Back Pain

BACK PAIN 

You're only allowed so many bends throughout the day. Save them for things like tying your shoes, not sit ups.

Don't do sit ups. They stopped doing them in the military.

Your back hurts most in the morning because you're superdehydrated.

Stretching by pulling knees to chest may feel good today, but will hurt you more tomorrow. You're flexing your back and putting yourself in a dangerous position.

Find what's hurting your back, stop doing that, work on strengthening what's lacking.

Don't ever get surgery. It may alleviate one pain, but open up a whole new world of problems that you can never fix.

Many people have herniated and/or bulging discs, but don't even realize it because they're not in pain yet.

Enlarge your computer screen to 150% so you don't have to lean forward.

Common thought is that you hurt yourself through some sort of event. Disc herniation is not an overnight thing. It's bad habits/posture/form that have lead to this happening.

If you're in pain during an exercise you've gone beyond your capacity, stop it. Your body is telling you something.

Squatting is appropriate for getting off a toilet or chair but not for dropping to the floor. Instead, do a lunge that does not bend your spinal discs and is a much more appropriate choice

Athletes with the most abdominal flexion have the most injured discs, think gymnasts.

80% of people have back pain.

People with back pain tend to use their hamstrings more, when they should be using their glutes.

Doing glute bridges reinforces the idea of using your glutes.

Curl ups, Side Planks, Bird Dogs are all good exercises to rehab your back.

Back pain is not a life sentence. Just have to take an effort to rehab it.

Genetics play a part in it. Slender spines are great for golfing but terrible for football. Thicker spines are great for football but are terrible at golf.

Some people have deeper hip sockets than others. Not everyone is meant for squatting deep.


For more info from Stuart McGill, check out http://www.backfitpro.com/

13 Biggest Workout Injuries

1) Bench Press

"How much you bench?"  This is the ultimate feat for the meat head gym rats with stupid "I don't call 911" shirts in the gym. How much money you make, how many girls you slept with, all means nothing when you enter the gym, it's about this arbitrary number. Each Bro qualifies himself with this number, usually rounding up about 50 more lbs than what they really did, and it's from 7 years ago before they INJURED THEMSELVES.

These are the kinds of shirts these idiots wear to the gym

Why am I bringing this up?

Because these are the people that let their ego control them and end up ripping a pec because they try to impress the whole gym with how much weight they can push off their chest. But after the description you just read, it's best this person is injured and away from the you and the gym.

Now for you normal people who don't let their ego's rule them, let me address you're biggest issues.

You have terrible from.

Bench seems like an easy workout but most of you still do it wrong. 

How?

You flare your elbows out which puts most of the focus on your shoulders. Many people talk about how their shoulders are more sore than their chest and often injure their shoulders in the process.

What you need to do, even with pushups, is instead of flaring your elbows out, push them forward. This is how power lifters do it, and they have to. If they flared their elbows out when lifting that insane weight their shoulders would be done.

Let's not even get into how crazy power lifters bench form is

2) Lateral Raises

Now I could talk about how people swing the weight too much not getting the true effect of the workout, and abusing their low back in the process.

What I want to talk about is how bodybuilders will do lateral raises with their wrists turned pinkies up in order to hit the deltoids more in the exercise.

While they get a few percent more stress on their deltoids, they're stressing their Rotator Cuff way more. In case you didn't know, YOU DON'T WANT TO DO THAT.

Do lateral raises, ALWAYS WITH YOUR THUMBS UP.

On that note, you should always do rotator cuff warm up exercises. As your deltoids keep increasing in strength, your rotator cuffs need to strengthen as well. Otherwise there will be an imbalance which make you more open to injuring yourself.

3) Squats

Tall people beware. As good as your form may be, you're always prone to lower back injuries.

I know from experience.

If you're tall like Andre the Giant, no problem.

If you're tall like Dennis Rodman, then beware. 

There's a reason why NBA players aren't allowed to do squats.

Some people are built for it, and some aren't as I've finally come to terms with.

Now, I could sit here and name a hundred things to make you better with form, but you'd be way better off just reading Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe.

I will say the best thing you can do as a beginner is to start off with goblet squats.

Goblet squats will teach you how to properly hold the weight and do the technique.

Simply hold a kettle bell or dumbbell in front of your chest with your palms underneath, squat down until you feel your stretch reflex and then come back up.

That will put more stress on your glutes and hamstrings, instead of your knees.

Which is caused from leaning forward and stressing their knees.

Which brings up... Knees.

