SELF

5 Tips to Get The Most Out of Your Workouts

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Whether your goal is to be stronger, fitter, or just lose a few inches, you want to maximize your time in the gym so you can spend more time with your family doing the real things you enjoy…

Here are 5 tips to get the most out of your workouts: 

 

1. Think about your feet.

Your feet are the only contact with the ground in most of your lower body exercises.  So have you been thinking about your feet much? In your squats at the bottom, focus on driving your heels through the floor. In your deadlifts, do the same. This will help naturally activate the correct muscles and give you more ground reaction force to get more out of your workouts.

2. Keep your core tight.

Keeping a neutral spine is key to staying safe in the gym. With the modern world, we sit way too much, draw your belly button in before your exercises… this brings us to #3… 

3. Don’t forget to breathe.

Are you breathing efficiently? Optimal breathing is an inhale using the diaphragm with your belly expanding and an exhale with your stomach coming in tight. If you’re not breathing like this you’re missing out on lots of core stability, abs, and results! Check  out .another blog post I wrote here on more on breathing.

4. Shoulders down neck back

In the majority of your exercises, when the shoulders are not down and back, it puts them in a compromised position where undue force is placed on the front of the shoulder. Keep them down and back to let the bigger muscles of the upper body drive the movement and keep you pain free.

5. Have fun

Exercise should be hard. It should be challenging. You may even dislike it or even drag yourself to the gym many o’ days when you don’t feel like working out (it happens to me too from time to time too). But at your core, you should enjoy what you are doing. You know the cliches. You only have 1 body, treat it like your temple…

Whatever your path or challenge, whether it be looking your best, being able to climb mountains, carry your family on your shoulders, or just be proud of how far you’ve come, if you are not actively participating in daily movement, it’s time for you to take action.

 

We are designed to move, we were born to move..

You’ve seen the Reebok ads.

 

Photo Credit: Reebok.com

 

To move is to…

Be more human.

Now get after it,

Josh Saunders, BS, CSCS

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