Having been a trainer for several years and gone through a number of high level corrective exercise courses I have come to realise that it is wrong to teach correct technique. This may sound like a strange thing to say but I will explain my reasons.

Every single client I have started with and assessed has some biomechanical imbalance. That is, quite simply, that our bodies do not move exactly how they should. Poor posture, tight muscles, misaligned hips, the list goes on, so how do we know if we are doing an exercise correctly? Well it's very simple, when you are training a muscle group, ask yourself, is that muscle group working the hardest when you are doing the exercise and are the support muscles secondary in the movement.

For example if you are doing a sit up (crunch) is your core engaged and do you feel your tummy muscles working? Or are your neck, shoulders and lower back doing more of the work. Depending on the individuals fitness and muscle imbalances will depend on their ability and position to perform this exercise. So many trainers simple put each client in the same position, that is the optimal position, and expect them to complete the exercise. In my experience each client is different and therefore each client's needs to be in a slightly different position to hit the same muscle.

The same goes for a bench press. It's a very simple exercise in practice but very different in reality. The chest can be difficult to activate when attempting a bar bell bench press. Arms, back, shoulders can all be used in this exercise leaving the chest the last muscle to activate. In some cases I have had to put my clients in some quite unusual positions in order to get them to 'feel' their chest activating and then move into correct alignment gradually. As a result I get much better results and eventually get my clients moving in the right way.

When you are doing and exercise concentrate on activating the muscles that you intend to work and play around with your positioning until you find what works for you. If you are doing a chest press, your shoulders are taking strain and you are in what would traditionally be the correct position, it's not the correct position for you so change it until you find what works, and work towards correct technique.

My conclusion is this. Feel your muscles working, get into a position that works for you, be aware of how you body is moving on that day, correct technique is individual.

Medicine Ball Training

The medicine ball has long been recognised as an excellent training tool because of its versatility, cost effectiveness and ease of transportation. Thanks to technological advances in design, the old leather medicine ball has now been replaced with a rubber ball, which is designed to bounce and in some instances even float.

Medicine ball training is appropriate to all levels of age and ability. A unique multi-purpose training tool, it offers exercises for individual's partners and groups both on land and in the water. Its rebound qualities enable exercises to be performed against a solid concrete wall; on a tennis, squash, basketball or netball court, or outdoors on an oval or park. With hundreds of exercises, agility drills, strength and power tests, games and skills to choose from, it makes training fun and will keep athletes highly motivated and coming back for more.