Are you just not seeing results from the fitness program you’re doing? Whatever your particular situation is, it might be time to look at the way in which you are performing the important exercises in your plan. Very often, all it takes is one small tweak to that movement to get you seeing results again.
Let’s walk you through some of the common errors that many people often make with their exercises so that you can see for certain how to adjust them in your workout plan.
1. The Full Squat
Of all the moves you do in your workout program, perhaps the full squat is the most important. Squats work multiple muscle groups at once, boost your heart rate, and will enhance your balance and agility.
The biggest error made with this movement is not going all the way down to the ground. Remember, if you move halfway through an exercise, you’ll see half the results. By going all the way down to the ground in the squat, you’ll get greater glute activation, meaning better butt building results. If you want that round, curved backside, squatting as low down to the ground as possible is a necessity.
2. The Bent Over Row
Now we come to the bent over row. The biggest mistake here is letting momentum take over the exercise.
As you bend over, you want to really think of squeezing the shoulder blades back and together as you lift the bar up towards the chest. Never swing the weight upward or you’ll have very little muscle activation and put yourself at risk for lower back pain. Keep the back as stationary as possible and that too will help ensure it’s only muscular power driving this movement.
3. The Crunch
The front crunch is another commonly performed exercise that will help build muscular strength and endurance throughout the core – if you perform it correctly.
This move is all about the mind-muscle connection. You need to really focus on just squeezing those abs as you let the upper body rise up into the crunch position and then lower it back down again. Never pull on the back of your head with your hands or swing the body upward using momentum in this movement as well. Slow, controlled, and steady – that needs to be how this exercise is performed.
4. The Push-Up
Finally, when doing push-ups, make sure that you don’t short yourself here like you may have been doing on your squats.
Go all the way down to the ground so that your chest is just inches from touching. Half push-ups will do very little to build muscular strength. If anything, they’ll just put excess stress on your shoulder and elbow joints as you bounce up and down through the movement. Lower down on a three count, pause at the bottom for a one count, and then press up over a two count. This will really have you feeling the muscles you’re targeting.
Clean up these four exercises in your workout program and you’ll be amazed at the results that you start to see.
