Bear Naked Barbell

We are taking on NEW members 💪🏻

We now have ONLY 6 memberships left to purchase between now and the End of August.

You may have noticed we rarely advertise for memberships at Commando.

This is largely down to us never having capacity for more members.

We’re not a budget gym and we pride ourselves on having one of the best communities and atmospheres for members in the UK. For that reason, we don’t just charge £9.99 and we don’t ram our gym with 9,000 members.

We focus on Quality over quantity.

With that being said, the summer months are coming up which generally means quieter gyms. Alongside this we’re adding some amazing additions to the gym in the coming weeks and months that will help cater to even more members.

Once these are gone, it’ll be a number of months before memberships are available again, so be fast!

To sign up simply click on our linktree in our bio and follow the membership steps from there 💪🏻

Rebuild Number 10 🙄

Starting again to achieve a decent deadlift without falling apart. I’ve suffered with a long term lower back/hip injury.

My mistakes -

1. Poor technique when I was younger.
2. Cracking my SI joint every day.
3. Neglecting deadlifting and lower back work.

Don’t make these mistakes, make sure your technique is correct, don’t f**k about with popping your back and don’t neglect having a strong lower back 💪

Top 2 Bench Press Cues I Use and Teach 💪

1. Hold your breath for the whole set, this is a hard technique to do but it will make you infinitely stronger. Holding your breath helps you to maintain a stable position, if your chest drops even a little bit then you won’t be in the best position to press from.

2. Bring the bar down and push back up in a straight line. The bar is actually moving in a slight curve but if you actively try to do this then you will move it too far forward or back. Keep it on a straight path and your body will know what to do.

Super High Reps to Failure ❌

I don’t train to failure very often. In fact I almost don’t ever do it. It’s quite a hard way to train and I don’t just mean in terms of the effort it takes. So here’s a couple of pointers -

1. Training to failure doesn’t mean your technique breaking down. If you’re not using the same technique as you were at the start then you’re not loading the muscle in the same way 🤷‍♂️

2. Most people don’t have the capacity or connection to their muscle to take there sets to failure. Meaning that they don’t know where that point is and stop early or go too far.

3. Training to failure every session is extremely fatiguing. You’re recover needs to be very good. You also need to know when you session is done, just because the pain says 3 sets but you’ve achieved what you need in 2 doesn’t mean you continue with the 3rd.

4. Mechanical tension and progressive overload are arguably more important for progression than taking sets to failure is.

Some of the things I’ve spoken about here are quite technical or difficult to understand but that’s what training is about, learning new things and improving 🧐

Pull Ups - 3 Point Breakdown

•Keep your shoulder blades pulled back and down into your back pockets using the muscles of your upper back. This will help you to engage your lats from the bottom.

•Stay on the line of pull, do not allow your upper back to round I order to reach the top. When you do this you stop using your upper back and lats, which are the muscles you’re trying to work 🧐

•Keep your core tight and hold your breath when moving, have a quick breath change in between reps.

Ps - Don’t be afraid to use bands to help you achieve perfect technique or more reps.
I weigh around 100kg and can do three pull ups with an extra 10kg but I still use bands at different stages of my programme.

Just because you could doesn’t mean that you should 😎

Overhead Press - 3 Point Breakdown

•Keep your elbows pushed forward in the bottom position, this will help to keep the bar in the correct place on your hand and your forearms vertical.

•Lock up your body, squeeze your quads, glutes and abs as hard as you can. Any break is lost tension which is lost power output into the bar.

•Push the bar on a straight line, keeping it as close to your face as you can. If you hit your face then don’t worry, now you know where it is and you won’t do it again 👌

Bench Press - 5 Point Breakdown

•Whatever style you’re using, it is of highest importance that you keep shoulder blades pulled back and down into your back pockets for the entire set. Use the muscles of your upper back and Lats to do this.

•Leading on from point one, think about pushing yourself into the bench and not pushing the bar away from you.

•Push your heels down towards the floor or into the floor if you’re flat footed. Using leg drive creates extension at the hips, lower back and upper back. The power also transfers into the bar.

•Use your triceps to un-rack the bar. Setting the bar at the correct height will allow you to do this and not pull your shoulder blades out of position.

•Hold your breath for the whole set. Be careful with this technique, whilst it is the strongest and safest way to bench press it may cause other problems if you have underlying medical conditions.

Conventional Deadlift - 5 Point Breakdown

•Set your feet straight under your hips, allowing you to reach straight down to the bar and push your knees slightly out.

•Drop your hips down Into position (Far enough to get good leg drive but not so far that your shins push the bar forward)

•Pull your shoulder blades down into your back pockets - this will engage your lats (Keep pulling down hard for the whole lift)

•Reach the crown of your head to the ceiling and take the slack out of the bar (Allow you arms to be pulled longer and do not bend your elbows)

•Push the world away (The deadlift is a perfect combo of pushing and pulling, therefore you must use leg drive to lift the bar)