Welcome back to this week’s edition of 2-Minute Tuesdays. This week we are talking about how to customize your exercise for your body. We find that one of the biggest inhibitors to somebody exercising consistently for the long term is sustaining recurring injuries from exercise. This often happens when people are doing exercises and workouts that are not customized for their body, so to combat this, we want to show you the top thing you can do to help customize your exercise.
Without question, the best thing you can do to make sure your exercise is more customized for your body is to check your range of motion before doing an exercise. We are giving you examples of this for three exercises, but this principle can be applied to any exercise you do. Make sure to check out the video to this week’s 2-Minute Tuesdays for visual examples.
1) Chest Press
The first example of how to customize your exercise is using a chest press. Often times, the “golden rule” is to get the bar to touch your chest or to get as much of a stretch at the bottom as possible. However, this can put a lot of stress and strain on the muscles and supportive tissues of your shoulders. We recommend first practicing the motion of the chest press without any weight to see how far back your arms can go. That will be your initial bottom point of the motion for your first set. You can set the machine to stop you there, or you can make a mental note of how far down that is and make sure not to go any closer.
Action Step: Don’t get caught up in the ideas of the bar needing to touch your chest, you need to break 90 degrees on pushups, or you need to do “full range” with the machine that you are using. Customize the exercise to accommodate the range of motion you have available right now to make sure you stay safe!
Related: Exercise Tips If You Are Sore
2) Seated Row (with Chest Pad)
Another example of how to customize your exercise is using a seated row machine, specifically one with a chest pad. One thing we often see happening in commercial gyms is people are not setting the chest pad based on how far forward they can reach. They may have the pad too close or too far back. If it is the latter, that can put excessive stress on your shoulders, mid to upper back, and neck areas. Keep your body safe by checking how far forward you can reach before setting the chest pad accordingly.
Action Step: Straining your back because you were reaching too far forward with a row is not uncommon. Keep your shoulders and spine safe by checking your range of motion before doing the exercise and setting any chest pads accordingly.
Related: Baby Boomers – Exercise Tips If You’ve Never Worked Out Before
3) Leg Press
The final example that we will give is for the leg press machine. Similar to the chest press, we often see people going as far down as they can regardless of how much their hips, knees, and ankles are able to move. To make sure you are staying within your range of motion with this exercise, get yourself set up in the starting position, then see if you can actively pull each knee in closer to your chest, one leg at a time. You should be able to pull your knee in so your foot is about half an inch off of the foot plate. If your foot is farther from the plate than that, you can scoot your seat closer. If you are not able to lift your foot off of the plate, you are too close and you need to scoot your seat back.
Action Step: Checking your motion before doing a leg press is vital to ensuring your safety while performing the exercise. If your seat is too close or you lower the foot plate too much, you can risk putting excessive stress on your lower back, hips, knees, and ankles. Keep your body safe by performing this quick range of motion check!
Want to learn more about customizing your workouts for your body? Download our free 5-Minute Mobility Check!