Gym Floor Workout: Weight Management

If weight management is your goal then this is a great workout for you! A great blend of all over strength work with a cardio hit.

 

Side Plank

 

 

The focus for this exercise is to bring awareness and control to the muscles around the hip and that support the spine. The most effective solutions for this is to squeeze your glutes but especially your bottom glute and keep looking directly in front of you.

• Lie on your side and place your elbow directly under your shoulder.
• Bend your bottom knee to 90 degrees, while keeping your top leg straight.
• Using your glutes and obliques, lift your hip and thigh off the ground. Try to keep your hips forward and perfectly aligned with your spine.

 

Iso Bird Dog

 

 

The focus for this exercise is to wake up the muscles that run along the back of your body. This aids with your walking pattern and can help to improve posture for the rest of the exercises in this program. 

• Carefully kneel on a mat with knees directly under hips and hands directly under shoulders.
• Slide a leg back until it's fully straight and gently lift that leg off the ground.
• Extend the opposite arm back towards your hips.
• Hold this position and keep breathing gently.

 

Iso Single Leg Glute Bridge

 

 

Focus for this exercise is to target those key glutes and hamstring muscles, this is fantastic for countering all that sitting we do daily. 

• Lie on your back, place your feet hip-width apart with your heels about 6 inches from your glutes.
• Use your glutes and hamstrings to tuck your hips back towards you. Avoid using your abs here.
• With both legs lift your butt 2-3 inches off the ground, maintaining that tucked hip position.
• Once you're stable, lift one foot off the ground and hold this posisition. Once complete, repeat with the opposite leg.

 

Goblet Squat

 

 

This type of squat represents how we squat during our daily lives, very upright spine position and with weight in front of us rather than behind us. 

• To set up this exercise either grab a kettle bell or dumbbell and place that close to your chest, use a grip that feels comfortable and make sure you keep that weight directly contacted to your chest.
• Use a foot stance that feels comfortable for your hip structure, play with your stance width to see what works for you.
• To start this exercise, slowly bend your ankles, knees and hips at the same time, trying to keep your upper body as vertical as you can. Use a range of motion that feels comfortable on your joints, along with making sure your knees go in line with your feet but track just forward over your toes.
• Once a bottom of the squat push through your feet and stand back up.

 

Cable Row

 

 

For those of us who stay seated most of the day gazing at a computer screen, having strong upper back muscles will assist with holding that head in good postural position and hopefully reducing neck tension.

• To perform a cable row, start by adjusting the cable handle to your standing hip height. Grab hold of the handle and walk back 3 feet, placing a knee on the ground. This knee should be the same side a the hand that's holding the cable handle.
• Placing your other leg directly in front of that hip. Front and back knees should both be 90 degree bend and nice upright posture, to help maintain this posture, squeeze the glute of the leg this got knee on the ground.
• With your arm holding the cable, pull the handle towards you by bending your elbow.
• Pull that elbow directly to your bottom ribs, while pulling the shoulder blade back and really feeling muscles between your shoulders.
• Hold this end range for a second and then allow your arm to straighten back to the start position.

 

Mountain Climbers

 

 

Often we look at the core training as working out our abs, but those abs need to work in conjunction with your hip flexors, obliques and glutes. The mountain climber exercise targets those groups of muscles, along with shaping those abs.

• To set up this exercise of doing a mountain climber, get yourself down into a full press up position on your toes. Hands are placed directly underneath your shoulders and hips slightly tucked under by using your glutes and legs are fully straight.
• Lift one foot off the ground and bring that knee towards your chest, only bringing that knee in enough to not cause your back to round.
• In one smooth motion switch leg position, while keeping your hands in the same position.
• Now continuously switch your legs back and forward keeping nice smooth cadence.  

 

Dumbbell Split Squat

 

 

Often we train legs simultaneously but we spend most of our upright movement activities utilising legs independently, meaning our legs are doing opposite movements when we walk, run and go up and down stairs. Training this in a gym situation really assists our movement mechanics and can reverse a situation of a dominant leg, plus really good for those glutes.

