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.
Biochemical Imbalance can be assessed from every single client that I have started. Our bodies do move exactly how they should be and that is simple. The examples are poor posture, tight muscles and miss aligned hips, so how can we know if we have the correct exercise? When you are training a muscle group you can ask yourself if that group are working the hardest and the support muscles are secondary in the movement if doing the exercise.
For instance, your cores engaged are doing sit ups (crunch) and do you feel your tummy working? Or are your neck, shoulders and lower back doing more of the work. Their ability and position to perform this exercise will result on the individual’s fitness and muscle imbalances. A lot of trainers put each clientele in the same position, that is the optimal position, and expect them to complete the exercise. Each client is unique and therefore every client’s needs require being in a slightly different position to hit the same muscle as what I have experienced.
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.
Play around with your positioning until you find what is suit for you and focus on the muscle you intended to work to be able to activate the muscle while doing the exercise. Usually you think that if you can feel the strain in your shoulder you are doing the right exercise for your chest muscle while doing the chest press but you are wrong so change position until you find what works and works 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.
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