If you’ve never really exercised before, then you could be forgiven for thinking there’s a secret language that is spoken only in gyms, yoga studios and CrossFit boot camps. And yes, there are a few bits of lingo that you’ll want to understand before you dive in to your new, health-focused lifestyle.
# Engage your core: This is nothing to do with marriage proposals and everything to do with stability. Your core is basically the muscles around your torso, from your ribs down to your hips. These muscles stabilise your body and help you maintain good posture. If you spend a lot of time sitting, they can get a bit slack and forget to work. So, we need to make sure that they are paying attention when we do exercise – which means we need to engage them. To engage your core, lightly suck in your belly button so that it moves towards your spine. You will feel the muscles all around it tighten just slightly – now they are switched on and engaged and ready to keep you stable while you move. Be sure to keep the movement light – you want to feel the muscles contract a bit, but there shouldn’t be any sense of stress with the contraction.
# Switch on your glutes/back muscles/etc: This is very similar to engaging your core. You want to lightly contract the muscles so that they help to stabilise you, or so that they are ready for a bigger challenge, for example, if you’re about to lift a heavy weight.
# Move with control: Think of a ballet dancer – when they dance, their movement is controlled and deliberate. When you’re exercising, try to move with similar control. If you’re lowering a weight (even if that weight is your body), do it in a deliberate, controlled manner. That will work your muscles properly and reduce the chance of you getting an injury.
# Neutral spine: Your spine has a natural curve to it – a slight S shape, if viewed from the side. When your spine is resting like this, it’s in neutral, which is its strongest, healthiest position. Prolonged sitting can leave some people with a spine that doesn’t sit in neutral naturally. If you’re not sure what neutral feels like, try this: lie on the floor on your back, with your knees bent. There should be a natural hollow under your lower spine and you should be able to slip your hand in there. To check, try tilting your pelvis back and forward. When you tilt your pelvis back, your spine will go flat on the floor. When you tilt forward, you will create an even bigger gap under your spine. The neutral spot that you are looking for is where your pelvis is neither tilted forward nor back, but sits level.
# A note on your neck: Our over-abundance of screen time these days means a lot of people are developing a habit of sticking their neck forward, which puts a huge strain on neck muscles and can lead to tension headaches and other problems. If you know you do this, try to be conscious of keeping your chin tucked in when you are exercising. At the same time, be aware of your neck muscles and make sure that you’re not tightening them up when you’re doing these exercises – you don’t need to use your neck muscles to lift a weight!
# Breathing: This is important – and people often forget to do it when they are concentrating on an exercise. As a general rule, breathe out on the effort part of an exercise, and breathe in on the easy part. For example, breathe out on the push part of a push-up, and breathe in as you lower yourself down to the floor. Don’t worry if you get it wrong or you’re not sure which part of an exercise is the effort part – just keep breathing!
# Pick one exercise from each of the five categories – push, pull, hip-hinge, squat and pillar.
# Do 10–12 reps (repetitions) of each, with a minute or so of recovery time between each exercise.
# Repeat this twice, so that you’ve done a total of three sets.
Do this three or four times a week for the best results.
If you haven’t done anything like this before, start with the easiest option and do just a few reps. The worst thing you can do is believe that you’re ready for the advanced exercises right from the get-go – and most of us think this way. If you begin at a higher level than your body can tolerate, you’ll quickly lose form and will risk injuring yourself. Focus on the journey at the start – you will soon find that you can move on to more demanding versions of the exercises, and that will give you a nice sense of achievement.
Correct form is paramount. Regardless of your level, you should stop your repetitions when you have fatigued or reached technical failure. That is, you can no longer hold perfect form and you are trying to cheat some more reps!