An aspect of exercise that can have a significant impact is what you wear whilst performing a work out. Most people are happy enough to simply buy and wear gym gear that appeals to them and there is nothing wrong in that, it helps display your persona and character. Yet sometimes it is worthwhile to judge whether it is what’s best suited for what you are doing.
Below I will share some personal experiences I've had over the years.
During any phase of training one of the most important acute variables which is often overlooked is keeping track of your time under tension. For most average gym goers the tempo of each specific part of a repetition is an after thought if even a thought. Some might willingly focus on faster tempo's for speed and power, whilst others focus on slower to work the muscle more.
The king of upper body exercises, the pull-up is for the upper body what the squat is for the lower body. Utilising almost every muscle in the upper body to execute and stabilise, there is no better exercise for developing a great upper and mid back whilst doing so in a holistic way. Mastery over your own body with the pull-ups outstrips anything you can achieve with barbell rows and lat pull-downs.
Well a week has passed since New Year's arrived and how many of you made a resolution or two? And how many of you are still biding by them?
I myself have made a few, most of which I know I can do as I have done them before but I have gone with a couple of new ones for the challenge. I'll elaborate on them a bit more later on in this post. First of all however I would like to address the problem of the New Year's resolution.
Kipping handstand push-ups (HSPUs) are something I have seen more and more of over the past few months in my part of world. Sadly this is another exercise that gained popularity thanks to CrossFit.
Why sadly? Kipping HSPUs are supposedly for building hip and shoulder power, however for most people it is simply a cheat way to perform handstand push-ups. What is so wrong with this? From most clips of people performing kipping HSPUs I have seen from my locality and on YouTube, there is an incredible lack of proper instruction by trainers on form and the prerequisites needed to even contemplate performing such a high-risk exercise.
