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When designing training programs for our Glasgow Personal Training clients there are 8 fundamental movements that act as the cornerstone for all our exercise sessions. These 8 movements used to be part of daily life before the modern way of living took over. With our sedentary jobs, cars, machinery and gadgets we are now doing these movements much less. This is one of the main reasons why we have seen such a rise in chronic pain issues (back, neck, shoulders); why there is an increase in obesity and why so few people achieve success with their health and fitness plan.

So what is so great about being able to do these 8 movements?. First of if you can do these exercises you are what we call functionally fit, so many people go to gym and workout on machines that have very little cross over with our daily task or the sports that we play. Another major benefit about these type of movements is the metabolic boosting effect that they have. If fat loss is your goal we you must stop wasting your time with sit ups, treadmills and bicep curls. Doing workouts that contain these movements is a much faster way to see results!

The routine provided below will help you burn tonnes of energy; improve your flexibility; increase your cardiovascular fitness and reduce your risk of injury. And the added bonus is that it is a much more time efficient and enjoyable way to exercise!

1) Squats

This works almost every muscle in the body. Start off with body weight then add in external loads such as sandbags and barbells once you have perfected the technique

squats

2) Dead-lifts

Again there are very few muscle that are not working in this movement. I would always recommend that you get a qualified trainer to check your technique with this one as dead lifts carry a high risk for injury when performed incorrectly.

deadlifts

3) Press-Ups

Everyone can do press ups, it is just a matter of finding the correct level for you. The beginner position would start with you performing a press up standing up against the wall. The next step up is a range of press ups that can be performed on all fours depending on where you place your knees and the more advanced press up would be the traditional full press ups.

pressups

4) High To Low Rotations

This exercise strengthens the slings systems in the body and is great for strengthening the core muscles.

hightolow

5) Gait and locomotion

Basically a big fancy term for walking, running, crawling. A skill we all need in every day life. We recommend some short intervals on a treadmill or bike for this one. Or by simply incorporating stairs or more walking into your everyday life!

gait

6) Med ball slams

This covers the smash pattern, a vital movement required for breaking or throwing object. This strengthens the muscles in the front of the body (make sure it is a slam ball that you use and not an ordinary medicine ball!)

med

7) Lunges

One of the best exercise you can perform for improving leg strength and ankle knee and hip stability

lunges

8) Pull Ups

One of the few  machines we would recommend using is an assisted pull up machine. Pull ups are an amazing exercise for upper body strength

pullups

The benefits of these types of exercise are vast. they build lean muscle,help promote fat loss,  they help transform your body shape, they raise the heart rate, they, they help produce more of the hormones that keep you young and finally they are a much more effective use of the time.

 

A final note on an effective exercise program design is that these exercises need to be varied on a regular basis as the overload effect starts to diminish after about 8 sessions. So keep mixing it up and using different movements and types of equipment

 

Learn more at http://www.glasgowpersonaltrainers.co.uk/