Three Things I Wish I Knew to Train When I First Started Training
Make a conscious effort to include and prioritise your structural integrity.
Whether you train for bodybuilding, CrossFit, general fitness or fun, there are three areas to train that have massive benefits for you that I wish I knew to prioritise when I first started training!
Glutes
Glutes are the power house to everything. They stabilise the hips, take excessive tension off the knees, and help keep the spine in alignment (along with the lat’s). Having a stable spine ultimately allows you to be stronger in every lift, bench press, squat, deadlift and overhead press.
Some exercises that are essential to prioritise for optimal glute engagement include:
Glute bridges
Clams
Glute ham raises
Romanian deadlifts
Single leg Romanian deadlifts
If the glutes aren’t firing, other muscles will take over. You’ll note I haven’t included squats in the suggested list above. Squats are great for building glute size and strength, but if your glutes are already weak and hard to activate your quads are likely to take over, so a good example of this.
If other muscles take over and get tighter, blood circulation is going to be restricted. This can lead to nerve damage and even loss of function of muscles in serious cases.
Because the glutes play a big role in maintaining structure in the entire body, ignoring glute training overtime can lead to poor internal and external rotation of the leg. This can lead to knee pain, lower back pain, or both.
Ultimately, one way or another weak or non-firing glutes will impinge your progression in the gym. Avoid this from the out-set and get your ass engaged!
Core
A strong core helps to support correct posture and a stable spine. Without these two things you’re likely to suffer from rounding of the thoracic spine (mid-upper back), lower back pain, and shoulders that role forward. This is something I see FAR too often with young people, as well as forward head posture.
Over time, as your spine rounds and head moves forward, the weight of your head can go from 5 kg (upright, in line with the spine) to anywhere between 12 kg (15 degrees forward), and 27 kg (60 degrees forward)! That is a huge amount of weight for your neck/upper back muscles to deal with every second of every day, not to mention pressure on nerves and the spinal cord leading up to the brain!
Yes, a weak core can lead to injury which will slow your progress, but even if you don’t sustain an injury you are still doing yourself damage, and ultimate you are likely to find yourself or your training impinged in some way sooner or later.
Say for example that you want to grow a big chest. If your shoulders are rolled forward in front of your pecs, there is no way that the chest is going to grow fully. Without prioritising core exercises your main lifts (and actually, if not all of your lifts) can suffer, as other muscles will need to work a lot harder to make up for the lack of core strength.
Some key core exercises to consider including in your workout are:
Static dead-bugs
Hollow bodies (dish holds)
Planks
Side planks
Bird-dogs
Scapular
Being able to depress, retract and stabilise your scapular (shoulder blades) is crucial for any type of pressing movement – whether it be overhead, incline or flat. Key exercises to prioritise here include:
Side planks
Straight arm side planks
Straight arm planks
Y raises
Reverse Y raises
These are all a great start to re-teaching the body stability and full range through the scapular. This is key, because a stable scapular can help prevent injury to the wrists, elbows and shoulder joints. If ignored, an unstable scapular can lead to complications in the muscle tissue, nerves, and tendons. Some people may experience this as numbness or tingling in their hands and fingers, a stiff neck, neck pain, headaches, or migraines. Strength in one or both arms can be hindered dramatically, and again there can be loss of muscle function in serious cases.
Don’t wait until you’re experiencing poor strength in your arms, or debilitating symptoms – make sure to make scapular work a feature of your training.
Training does not and should not always be about how big our muscles are, or how toned we look. Make a conscious effort to include and prioritise your structural integrity. It’s vital to living a long, healthy and pain-free life. If the body is consistently fighting an imbalance, it’s constantly under stress. When that’s the case, it’s often harder to shift unwanted body fat and grow wanted muscles.