6 ways to boost your gym training success
When you go to the gym or play sport, how do you know that the exercises you do are the most effective at getting you stronger, more mobile, fitter and healthier?
Movement HQ Co-Founder Mark Glanville has been a Personal Trainer for over 21 years. Here he shares 6 training considerations to push you to the top of your training game – and to help ensure comfort, strength and independence as you get older.
Try to incorporate these movements and considerations in your training at least once per week!
1. Squat frequently
Squatting is one of our most natural and primal movements. If we’re not strong, efficient or even able to squat, that can wreak havoc on our chances of ageing well.
Losing the ability to squat properly can be a big step in losing our independence, being able to perform simple tasks, and standing easily from a grounded position.
Squatting builds great lean lower body mass and strength as well as core stability, and improves testosterone and growth hormone production which is essential for slowing down the ageing process.
2. Do your lunges
Let’s face it. Most of us don’t like lunging. It’s uncomfortable placing all your body weight on one leg, and balancing on the other. But lunging is awesome for your body. it has the same benefits of squatting, with the added advantage of working us through further movement planes.
Lunges allow us to replicate daily tasks like walking, stepping over or under objects, running, hiking, rotating and stretching out (like vacuuming under or around something, or reaching).
Being a single-leg exercise, lunges also enhance our balance and stability.
3. Work your grip strength
It’s important to focus on grip strength because we use our hands constantly in our day to life (for carrying shopping bags, walking the dog with a lead or using a broom) and many exercises you perform in the gym need you to grip some form of weight.
Good grip strength is a by-product of strength training itself. Generally the greater the weight, the more grip strength needed, so the correlation is significant.
Muscular strength is a predictor of longevity, weakness is an indicator of disease and mortality. Researchers have found “strong evidence of a link between muscular weakness and an acceleration in biological age”*.
Exercises to improve grip strength that feel uncomfortable in the short term but have great long term gains include hanging for time, deadlifts, chin-ups, farmers carries and Zottman curls.
4. Include some cardio
This is a no-brainer, cardiovascular exercise comes in many forms. The ‘not so’ deliberate include brisk walking, intense gardening, labouring, playing team sports, or walking to a friend’s house or local cafe.
Aerobic/cardio exercise has a mountain of benefits including improved heart health, lower blood pressure and regulated blood sugar. It can also help with weight control, immune strengthening, mood boosting, increased mental clarity and reduced asthmatic symptoms.
More deliberate aerobic exercise comes from Conditioning or HIIT classes, high volume kettlebell or weight training, running, cycling and swimming.
5. Go from ground to standing
Training to maintain the ability to get to the floor and stand again unassisted is paramount in maintaining our independence as we age.
This movement pattern incorporates almost every muscle in the body and helps to maintain good synergy and integrity of our muscles and joints in order to do so efficiently.
Many MHQ classes are on the floor like Yoga, Mat Pilates, and our many Bodyweight classes including Animal Flow which is a ground based primal movement class.
Mark’s two favourite practices are Kettlebell Turkish Get Ups and Animal Flow. Building strength, mobility, bodily awareness and helping cognition and coordination, these must-do skills help us live our best lives.
6. Play and be social
The benefits of training in groups or with a friend are massive for mental health and not just our physical health.
Game play makes exercise more fun and creative in practice and group training adds accountability to our training regime or frequency. It’s more engaging, and can certainly build a little competitiveness in all of us as well as being more motivated by our peers.
It will also bring some comfort during those moments of discomfort.
Social/group activity is very important in helping ward of depression, and knowing the classes are pre planned by a coach takes the monotony and stress out of having to pre plan your routine.
Let MHQ do the thinking for you and know that each program has many goals, one of the most important being ‘FUN!’
Mark Glanville established Movement HQ in Frenchs Forest in 2019 to help people move safely and effectively – and to build a community where training is fun, rewarding and empowering for everybody.
This led him to being recognised as “Business Person of the Year” in the 2023 Local Business Awards.
Get moving and reach out to Frenchs Forest’s premier fitness community today! Find out for yourself how these essential training principles will help you get fitter, stronger and move better.
Try any of our 60 weekly classes over 14 days and get a Goals Setting session with a Personal Trainer.