With summer here we're well into holiday season and we notice a far bigger emphasis than any other time of year for people wanting to alter their body composition in one way or another. For males it might be bigger biceps and a six pack, for females it is usually to be more toned around the backside and legs. If you're adding weight training to your usual BMF sessions, Mark Wood, Head of Education and Training, has put together some simple ways to vary your exercise routine:
Now anatomy is pretty simple.For example:
- The biceps flex the elbow
- The glutes extend the hip
- The adductors adduct the hip
However if this was the only way to workout, exercise would get pretty boring. At this point usually a couple of things can happen, either they become boring or people start developing exercises that look like they belong in the circus.
Fortunately there are a huge variety of ways to alter exercises to make them either easier or more challenging whilst still maintaining the effectiveness of the exercise. As trainers it is essential that we have the ability to progress or regress exercises and we must understand when to use each one and how to apply them.
- Lever length – if you need to make exercise easier move the weight closer to the fulcrum. If you want to make exercise harder just do the complete opposite. Take the plank as an example. A basic plank is potentially quite easy, but lifting one arm off the floor and placing it stretched out in front of the body will increase the intensity.
- Time under tension (TUT) – this a great variable and extremely effective. Usually if we are to manipulate this we will spend time slowing down the eccentric phase of the exercise. It is a great tool for those who believe they have hit a wall with strength improvements and a great plateau buster.
- Weight – quite simply we can add or remove resistance. Using partners to do this is a great tool to promote some interaction in groups too.
- Shape of equipment – using odd-shaped equipment is another way to alter the intensity of an exercise. Take a sandbag for example. The weight within the bag is not distributed evenly, therefore making some exercises more challenging. A kettlebell is also another great example as the weight is distributed towards the end and makes conventional dumbbell exercises harder.
- Stance – although we are very used to hearing the common coaching point of ‘feet shoulder width apart’ it is not the only way to perform exercises. Even just manipulating this can change the intensity of exercises. Try some of these:
- Split stance
- Narrow stance
- Kneeling
- Half-kneeling
- Wide stance
- Rest time – this is something every trainer will learn about during their time of a course, but very few pay that much attention too. Using rest times appropriately will ensure the effectiveness of your session. At times we may shorten those guided times if we are looking to place additional stresses, but remember not to do this too often.
- Range of motion – we are always told to perform with a full range of motion. For the most part this is true, but do not be afraid to add in half reps, cheat reps, semi-reps, or whatever you want to call them. As long as there is a good reason for the use of them and they are performed safely, at times, they may come in handy.
- Grip – we all know hard it is to run around a park at BMF carrying logs. Have you ever tried making the handle on the log twice as thick and asking the members to perform the same task? In just a matter of seconds we will have completely adjusted to intensity of the exercise.