• To set up for a split squat grab a dumbbell in each hand and stand with your legs hip width apart.
• From that position take a big step back with one leg back directly behind you and placing your foot so just your toes in contact with the ground. Distance of that step does depends on your leg length but tends to be 3x length of your foot, but see what feels comfortable for you.
• Gently tuck your hip under using your glutes, maintain this tuck through the whole exercise.
• Slowly bend both knees at the same time, allowing your body to descend towards the ground. Your front knee to gently go forward and your back knee should get close to the ground. Only go a deep as you feel comfortable on your joints abilities, pause at your end range.
• Then pushing through your feet return your body back to the knee extended position.
• Repeat that motion and then do same on opposite leg. 

 

Lat Pulldown

 

 

Training your back muscles with a lat pulldown movement is really important for your shoulder function overall shoulder function, along with training most of the major muscles in your upper body.

• To perform a single arm cable lat pulldown, start by adjusting the cable handle to right to the top of the cables. Grab hold of the handle and walk back 5 feet, placing a knee on the ground. This knee should be the same side as the hand that's holding the cable handle. Placing your other leg directly in front of that hip with about a 90 degree bend in that knee.
• With your arm extended above you, slowly allow your hips to shift forward, to create a straight line from your hand to your knee on the ground. With this reached position, squeeze that glute and try to maintain this during the rest of your set.
• To execute the exercise pull your elbow holding the handle directly to your side position, should be aiming for your bottom rib. Hold this end range for a second and then allow your arm to straighten back to the start position.

 

Bear Crawl

 

 

A great way explore that opposite movement ability and test our physical crawling prowess is by doing bear crawls.

• To start this exercise get yourself down to your hands and knees. Place your hands directly under your shoulders and knees directly under your hips.
• Lift your knees gently off the ground about 1-2 inches and hold this position. With one hand lift it off the ground and replace it about 6-10 inches further in front of your shoulder, while at the exact same time you lift and move your opposite foot forward the same distance as your hand.
• Repeat this motion of moving your opposite arm and leg at the same time on your other arm and leg. Keep doing this repetition so you move forward about 3-5 metres.
• Repeat this opposite arm/leg bear crawl going backwards.   

 

Cardio - Treadmill

 

 

• One of the key strategies when it comes to exercise is enjoyment of what you are doing, this is especially key for cardio machines. Find a machine or piece of equipment that will test your cardiovascular system but that you enjoying using!
• Another important strategy for any equipment is making sure the setup is correct for your height. You can either ask one of our staff or Personal Trainers for some guidance to set up the machine or try different set ups and see what works for you.
• Cardio work is all about testing your cardiovascular system by repeating a controlled movement for a period of time. To take your cardio abilities to another level is to make sure your progress your cardio work by setting yourself targets and goals for each session.
• Take notes of the readouts on each machine to monitor and track your cardio progress, keep trying to increase your outputs by improving your wattage output, RPM, resistance levels and/or heart rate.

 

Standing Arm Circles

 

 

This warm down drill is designed to teach the muscles around the shoulder to allow full range of motion of the arm. Great practice for rotation of the arm aids us for being able to perform rows, pulldowns, and press motions correctly. This is a great exercise to do often to keep those shoulders healthy and not causing you discomfort.

• To perform this arm circle stand comfortably and find a spot to look directly forward. Now raise your arm forward keeping your thumb up, like a hitchhiker.
• Rotate your arm past you ear and start to turn your thumb down towards the ground.
• Rotate your arm right down towards your hip and think about putting your thumb into your pocket and keep going around and repeat this arm circle.
• Once you have done the reps, do this in reverse. Start with your arm at your hip and goes backwards first, then up to your ear and keep that arm circle going.
• Repeat this arm circle motion of forward/ backwards on the opposite side.

 

Hip Flexor Stretch

 

 

Hip flexor muscles tend to get a lot of muscular tension with a lot of a time is spent in a seated position, this can lead to this group of muscles experiencing tension and tightness. Stretching this group of muscles can help with hip function and possibly take pressure off your lower back.

• To perform this stretch place one knee on the ground and place the other leg in front with a 90-degree bend in that knee, if you feel unstable hold onto something for balance.
• Tuck your hips under using your glutes and hold this tucked position during the duration of the stretch.
• Slowly shift your weight forward to increase the bend in your front knee and keep easing forward to increase the stretch in your back thigh area.
• If you would like to increase the stretch you are experiencing, raise your arm overhead on the same side as your back leg. At no stage do we want to force a stretch, you should be able to be relaxed and comfortable enough to have a conversation.

Article by Les Mills New Zealand