4) Leg Press

Some people damage their knees by keeping their legs too close together to stress the vastus lateralis portion of the quadricep. Don't be one of those people.

Some people put their feet too low to work the quads harder which also grinds on the knees. Don't be one of those people as well.

And whatever you, don't hyper-flex if you're somewhat double jointed. There's a YouTube video that will show you why, if you dare to watch it.

5) Deadlift

So many people hurt their low backs doing deadlifts. I was one of them.

Once again, read Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. Also, some people are meant for deadlifts and others not so. The hips are unique for every individual.

Deadlifts are a full body exercise, not a low back exercise. If you leave it up to your low back, you will put too much stress on it and injure yourself.

6) Single Leg Exercises

If you're overweight, do not do single leg exercises. You're not ready for this yet, and your body will tell you when you get injured.

7) Running, Plyometrics

Easy way to fix a lot these are dynamic stretching, rolling out, wearing proper shoes, and not having horrible form. That will solve most of your running problems, though you should definitely limit how much you run. There's a reason why running magazines are full of pain relief ads.

If you're going to jumping exercises,  learn how to land correctly. When you land you shouldn't hear a loud sound.  

You should land softly on the ball of your foot and roll into your heel, all while coming into a squat position. And just like running, and lifting heavy, don't over do it.

You won't get this kind of body doing Insanity, but you'll probably get injured.

8) Skull  Crushers

Tendinitis is often caused by things like tricep exercises. Skull crushers are a big one. Many people do the actual skull crusher where they bring the weight to their...skull, and they push it back up. This puts lots of stress on your elbows.

What you should do instead is bring the weight behind your head, reaching a stretch reflex, and actually flare your elbows out. This will bring your lats into the exercise and put less stress on your elbows,

9) Close Grip Bench Press

So many people put their wrists by going to close on close grip bench press and close grip pushups.

If your wrists are shoulder width, than that's close enough. If you want to go closer, you can but be careful and if you feel pain go WIDER.

Don't be this guy

10) Dips

Dips are a great workout, but if your feeling your sternum at all, DROP THE WORKOUT.

I love doing them, but my body is not meant for it. Same goes for you if you feel it.

Also don't go lower than parellel, you will over stress your shoulders and injure them.

11) Bent Over Row

Make sure you're not rounding your back, this is a common mistake I see every day.

12) Pullups

Don't do those stupid Cross Fit kipping pullups and you should be okay. Only idiots hurt themselves doing pull ups. It's a simple exercise. 

Problem is there's lots of idiots that think they won't jack up their shoulders doing kipping if they kip correctly. That's an oxymoron.

13) Calves

Calves are mostly genetic, but you can still build bigger ones. Thing is a lot people go heavy on calves, and then BOUNCE up and down putting too much stress on Achilles tendon.

Go slow and don't go too heavy, patience young one.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I could list a hundred rehab exercises for you, but I'm not a physical therapist or a rehab expert. I can tell you that the one thing more important than rehab is PREHAB. Preventing the injury is the most important thing. Listen to your body, lift correctly, take time off every now and then, and make sure to roll out and warm up. Simple rules like this should keep you in the gym and out of the surgery room.

Build a Butt Workshop

When it comes to having a Butt, there are no but's

Don't look at this while at work

Moving forward, I listed the 5 best Butt Building Workouts there are starting with-

1) Hip Thrusts/Glute Bridges

If you're not doing this workout than you don't deserve to have a butt. This is by far the best butt workout of all time.


Glute Bridges are simple and effective with lots of variations

While squats and deadlifts will work your glutes, that's NOT their main objective.

Squats work your core too, but I don't tell people to do squats for a core workout.

Squats mainly work quads, also gets hamstrings, core, and glutes.

Same with deadlifts, it works glutes, but again that's not it's main objective.


One Legged Hip Thrusts

You can do hip thrusts on the floor or with your upper back on a bench. Load your hips with weight if you're ready for it, if it's your first time just get the motion down with just body weight.

Have your shoulder blades loaded on the bench, load the bar(if using) on your hips, drive your feet through the floor and extend your hips upward.

Protip: Keep your hips extended for 10 seconds on your last rep.


Small girl building a big butt

2) Pendulum Quadriped Hip Extensions

Just like the Hip Thruster, this works both the upper and lower parts of the glutes. That's the good part. The bad part...good luck finding this thing. 

The good news is you can use leg extension machine, cable machine, or any other variety of glute machine to a similar exercise.

3) Back Extensions

I do these mainly for my lower back. But the bonus is like all lower back exercises, it also works the glutes. 2 for 1!

Do them weighted to really build a butt.

