DEAD BUG EXERCISE

The exercise can be performed without any equipment – just your body weight. It involves lying on your back, raising and lowering opposite arms and legs while keeping your abdominal muscles engaged. As the position resembles a bug on its back, the exercise has been aptly named “dead bug”.

PALLOF PRESS

The Pallof press works the rectus abdominis, transverse abdominis, and obliques. Unlike many ab exercises which train the core through spinal flexion or rotation, the Pallof press is an anti-rotation exercise. This means the core muscles must work to resist rotation, helping to build strength and stability.

Hold an elastic band in your hands and attach it on the side at chest height.

With tension in the elastic, extend your arms forward and then slowly bring your hands back toward your body.

Repeat the exercise with the band pulling on the other side of your body.

MOUNTAIN CLIMBERS

Mountain climbers work several different muscles including the shoulders, hamstrings, core, triceps, quads and core. Because of this, it is often considered as a full body exercise.

RESISTANCE BAND ROW

Resistance band row is a variation of the machine row exercise that utilizes resistance bands to strengthen the back muscles between the shoulder blades. Resistance band rows will help increase strength in your back muscles and also aid in correcting your posture.

SHOULDER PRESS WITH RESISTANCE BAND

Stand on your resistance band with your feet at shoulder width. Holding both handles, curl up your arms until your hands are in line with your shoulders, elbows out to the side and palms facing forward. Keeping your glutes squeezed and core braced, press your arms straight overhead against the resistance of the band.

BODYWEIGHT SQUAT TO PRESS WITH RESISTANCE BAND

Bend your knees and press your hips backward to lower yourself into a squat ending with your torso being parallel with your shins. Straighten your knees to return to the starting position then press the handles overhead until your arms are extended with the handles directly over top of your shoulders.

RUSSIAN TWISTS

To do a Russian twist, you'll rotate your torso from side to side while sitting in an upright position with your feet lifted off the ground and touching the floow with your elbows alternatively.

The exercise can be augmented by holding a medicinal ball and touching it on the floor on both sides alternatively.

BRIDGES

Start with your back on the ground, with your knees bent at 90°. Lift your hips off the ground (parallel with your torso), without using your lower back or hamstrings. Don’t go too far into the range of motion. Repeat without touching the ground.

This exercise can help you build better hip strength and activate your gluteal (buttock) muscles. For an even greater challenge, try the same exercise, but one leg at a time (single leg bridge).

SUPERMAN

Get on your hands and knees (the “four-points position”), with your knees under your hips and your hands under your shoulders.

Place your back in a neutral position (slightly arched) and tuck your chin in. Tighten your abdominals, lumbar muscles and pelvic floor muscles slightly, then lift one arm and the opposite leg without allowing the trunk or pelvis to move or rotate. Try to grab something far away in front of you with your hand and touch an imaginary wall far behind you with your foot. Lower your leg and arm back to the floor and repeat with the other leg and the opposite arm. 

This exercise can challenge your balance and core stability, and adding the leg movement strengthens your buttock muscles. For an added challenge, try raising your same side arm. 

BACKWARD LUNGES

Stand with your feet together, then step backwards and lower your body like you’re about to kneel on your back leg. At the bottom position, the front knee should be flexed to 90 degrees with you knee over your toes and the back knee is 3-5 centimetres off the floor. To go back up, push off the floor with your back foot while extending your hip and knee of the front leg. Keep your torso upright during movement.

This exercise isolates one leg at time to challenge your balance, core and individual leg strength. Stepping backward helps to emphasise activation of the hip as well as knee muscles while decreasing the chance of knee pain.

SQUAT JUMP

Stand with feet shoulder width and knees slightly bent. Bend your knees and descend to a full squat position. Engage through the quads, glutes, and hamstrings and propel the body up and off the floor, extending through the legs. With the legs fully extended, the feet will be a few inches (or more) off the floor. Descend and control your landing by going through your foot (toes, ball, arches, heel) and descend into the squat again for another explosive jump. Upon landing immediately repeat the next jump.

BURPEES

Start by standing erect with the arms by the side, feet should-width apart. Bend the knees, squatting down to place the hands on the floor in front of the feet. Putting the bodyweight on the hands, the legs are thrust back to a push-up position with a straight line from the shoulders to the heels. Next pull the legs back and return to the squatting position. Jump back to the starting standing position.

STATIC PLANK

Press your hands and knees to the floor with your back in a neutral position and your wrists aligned directly under your shoulders. Your nose should point toward the floor and the back of your neck should be parallel to the ceiling. Extend your right leg back, with toes flexed, then bring your left leg to join it. The weight of your body should now be fully supported by your hands and toes.

Tighten your entire midsection by activating your abs, as if you were bracing for a punch to the gut. Lift the pelvic floor (as if trying to stop the flow of urine) to engage your deepest ab muscles. Hold this position remembering to breathe.

PUSH-UP PLANK

In plank position move from standing on your elbow to standing on your hands moving up first on on arm then the other and back.

PLANK JACKS

In plank position, open and close your legs.

KNEE TO ELBOW

In plank position bring your right knee to touch your left elbow then go back to the plank position and do the same touching left knee and right elbow and repeat.

SIDE PLANK

Is the side position is too hard to keep you can use the free foot to create a third point of support right in front of the other foot.

SQUAT

A squat is a strength exercise in which the trainee lowers their hips from a standing position and then stands back up. During the descent, the hip and knee joints flex while the ankle joint dorsiflexes; conversely the hip and knee joints extend and the ankle joint plantarflexes when standing up.

