Goblet squat start : hold the top of a dumbbell against your chest, stand with feet a bit wider than hip width apart.
Goblet squat bottom: keep your core tight and push your knees out slightly, allow your hips to descend until your thighs approach parallel. A highly effective way to safely teach your body the squat motor pattern.
Key Points: Heels must stay in contact with the ground, keep torso fairly upright, don’t allow knees to drift in towards the midline of your body.
Dumbbell Romanian deadlift (rdl): stand with feet slightly inside of shoulder width, hold the top of a dumbbell between your legs, set a slight arch in your lower back.
Dumbbell rdl bottom: keep heels firmly on the ground, push your hips back and lower the dumbbell, keeping it inside of your center of mass, lower until your hands are at around knee level, return to top. Safely teaches the hinge pattern and builds glutes, hamstrings, and lower back.
Key Points: you should feel a big stretch in the back of your legs. Do not allow rounding of the lower back.
Common Mistakes: do not allow the weight to drift away from your centre of mass.
Lunge side: stand upright and hold a dumbbell in either hand, step forward, and drop your hips until your back knee touches the ground, pause briefly before returning to top and repeating with opposite leg.
Common mistakes: taking too short of a step—your heel should not lift off the ground.
Back extension finish: extend your hips using your glutes and hamstrings to raise your body to parallel, hold briefly before returning to start.
Common Mistakes: do not hyperextend lower back, your body should appear parallel to the floor at the top position.
Seated row finish: pull shoulder blades together and focus on pulling elbows, not hands. Pull to upper abdomen, think about pushing your chest forward as you row, create tension in your upper and middle back, an excellent way to develop postural muscles that lead to improved posture.
Common mistakes: no shoulder retraction, a lack of upright posture.
Assisted pullup: pull your chest up and think about tucking your shoulder blades into your back pocket, if done correctly these can have a profound effect on posture.
Pushup bottom: keep arms at roughly a 45 degree angle to torso. Keep core tight and avoid allowing hips to sag.
Modified pushup: if regular pushups are too challenging, rest your knees on the ground while performing the movement.
Common mistakes: hips too high, hands too wide and high—this can pose an injury risk to the shoulder joint.
Plank: hands forward, make your body form a straight line, tense core aggressively and hold, focus on breathing into your belly while keeping your abdominals tight.
Common mistakes: hips too high and rounding of the back. Another common mistake is to allow the hips to sag too low.
