin_top=”2″ margin_bottom=”20″ border_size=”2″]aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g/dj1QTlpNUlM2cG5xSQ==[/video_player]

I am definitely competitive but what I have seen in gyms, especially under the guidance of “so called personal trainers” is terrible. They have people do “butt to the floor” squats and their client’s form falls apart. A deadlift is performed with no regards to form, and what some people consider a chin up or a pull up I call wildly swinging from a bar and getting up with no regards to shoulder stability and lower back issues. I have included a short two minute video for your amusement. The video of one of our clients below is an example on how to do the same exercise correctly: [video_player type=”youtube” youtube_auto_play=”Y” width=”320″ height=”180″ align=”right” margin_top=”3″ margin_bottom=”20″ border_size=”3″]aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g/dj1xQmJoLUh4N1NNNA==[/video_player]

The forgiving body

When you are younger you can get away with a lot of that crap for quite a while before payback comes and hits you square in the head. What is our primary goal as personal trainers or athletes?

Health. Without it I cannot reach my other goals. As a trainer I am responsible for the person in my care. If I want that person to work out for the rest of her/his life, I have to make sure that the body stays healthy!

There is no point in having a personal record one week when the pain resulting from it puts me or my client out of commission for two weeks or longer.

5 Action Steps To Lifelong Performance

Learn a movement first before you start loading it up. Use a coach or a reputable personal trainer. It does not matter if we talk about lifting weights, running, swimming, or golf. You need to have the necessary skill set.
Use a spotter frequently and have them tape you. Compare your form with athletes that know what they are doing.
Instead of muscle failure go for technical failure. The moment you cannot do a squat, bench press, push up, etc. with good form your muscles have failed even though you might be able to muscle the weight up.
Pain is your body’s signal that something is wrong. You should not be in pain, not during a workout or afterward. You might be sore but pain should never be the case. If you have pain you did something wrong, or your body is structurally not made to perform this particular exercise especially if you have a pre-existing medical history.
Reality check – I am working out alone. I often don’t have a spotter. Each training I am asking myself: Am I doing this correctly? Do I use the correct form, full range of movement? Am I taking shortcuts in order to lift heavier, run further or faster? Sometimes that answer is yes! I go down in weight (A real woman or man is capable of going down in weight!), distance or speed. I have to readjust and work on my technique again.

I hope these 5 tips will help you be the best you can be in your training! I want you to perform at your best, so you can be your best!

Let me know if you need help with your weight training,

Michael

16 Apr 2014

4 Crucial Ways of Kick Starting Your Metabolism

Personal Training has been using so called High Intensity Intervals (HIIT) for a while now. But there are other ways of boosting your metabolism into gear in order to burn some fat. I am presenting in my eyes the top three ways of getting your metabolism going that our personal trainers use!

HIIT: Yep, we still use it. High intensity intervals either during or after your training session are a great way of
increasing your metabolism. High Intensity intervals means you are breathing really hard, you are not capable of watching a movie, or read, you do sweat (profusely) and you are kicking some butt. The intervals usually last between 10-60s and the rest intervals are anywhere between 20s-2 min long. The total cardiovascular workout, if done after the training should not last longer than 20-30 min max including cool down
Nutrition: Yep, nutrition does play a crucial role in the maintenance of your metabolism. In order to digest protein the body has to spend more energy (about 25% of the ingested caloric value). We recommend a protein intake should be about 0.7-1g of protein/lb of bodyweight for a healthy person depending on goals. As an example a 160 lbs female looking to lose weight and working out 3 days a week would probably take in 112g of protein on off days and 130g on training days.
Weight Training: In our sedentary world it is more crucial than ever to go and pick up some weights and train. The heaviest thing that I lift when I do not train clients is my 16 oz water bottle. That is not considered lifting weights (in case you were wondering)! Lifting weights based on a well designed training plan can help you gain necessary muscle mass or avoid losing muscle during your fat loss process. Each pound of muscle burns roughly 50 kcal. Does not sound like much? Trust me, it can make all the difference.
General physical activity: This one cannot be overemphasized. Every movement helps. Go on hikes on the weekend, play with your children in the park, anything but sitting on your behind for too long. The more you keep moving the better. Buy a Fitbit, or another toy that keeps track of your activities and motivates you to move. You would not think it matters that much but it surely does. I for one started using a standing desk more frequently at work because I felt I was more and more stuck behind a desk than training clients.

Look at it this way: A high level of general physical activity gives you a good base metabolism. The HIIT and weight training 2-3 days a week makes sure the metabolism stays high as you lose the weight.

The nutrition makes sure that the muscles have the right nutrients and the digestive system is doing its part for your metabolism.

One thing about nutrition. More protein is not necessarily better. If the protein intake is too high that can be stress on kidneys, etc. Please make sure that your nutrition is a balanced diet of unprocessed foods based on veggies, fruits, grass-fed meat, wild caught fish (careful with mercury poisoning). Though I don’t personally have dairy, legumes (beans, etc.) or grains I would go for the least processed products there as well if you choose to eat them.

One of my clients recently pointed out (thank you Pam!) that not everyone necessarily knows what processed food is. We are talking about foods that come with a longer ingredient lists: Bread, Pasta, jam, processed yogurts. Be careful of low fat foods they often replace fat with sugar or artificial sweeteners in order to improve the taste.

Simply put start cooking again. I know that is not very popular. We live in a society that goes to the bank without stepping out of the car, the same at the drug store to get the diabetes medication, going to the grocery store to get the stuff we bough online and then to eat “healthy” fast food off to Chick-fil-A. Total steps taken “0”. Looking at my environment every day, I made it my goal to help people be healthier. Nobody needs to have a 6-pack. But people should have a healthy weight and be reasonably fit.

If you need help with any of those 4 ways, please let me know. I am looking forward to help you accomplish your goals!

Have a kick ass start into the weekend,