Holly Desai Personal Trainer

Chest up for proper chin ups 💪🏼⁣
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TAG a friend who needs to fix their form!⁣
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I see this so often, especially when someone is busting out a high rep set.
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Get your chest to the bar and maintain a neutral neck position, your numbers may go down but you will be using a full range of motion, and may save yourself from a neck tweak in the future.⁣
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Iso holds in the top position are one of my favourite ways to work on this. Start with 5s holds and work up to 20s+ to upgrade your chin ups 💪🏼⁣
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3 Lateral squat/lunge variations💪🏼

🏷 TAG a friend who should try these out

Everyone (not just athletes) could benefit from including some lateral movements in their training. Life is multidirectional yet we largely neglect the frontal plane when it comes to strength training. These movements tick a lot of boxes when it comes to improving stability and mobility at the hips, and encouraging some length in the adductors. They also work the quads and glutes really well, because they are basically another form of single leg squat.

With all lateral squats/lunges the aim is to stack the hip, knee & ankle in the bottom position, with the weight over the bent leg, and the toes pointing pretty much straight ahead. You can perform them with an upright torso with more forward knee travel or with more of a hip hinge. Where you hold the load will dictate this, for example a goblet hold (more upright) vs a suitcase hold (more lean).

Here are 3 of my favourites that you might not have tried:

-Lateral Box Squat
A great way to work on depth, you can work on reducing the height of the box as your range of motion improves. The aim is to completely sit on the box (without rocking back) and drive up from a dead stop.

-Landmine Lateral Squat
The landmine provides some extra stability, and forces you to sit back into the hips a little more , which can be great for those who shift the weight to the toes and tend to lift the heels. There is also a greater capacity to load here.

-Slider Lateral Lunge
The sliding plate provides some resistance meaning the adductors have to work to pull the leg back in. It also means you have to work harder to prevent the knee from caving in. As well as increasing the KB weight you can place a weight plate on top of the slider to further increase the demand on the adductors.

⚡️3 B-Stance Exercises you can do with Dumbells.

Tag someone who would find this useful!

👉🏼B-Stance, kickstand, staggered stance. Whatever you want to call them, there is a lot or confusion around these kind of exercises.

⚡️What is a ‘B-Stance’?
Keeping the majority of
your weight over one leg, whilst keeping the ball or heel of the foot of the non working leg in light contact with the ground. The non working/supporting leg maybe set slightly behind the front leg, off to the side or a bit of both, this will vary based on the exercise.

⚡️How do I do it?
Here I am showing 3 variations using dumbells because that’s what most people have access to at the minute, although all 3 work with a barbell too.

👉🏼B Stance RDL
For this I like the back foot set just behind the front. The front knee will be unlocked as in a normal RDL, the back knee will bend slightly more as you lower. Try not to allow the back foot to rotate outwards, toes should be facing forwards.

👉🏼B Stance Squat
The back foot will be slightly wider here and externally rotated (pointed outwards).
I like to set my feet around hip width apart but you may go narrower or wider depending on your mobility. Whole of front foot stays in contact with the ground. Keep the back foot ‘light’ and make sure the knees are tracking in the same direction as the feet are pointing.

👉🏼B Stance Hip Thrust
The heel of the stabilising foot should line up with the toe of the working side. You may prefer it slightly offset, I like to keep it fairly centered. Try not to push through the heel too much or you may start to use the hamstring on the non working side.

⚡️Why use it?
True single leg exercises such as SL RDL’s can take a long time to master and balance becomes the limiting factor making it difficult to add load. The B-stance bridges the gap between these type or exercises and their bilateral counterparts. The back leg aids with stability meaning the exercise can be performed with more load, whilst the front leg still does around 70% of the work. It shouldn’t be a case of doing either single leg OR B-stance exercises. The two can co-exist in a training programme as they provide different benefits 😊

Have you tried B-Stance exercises before? Any questions? Drop me a comment.

SLIDING HAMSTRING CURLS🦵⁣
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Check the videos for a breakdown on form.⁣
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Summary of progressions:⁣
⚡️Eccentric leg curl⁣
⚡️Standard leg curl⁣
⚡️2/1 leg curl⁣
⚡️SIngle leg curl⁣
And an alternative double leg variation:⁣
⚡️Body Curl (There is also the option to do these single leg but they are brutal and I’m not strong enough yet 😂)⁣
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⚡️ Don’t neglect those hammies just because you are training from home. Hamstrings cross the hip and knee and aid in knee flexion & hip extension, so it’s a good idea to include some exercises that involve both of these movements simultaneously. Enter the sliding leg curl!⁣
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⚡️ I love these because pretty much everyone can do them with minimal equipment, and there are plenty of variations to keep beginners and the more advanced happy. If you haven’t done these before they pretty much feel like a moderate - intense hamstring cramp. Don’t worry, this is normal, you can handle it! 😆⁣
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⚡️The hamstrings are one of the most common injury sites in runners & they play a key role in decelerating knee extension. You should consider adding some direct hamstring work into your programme if you’ve taken up running through the lockdown!⁣
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⚡️For all of the variations above I would encourage you to think about slowing the eccentric (lowering) phase down (as the legs are straightening), 3-5 seconds is ideal, as always - quality over quantity.⁣
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Let me know if you give any of these a go 👊🏼

A press up tutorial, discussing some of the things almost everyone gets wrong, & how to correct it!

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Zerchers of all kinds 💪🏼⚡️⁣
Enjoyed playing around with some new variations thanks to the mastermind for thinking to stick our split squat pad on two landmines and using all the equipment in the gym in one go 😂💪🏼⁣
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Here we have:⁣
⚡️2 Landmine Zercher Squat⁣
⚡️2 Landmine Zercher Good Morning⁣
⚡️Zercher Prowler Push⁣
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Using the Zercher bar placement has a ton of benefits such as encouraging thoracic extension & increasing core & glute activation. Although often seen as too uncomfortable to load, I find a good hip thrust sponge solves the issue.