Press ups are great to help strengthen the upper body; it works your chest, arms, shoulders, back as well as your core muscles. It’s a big bang for your money exercise to do. It is an essential movement, which we all should know how to do.

You can perform press ups at anytime as you don’t need any equipments for it and you can perform them anywhere, so no excuses.

How to perform press ups:

• Set your arms shoulder width apart and have your feet together. Remember to keep your bottom inline with your spine, occasionally if your not use to press up you tend to have your bottom sticking up in the air.
• Important to keep your stomach braced when performing the movement.
• Lower yourself down in a controlled manner of 3 seconds, take a quick pause then explosively push yourself back up. Remember your arms do all the work.
• When you lower yourself down, you should be an inch or 2 to the floor.

FAQ’s

I find press ups to hard, is there any other way of doing them?

You have 2 options: -

1. Perform wall push ups – you do this by standing 2 feet away from the wall. Have your arms shoulder width apart. Drop your weight to the wall then use arms to push. If you find this easy move to option 2.
2. Box press ups – Just like a normal press up but this time instead of being on your toes, you will have your knees on the ground and feet up in the air.  This will take quite a bit of pressure off, once it’s comfortable move onto the normal press ups.

I find press ups to easy, what should I do now?

Try performing them in different angles of hand placement e.g. turned in or turned out for example. Change the stability of arm placement e.g. one hand placed on a step and the other on the ground. Other option is to change the tempo for example 8 seconds down pause for 2 seconds then explode up.

If you don’t do press ups in your current workout give these a go. Good Luck!

I regard the squat as one of the king of exercise. Everyone should be doing them. It helps gain muscle, toning for your legs, and great for strengthening exercise for the knee joint and back.

We should technically know how to squat but nowadays with laziness we forget how to do it properly. For example we squat to sit down on a chair but most people now just fall onto their seats, sound familiar at the home sofa? Other things we do with squats; squatting to lift something heavy or squatting in or out of the car.

How to perform the squat:

• Stand with feet shoulder width apart and toes turn out slightly around 5 degrees
• Keep your stomach tight by bracing and place your hands by your ears
• Initiating the movement squat down keeping your back upright and look forward.
• As your lowering yourself down inhale and exhale as you come up to the start
• When the hamstrings touch your calves then push with your heels back to the start.  (Always remember to keep your feet planted to the ground)

FAQ’s

Doesn’t the squat give you knee joint pain?

No, the squat is fantastic for strengthening the knee joint. Make sure that you are making full contraction at the knee joint so the ligaments of your knees are fully contracted and it will strengthen it for you.

Is there a substitute for squats?

No, you have to do squats. It is a functional movement for everyday activity for example lifting and sitting down. You hear people with lower back pain and majority comes from squatting incorrectly to lift and pain is caused. This is why you need to learn to squat properly as you use it for your everyday living.

Give this a go in your next workout. Good Luck!