4) Squats

Yes, squats help the butt like I said earlier. But really only the lower glutes. Second of all you should already be dong squats. Don't do them for the butt, do them for all the benefits you get.


Build great lean muscle with squats

Add the other glute specific exercises into your workout. Squats are for all the lower body and core, do the glute exercises for your glutes. Don't do either or, do both.


Goblet Squats are great for beginners.

Great one legged variation.

5) Deadlifts

Just like squats, they'll help the glutes but only the lower portion, because once again glutes are not the main objective of deadlifts.

Stiff Legged deadlifts really focus on hamstrings.

Also, like squats, you should be doing some varitey of deadlifts anyway. So combine glute exercises, with a squat exercise, and a deaflit exercise.

These 3 combined will give you not only the butt you thought you could never have, but give you the legs and body you always wanted.



More varieties of deadlifts.



If you want more info, check out Bret Contreas online. He dedicates him self to helping people build glutes. Not something I could imagine a kid wanting to do when they grow up, but he's made a career out of it and help a lot of people so whatever.

https://bretcontreras.com/


Anyway, check his stuff out and I'll check in on you guys next week.

The Main Exercises

Most people reading this will be beginners to intermediate, so why worry about accessory exercises when you should just worry about the main core workouts.

Plus these compound or multi-joint exercises burn way more calories, build way more strength, and get you way more real world results than you will working out one single muscle.



Also, almost all photos are female because many women are scared of weights. I wanted to highlight that not only they can do it, but they won't look like some jacked up roid freak from doing them often.

All photos are from people I deem natural, and shows how lifting heavy makes your strong, and lean. Not bulky like Chyna from the WWF.



Also, reps and sets listed vary because there's so many different ways to train based on what your goal is.

Most of you are going for fat loss with some strength building so I based it off of a broad range for what you want. More reps with less weight for fat loss. Less reps and more weight for more muscle and strength. Somewhere in the middle for building muscle size, and burning fat.

Too much to get into in a beginner's blog.

Anyway, just read ahead and learn ya a thing or two about a thing or two.

Squats



Everybody's all over the squats now. Strength coaches, bodybuilders and even cross-fitters will all give you shit if you're not doing squats. Which I guess is a good thing since we had years of people skipping legs before.



Squats are possibly the most important workout. You will build larger, stronger legs, and as well as strengthen your core.

So many people skip squats and the next workout because they're hard work.

Keep your chest up, toes 30 degrees out, knees out, and go to parallel or a llittle below for the stretch reflex, and then pop back up.

Legs. Quads, Hhamstrings, Glutes,

3-5 sets of 3-12 reps.

Deadlift



A great workout for not only your back but your hamstrings and grip as well. Some people live by the deadlift...but you can also die by the deadlift. Well at least get injured easily. Trust me and others on that one.

Make sure you have your technique down before you start going heavy. Once you're good at these you'll definitely see why they're important. They will ststrengthen muscle in your back, lower posterior, and your grip.

Start with bar over middle of foot, knees past the bar, glutes, hams, lats, arms all tight, back arched, chest up, slack pulled out, then lift.

Drop quickly and don't let knees extend infront of bar on way down.

back, hamstrings, glutes, forearms.

1-3 sets of 3-6 reps.

Bench Press



Every guys favrorite workout and bragging right. Even women should do this. Hear that you crossfitters!?

Make sure elbows are 70 degrees to keep your shoulders safe.

Arch your back, and keep your scapula retracted, and aim the bar for your nipple line.

Make contact with chest, the explode back up.

You'll build your chest, shoulders, and triceps.

3-5 sets of 5-12 reps.
Bent Over Row



While most people say deadlift is the best overall back exercise, and other proclaim pullups and chinups, I believe the bent over row is the king of back exercises.

It works lats, rhomboids, rear delts, traps, and biceps. It's a much safer a workout than deadlifts, and t's easier for beginners to do than pullups.

You'll build your overall back with this exercise, plus your rear delts and biceps.

3-5 sets of 5-12 reps


Overhead Press



Works more of your body than bench press. Very important workout.

Unlike bench press that injures shoulders via building big delts but not rotator cuffs. This also works the rotator cuff by actually using them to ROTATE.

You'll also have more bragging rights by pressing you own bodyweight over benching your own bodyweight.

Grip a barbell tight around shoulder width and press overhead while keeping body straight. Aim for your nose on the way up, once the bar is past your face, push your head forward, lock out, aim the bar for your nose on the way down as well. Don't actually hit it!