WALKING LUNGES

Keep your body upright through the movement. Keep your core engaged throughout the entire lunge. Don't overextend your leg when you lunge forward, which can cause your back to arch. Try to step out enough so your body is comfortable vertically, and your torso and hips are straight down.

WALKING LUNGES WITH A TWIST

Like the walking lunges exercise but adding a twist to your trunk at the lowest point of the lunge toward the side of your bent knee, then twist back to the forward position.

INCHWORM

Using your hands as if they were feet, walk your hands forward slowly, going as far as you can. You'll eventually end up in a stretched, extended plank position. Reverse the motion until your hands are touching your toes, and repeat.

PUSH-UPS

From a prone position, the hands are placed under the shoulders with the elbows extended. Keeping the back and legs straight with the toes touching the ground. The body is lowered until the upper arm is parallel to the ground.Then reverse the movement and raise the body until arm is extended.

BENCH PRESS

The bench press is a compound exercise that targets the muscles of the upper body. It involves lying on a bench and pressing weight upward using either a barbell or a pair of dumbbells. During a bench press, you lower the weight down to chest level and then press upwards while extending your arms.

BENT OVER ROW

Stand holding a barbell with your palms facing up. Bend your knees slightly and hinge at the hips whilst sending them behind your heels. Keeping your back straight, and elbows close to your body, row the barbell towards your chest, squeezing your back muscles. Slowly lower to the starting position.

FRONT SQUAT

Stand with your feet just outside shoulder width, hold the bar in the clean grip or the cross grip, keep your elbows high to prevent the bar from slipping down your arms, sit straight down until your thighs are parallel to the ground, then explosively lift straight back up to the start position.

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ROMANIAN DEADLIFT (RDL)

The RDL starts at the top of the deadlift. From this top position, keep your torso braced and a slight bend in your knees as you hip hinge, pushing your hips backwards until your hamstrings reach their flexibility limit, then reverse direction, driving your hips forward to the bar in one explosive motion. We can do this with a barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, or even resistance band.

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HEX BAR or TRAP BAR DEADLIFT

Once you have the hip hinge movement down with the Romanian deadlift, we can train it harder, heavier, and through a longer range of motion by using the hex bar (also often called a trap bar).

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REAR FOOT ELEVATED SPLIT SQUAT (RFESS)

WE In this exercise we work with one limb at time, this way we make sure both side get the right amount of training and we don't create umblallances with the stronger side going to take most of the load during the exercise. The front leg does all the work in this lift with the back leg just resting. If you notice that one leg is significantly harder to do than the other, make sure to perform your reps with your weaker leg FIRST and then only match that number of reps and weight with your strong leg. Your weaker leg will catch up to your stronger leg, and then you can push both equally.

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BATWING ROW

The batwing row is NOT a bench pull! See video below for details on how to perform the exercise. If possible try to use dumbbells as they allow for a longer range-of-motion (ROM) than a barbell consequently less load can be used for more muscular activity and with a decreased overall stress and injury risk.

Focus on keeping the shoulder blades back-and-down and don't put too much load,  10-15Kg is usually plenty challenging if you’re doing this exercise correctly.

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YWT RAISE

If new to this exercise better to start with just bodyweight at first, and then maybe adding 1Kg to max 4Kg per hand as the athlete progresses. 

See the video below for details on how to perform the exercise. Don’t worry about the weight, just focus on using the right muscles at each phase of the lift. The whole key with the YWT raise is teaching and ingraining the “shoulders back-and-down” position and coordination. 

Use the prone YWT raise if you struggle with the technique or need to reduce any low back strain.

If you're doing this exercise at home then you can use a brum handle instead of the ERG's one.

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BODYWEIGHT ROW

The bodyweight row can be done in a variety of settings, using a power rack or gymnastics rings, or even a towel and sturdy post for minimalist or at-home lifters. We can increase or decrease difficulty of the exercise by lowering or raising the height of the handle (so to produce a different inclination) and/or allowing for higher or lower reps per set.

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ONE-ARM OVERHEAD PRESS

There are different variations of this exercise from a half-kneeling position or standing position, using a dumbbell or kettle-bell. See video below for details on how to perform it. We can achieve better movement quality, plus work to reduce left-right imbalances, by training one arm at a time. We begin with the half-kneeling overhead press for our less experienced lifters, progressing to the standing one-arm press and one-arm push press, and then maybe double-dumbbell press and push press or barbell press and barbell push press with more advanced lifters who need the greater challenge and higher load.

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PUSHUP

Good technique in this exercise means a braced torso, stable shoulder blades, and the chin, chest, and pelvis all touching the ground simultaneously at the bottom of each rep, with a controlled tempo (lowering and lifting) and lockout at the top of each rep. Elevate the hands to make the pushup easier so you can build strength with higher reps, and then gradually decrease the elevation to keep increasing the challenge. 

A particular drill would work it the other way with “ladder pushups,” going from harder to easier. 

You can make this exercise harder by adding a weighted vest or resistance bands, or using gymnastics rings or a TRX to challenge shoulder stability. 

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CORE EXERCISE - SEATED ROCKBACK

This exercise only requires a bench, box, or stability ball to sit on. The key point is that the rower must keep pressure down through the foot at all times during the exercise. 

Start out by just training this for movement control, with around 10 reps per set while focusing on good control, finding the right ROM, and maintaining downward pressure with the feet. As you improves proficiency, increase the reps or duration of the exercise, as well as the challenge by moving the hand placement from in front (easiest) to behind the head (harder), holding them overhead (harder), and even holding a light dowel, weight, or medicine ball overhead (hardest).

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