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These Three Exercises Now, or You’ll Pay a Physical Therapist to Make You Do Them Later

Bad knees? Many knee problems are due to an unstable knee joint, often caused by muscle weakness in general and weakness of the vastus medialis oblique muscle in particular. Referred to as the “VMO” by physical therapists, the vast medialis oblique can be targeted and strengthened by doing leg extensions.

More than 80 percent of people will have back pain at some point in their lives. Our sedentary lives are making our backs weaker and weaker. The good news is that just a few sets of back extensions done a few times a week as per the instructions of experts that are highlighted on this page are all you need to strengthen and protect your lower back.

who has experienced a shoulder injury and had to do rehab for it knows exactly what these exercises are. Usually done with a light dumbbell, cable, or rubber tubing, these two exercises involve keeping your upper arm pressed against your side while rotating your arm away from your body and toward it while bent at a right angle.

These are really painful when you do them right after rotator cuff surgery (I had my right shoulder done in high school after a football injury). If you do them while you are healthy, they may be boring, but they can potentially prevent major shoulder issues. Do a few sets during your workout to strengthen the shoulder joint and avoid having to do them in a physical therapist’s office.

Cable Internal Shoulder Rotation

The rotator cuff consists of four muscles: the supraspinatus, the infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis. These muscles work together to stabilize the shoulder joint. Chances are good that if you have shoulder pain, one or more of these muscles is to blame.

You Can’t Spot Reduce Fat from Your Body

This is one of the top workout mistakes. It results in so much wasted time and effort. What exactly is spot reduction? It’s when you work a specific area in effort. What exactly is spot reduction”? It’s when you work a specific area in the hopes of slimming it down. Unfortunately, the body does not work that way. You cannot tell your body where to decrease its fat stores by simply targeting a particular area with exercise.

We all have genetically predetermined areas where we store our fat. We also have genetically predetermined patterns that determine when and where we lose this fat.

Lifting Lingo: False Grip

A false grip refers to your thumb position while lifting weights. It means that instead of having your thumb underneath whatever you are gripping, you place it above. It doesn’t matter if you are using dumbbells, a barbell, a kettlebell, or a machine; you can use a false grip with any of them. Why would you do this? I do not know of any studies that have looked at the muscle activation patterns of using this technique, but I do know through experience that certain exercises feel much more comfortable and even more effective when I use a false grip.

To me, the subtle change feels as though it makes a big difference. Call it psychological, physical, or a combination of the two, it just feels as though I get a better contraction when using a false grip with certain exercises. Try it out and see how it feels.

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