GRIP

The swing is a fundamental movement in kettlebell training and should be the first thing you learn when picking one up. It provides the foundations to build up to more advanced and challenging exercises. However it is an awesome exercise in its own right. Correct technique is vital to get the most out of the swing. Countless times I've seen people trying to perform a swing using a squatting movement, but as you can see from the video above that's not the way to do it. What makes the swing such a great exercise is that it targets the muscles in your posterior chain, a group of muscles that are often over looked. These include the hamstrings, glutes and back as well as your core. However to make sure these are correctly targeted, the swing needs to be performed as a hinging movement, pivoting about the hips. This means that bending at the knees should be limited as much as possible. By targeting the posterior chain the kettlebell swing is a great exercise for com...

We have developed our poor postures solely from sitting too much. We’re pretty much doomed from the start – 12 years of most of our lives we go to school and sit in poor ergonomic chairs for 5 hours a day. Imbalances occur due to one muscle group being too tight and the opposing one too weak. We therefore develop tight chests, necks, lower back, hip flexors, hamstrings and calves, leaving our glutes, core and mid/upper back WEAK. This leads to a fairly dysfunctional skeleton, hence why a lot of us suffer with aches and pains. Not to mention headaches, shoulder impingement and sciatica. We can start to improve our postures by trying to restore our imbalances - daily stretching of the tight muscles and strengthening of the weak ones start to un-do the damage we have done. As well as changing our lazy habits - we are all guilty! Think of how a baby/toddler who has just started walking moves. This is how we should all be moving and the way they sit. They have yet to learn our la...

Although I train mainly with calisthenics, I do have a few pieces of equipment I turn to regularly, usually to spice up conditioning workouts, for example I'm a big fan of kettlebell training, especially because of its emphasis on working the posterior chain which is often overlooked, but I'll come back to that another time... Because recently a different type of training caught my eye – steel mace training. Just like kettlebells steel maces aren’t a new thing, in fact they are thought to have been used as long ago as during the Persian Empire as a method for training warriors and soldiers. So what’s the idea behind mace training? The mace is effectively a concentrated weight at one end of a bar. It can be used for any number of standard exercises (deadlifts, bent over rows, military presses etc) to give a unilateral emphasis, however this equipment truly shines when used for its more uniquely designed exercises. These are designed to work rotational strength and improv...

The bodyweight row can be performed either on a straight bar or gymnastic rings/TRX. It doesn't get as much attention as the pull-up, but we think it should. Here are a few reasons why it's awesome; *  It's a great exercise for working towards a pull-up because it allows you to build pulling strength using a lower proportion of your bodyweight. *  The row is one of the few exercises that promotes external rotation of the shoulder, which is important in preventing strength imbalances and injury. *  By strengthening your middle back, the row is great for improving posture, reversing the effects of prolonged sitting and hunching over a work desk.  *  Essentially being the opposite of a press up, the row also requires you to keep your body in good alignment through the movement, engaging and working your core muscles. *  Its easy to manipulate the difficulty of the bodyweight row to suit any level of training simply by moving the position of...

Bodyweight exercise always seems to get a bad rep. Last one out on the field at rugby training? 10 burpees! Step out of line in taekwondo class? 20 press ups! If this type of exercise has been ingrained in our minds as punishment, well of course people aren’t going to choose to do it. Then of course there’s the point of view of the fitness industry and their suppliers. If everybody trained using calisthenics who would buy the next piece of miracle equipment guaranteed to help you achieve all your goals without even taking it out of the box? Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying by any means that all fitness equipment is useless, that would be absurd. For many sports it’s essential, Olympic and power lifting for instance.  What I am saying is that training with weights and equipment is not the only way to burn fat, develop power or increase strength and muscle mass.  If you want proof, just check out gymnasts.  There is a wealth of benefits to bodyweight trai...