Do you really know how to do popular fitness exercises?

Action is the ladder of success. The more you act, the higher you climb.

Although there are thousands of fitness movements, there are indeed some movements that can help us achieve twice the result with half the effort. But you may be wondering, why don’t I develop strong pectoral muscles by doing bench press? Lateral raises don’t build broad shoulders? Curls don’t give you fuller biceps? First of all, you need to make sure you are doing these actions correctly?

Barbell Bench Press

The bench press is an exercise that almost everyone does after entering the gym. Although it is a popular exercise for developing the chest, there are also many mistakes in it. Among them, using the shoulder to leverage is the most common mistake in the bench press, which is mainly reflected in the anterior deltoid muscle. After the barbell is pushed up, the shoulders leave the plane of the bench press bench and tend to hunch the chest, which greatly reduces the training effect. It may also cause shoulder pain or injury.

Solutions: First, focus your attention on the pectoralis major muscles, and imagine pushing the barbell upward by contracting the pectoral muscles; second, during the push-up process, the torso always maintains a "bridge shape" (that is, the waist is arched and the shoulder blades are sunken); third, when pushing up the barbell, the chest should be upright and the shoulders should always remain sunken.

Barbell Curl

It can be said that biceps are the symbol of a true man, so many men are working hard to train their biceps! But there are many mistakes. Many times we see people in the gym swinging their upper arms and forearms together when doing curls. Although there are some training reasons for this, for most people, this training method is not very effective because it severely limits the extension and contraction of the biceps.

Solution: Do not buckle your wrists when lifting the barbell. Keep your upper arms close to your sides and perpendicular to the ground. When lifting the barbell, do not shrug your shoulders or lean your body back. Focus on the extension and contraction of your biceps. Imagine your forearms as a hook that hooks the barbell. It is your biceps that pull the entire barbell up.

Lateral Raise

Many people train their middle deltoid muscles crazily in order to increase shoulder width. However, as an excellent exercise to isolate the middle deltoid muscles, correct movement is crucial. The reason why your shoulders have not grown for a long time is probably because you have overlooked an important factor: the trapezius muscles are too involved in training.

Solution: During the movement, use the strength of your shoulders to drive your upper arms until your forearms lift the dumbbells upward. During this process, do not straighten your elbows. When you stand naturally, your elbows should be slightly bent. The angle of elbow bending remains unchanged throughout the process. In order to achieve the best results, it is necessary to control the speed of training so that the shoulder muscles can still exert force when lowering the dumbbells. The trapezius muscles cannot be shrugged, otherwise the weight cannot be concentrated on the shoulders. Do not shake your body to prevent inertia from affecting your efficiency.

Barbell Row

Barbell rowing can help you build a thick back, which is what we men all want. However, as a multi-joint compound movement, barbell rowing is not so easy to master. An obvious mistake is that when doing barbell rowing, you always use the instantaneous momentum of your lower limbs to pull up heavier weights. In fact, this will not improve the training effect of the back. On the contrary, if you train like this for a long time, you will enter a bottleneck period prematurely, and it will be very difficult to make progress.

Solution: At the beginning of the movement, keep your arms straight and use hip extension to drive the barbell off the ground. Keep your legs slightly bent at all times and don't use your hands to pull the barbell. Move your elbows up and back, thinking about touching your shoulder blades and opening your chest. Pull the barbell until your trapezius muscles are fully contracted.

Supine arm extension

We all know that the size of the triceps directly affects the overall thickness of the arm. As the ace movement for training the long head of the triceps, people often ignore the fixation of the shoulders and elbows during exercise, which leads to premature exhaustion of the forearms. The original triceps training is greatly reduced, and the gain does not outweigh the loss.

Solution: In the initial state, keep the upper arm still, bend the elbow joint, and let the forearm slowly fall above the head. When it is two centimeters away from the forehead, use the strength of the triceps to straighten the forearm while exhaling. When the arm reaches the initial position again, pause for one second and fall again. repeatedly. Keep your shoulders and elbows stationary throughout the movement and focus on the target muscles.