health

Easy tips to exercise safely: When you don't do it right, you're going to hurt yourself.

by NATALIA HAWK

Let’s have a bit of fun on a Sunday afternoon… and talk about technique.

I know. Zzzzz. Just the word takes me back to boring swimming classes as a kid, when we had to stop diving through hoops into the water (best game ever) and start talking about the exact angle our hand was supposed to exit the water while midway through our freestyle stroke.

But technique is important when it comes to exercise. All too often, we sign up for classes or start running programs without knowing how to do things properly – putting us on the fast-track to injury or extra-sore muscles or a general complete lack of progress.

I turned to Pinterest for a bunch of handy memes that you can save to your computer or print off and remember forever. Hooray! Remember that these are, of course, the very basics – if you have very specific concerns or want some better guidance, see a PT.

Squats

Your vitals: Butt back. Chest up. Knees in line with toes. Remember this even when you’re participating in those frantic Body Attack classes when you’re supposed to be squatting one second and then doing a double-leap, triple-pirouette over a step the next… 75 times over.

Lunges

If you do yoga/pilates, some kind of cross-training or any weight-training, you’ll probably be lunging at some point. Make sure you check out your form in a mirror as sometimes it can feel right… but it’s not actually right. (Story of my life.)

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Push-ups

Okay, this one needed a video because of the variations. I like the part where she says there’s no such thing as a “girl push-up”. DAMN STRAIGHT.

Planks

How. Painful. Are. Planks. I signed up for a plank challenge that wants you to slowly increase your planking time, day by day – sadly it assumes that I can plank for even 20 seconds. Oh well. Hopefully with some proper technique, I’ll get much better.

Running

Running always seems so straightforward… one foot in front of the other, yep, yep, can’t be so hard… oh, how wrong we are.

What exercise techniques do you have to pass on?

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