Despite the best of efforts, your squats are not nearly as low as you’d like. And when they do get low enough, the result is a crippling pain. The culprit could be poor ankle mobility, a common problem that limits the range of motion for fitness novices and experienced athletes alike. If your ultimate goal is a parallel squat, you’ll have no hope of achieving it if your ankles lack sufficient strength and flexibility. There are a few ways for you to improve ankle mobility through strengthening and conditioning, though.
No, you do not have to do yoga to be flexible. But even if you aren’t about to go hop into downward dog, it is important to care about the flexibility of your muscles, connective tissues, and joints with mobility exercises.
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The Russian Twist is a challenging abdominal exercise. It targets your core while also improving the strength in your shoulders and arms. You burn calories, increase muscle tissue and improve your posture with one exercise. You also have a variety of Russian twist options from which to choose to continue to stimulate muscle response and keep you intrigued. Plus, you are able to add this effective exercise into your core routine even when limited equipment is available to you. Allow for at least one day of rest between core workouts using weights. The muscle breakdown needs time to repair and make the strength improvements.
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If you’re like most, you probably know that pull-up bar exercises are a great way to target your lats – the long muscles that stretch from beneath your shoulder blades to your mid-back – as well as your arms and core. But did you know that your pull-up bar can pull double duty (or even quintuple duty!) if you add other exercises in as well?
Yep. Accordingly, here are four exercises you can do on the bar that isn’t pull-ups. You’ll appreciate the variety they bring to your workout routine as well as the booty-kicking punch they’ll deliver to muscles all over your body. If you’re ready to rip it, read on.
In the world of fitness, the goal is to look symmetrical. Professional athletes have learned how to exercise correctly to maintain their symmetry. Their physical training makes them mentally strong too. For the rest of us, there’s kickboxing! A kickboxing workout will not only benefit your body but your mind as well.
Grip strength is one of those areas that tends to get overlooked in the typical person’s strength and fitness routine. It’s also one of those things that we don’t really notice until it’s been negatively affected due to injury or illness, or if our grip fails us when we really need it (like during that one rep max deadlift).
But that saying “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link” is all too true when it comes to your ability to grip, grasp, and hold things. Read More
TRX workouts can shake you to the core, literally. Suspension training makes you feel muscles you didn’t know existed. It’s effective because it forces you to use core muscles 100-percent of the time just to hold yourself steady. On top of that, each TRX movement digs deep into primary movers and a host of stabilizers. Read More
Traveling soon? With a resistance band and a suitcase of simple exercises you have the makings for a full body workout wherever you go. Resistance tubing provides a muscular challenge that most forms of strength training don’t provide. The tubing allows you to focus on both the concentric (shortening) and eccentric (lengthening) phase of muscular movement. This can render good results when it comes to developing functional strength and hitting maximum muscle fibers to enhance sculpting.