Common Mistakes

You have probably heard by now, me saying that we are all exercising incorrectly, so let’s start exploring this controversial statement, and explaining why. There are so many exercises, positions, and movements that are embedded in our exercising culture – exercises that we are loyal to, exercises that we have all done thousands of times, believing that they are fundamental exercises that we must do.

For example, are you spending lots of your gym time working on the traditional plank position. This exercise has swept through the entire exercising world, and you have probably been brainwashed to believe that it is essential for your core stability, great for your lower back, your glutes, and your posture.

Let me tell you that you are wasting your time – this is probably the most over performed and under delivering exercise of all. Also, if you are a regular gym goer, you have without doubt done hundreds or thousands of bench presses or chest flies, shoulder presses, lateral raises, frontal raises, deadlifts, upright rows, face pulls, bent over rows, press ups, or dips. Have you ever really questioned any of these exercises – why do we all feel that we must do them?

There hasn’t been a weight training routine ever formulated that doesn’t have these traditional, staple exercises firmly embedded in them. But I am here to tell you that this must change, you must stop performing theses exercises in the traditional way. I will show you how and why you must modify these exercises if you want to keep using them. Without these modifications you are almost certainly on a fast track to muscle and joint pain. Similarly, with squats and lunges, these must do compound exercises have as much potential to cause problems as they do to be great productive exercises, if we don’t perform them correctly.

Also, let’s look at the good old hamstring stretch. There is no doubt that stretching your hamstrings is crucial, but are you doing it correctly. The lying down position, with a strap, band or towel wrapped around your forefoot, and pulling the whole leg back into a strong stretched position is classic in so many gym routines, Pilates, and yoga classes, but it is simply wrong. The whole world needs to understand how to modify this stretch, or simply not use it at all.

All these exercises, and so many more are causing us untold muscle and joint problems. Remember it’s not how hard we train, it’s how smart we train. As a Sport scientist it is my duty to show you how to modify all these exercises and train scientifically smarter. Remember, detail is everything, and it’s the detail of these exercises that are incorrect. So let me be your Personal Trainer, let my knowledge and experience guide you. Follow my masterclasses, routines, my TOP TIPS and secrets that I have used with all my celebrity clients, and let’s start establishing new ‘norms’, that are smarter, safer and more productive, and let’s change how the whole world exercises together.