Shoulders, upper chest, triceps, upper back

3-5 sets of 5-12 reps.


Pull Ups/Chinups


These work a large amount of back muscles as well. Lats, trapezius, rhomboids, biceps, detloids, just to name a few.

Plus you impress people when you can do a bunch of them.

The challenge is being able to do them. For beginners the best way is to use a jump stretch band to build the strenth.

You should feel your core working at the bottom, arms at the top, and back all the way through.

3-4 sets of 6-12 reps.

Skull Crushers


The one photo of a guy, because none of the female photos were done correctly.

The way to properly do it is to not actually crush your skull, or even get near it. Go behind your head and go down to a nice stretch, then come up. Come all the way up and contract your triceps for full range of motion.

This will bring in more muscles such as lats and stop you from hurting your elbows.

Make sure to flare out elbows on the way down as well to prevent tendentious.

Triceps, Lats, Core

2-3 sets of 6-12 reps.

Biecep Curls



Start at the top instead of the bottom. Keep elbows by the ribs come down almost all the way, use stretch reflex and come up. You can even cheat a little bit as there is a workout known as Cheat curls.
Just don't get dumb and cheat too much, as in catch the bar bar from underneath.

Aim for 2-3 sets of 6-12 reps.

Cable Crunches


I usually don't have people do ab workouts as you're working your abs already with all these workouts. But it makes people feel better to do so, as if they're actually flattening their abs so I comply. Plus some people could use a little extra core work to help with their other lifts so I'll give you one.

So many core workouts but this is one of the best.

Get on your knees, usually put a pad underneath unlike the girl in the photo. Grab the rope, keep around your head, use core to bring head to the floor, then come back up.

Your hands may hurt and need some adjusting, so be prepared for that. Go for around 20 reps.

Standing Calf Raises



Just kidding. Those are Donkey Calf Raises, and are a legitamate exercise but that's for people who are far ahead of you. Very advanced stuff.

Dumbbell, Kettlebell, whatever. Hold something if necessary to give you more tension. Hold something else to balance off of and be on top of something to where you can have full range of motion as in go down further than where your weight is balanced.

Once again aim for 20 reps, as calves need lots of reps and weight to grow. They're worked all day from you walking so need lots of extra stress to grow.

Leg Exercises

I usually post about nutrition but today I'll tell you about working out.

I won't go into detail on technique.

Other people have detailed videos that are so great it would be a waste of time to try to compete.'

I'm just telling you what, why, and giving you an image.

Anyway...

Great Leg Workouts

Squats or Goblet Squats

Squats are usually regarded as the most important workout there is, and it's because it pretty much is.

If you have knee issues, than that's even more of a reason to do it. Increasing blood flow to your knees helps them heal. I've fixed many a bad knee via squats.

Incomplete form stresses the knees. Make sure you go all the way down with your butt below parallel to engage your stretch reflex and not stress the knees.

For those having issues doing squats, such as stability and tightness, you should start out with goblet squats until you've worked your way to enough stability to do it.

Romanian Deadlifts

Unless you're doing Low Bar Squats, most of your posterior chain will be built using the deadlifts.

Romanians isolate the glutes and hamstrings more than regular deadlifts.

Most people are quad dominant, especially people nowadays that sit all day and develop a weak posterior.

So you definitely need an exercise that strengthens those weak posterior chain muscles and this is it.

Again, if you want to learn form there's plenty of sources I'm just highlighting these workouts briefly.

Lunges

We all know about the lunges and it's a great exercise to add in addition to squats.

Do you know all the variations you can do to keep them fresh?

There's Backwards lunges, Walking Lunges, Barbell Lunges, Side Lunges, and even Stationary Lunges which is the same thing as a ...

Split Squat

Split Squats allow you to focus on one leg at a time and use lighter weight. 

There's the normal version.

And the Bulgarian version.

Calf Raises

Most calves are genetic but you can still build them.

They work all the time, much like forearms. All the walking and stari climbing you do is constant exercise for them. So they need extra stress. Meaning lots or sets, reps, weight, and frequency. Meaning many times a week.

You can do them standing, sitting, and even donkey...

Sitting focuses on the soleus more, standing focuses on the gastrocnemius more.

As you may have noticed I never mentioned leg press, leg extensions, leg curls, smith machine, etc.

I try to stay away from machines as much as possible.

I won't go into all the details but machines work off a fixed position and make you work around it.

Instead of having the weight work around you.

Not to mention missing out on all the stabalizing muscles.

These exercise hit many muscles at once, burn more calories, are actually functional, and don't put as much stress on joints.