Did you know there is one big secret to a successful fitness routine. This secret will keep you from getting hurt while training and guarantee that you will continue to improve in strength and fitness. 

The secret is not some new theory or fad to burn more calories or a new piece of exercise equipment, or magic diet that melts pounds off your body. The secret is simple and has been around as long as people have been exercising. The secret to a successful fitness routine is always using good form when you exercise.

Last week we looked at 22 mistakes that can hold you back from achieving your strength training goals. This week we are going to go a little deeper in to form mistakes.

Good form is the basic building block in a fitness routine. Good form decreases the chance that you will get hurt doing exercise and sets you up to perform optimally both in the short and long-term. Good form simple means putting the body in the best position to perform an exercise. Think of good form as having the best posture and engaging the proper muscle groups during any exercise.

We usually teach three basic cues to help our clients understand the proper position for good form in any exercise.  The three cues we use are pinch, brace and squeeze. Pinch the shoulder blades together, brace the abdominal and low back muscles and squeeze the glutes.

Pinch refers to pinching the shoulder blades together as though you were trying to hold a pencil in place. To pinch properly, you need to be able to retract the shoulders and elevate the chest.

To brace, think of how you would react to someone trying to punch you in the stomach. You automatically brace the abdominals in anticipation of getting hit. Bracing is different from pushing the stomach out or hollowing the abdominal cavity. Neither of theses provides as much protection as bracing. The abdominals and low back form a natural corset or belt around the middle of the body to help keep you stable and protect you from injury.

Squeezing means tightening your glutes, (butt), muscles. Squeezing the glutes activates these muscles to keep the spine from curving forward.  Squeezing the glutes and bracing the abs and lower back will decrease the chances that your low back has to take on excessive loads while lifting weights or doing bodyweight exercises.

There is so much more to good form that we will go into as we continue to examine mistakes that people make in the gym. In the meantime, remember to “Pinch, Squeeze and Brace.”