One of the simplest ways to go about doing this is to pair up your exercises with ones that are the exact opposite of other ones.
For example. If you're doing a flat barbell bench press, pair that up with a seated row.
You can take it one step further by using the same hand position as you used with the bench press. In this case, that would be a pronated grip. So the palms of your hands would be facing the floor.
Now, to make it easy, we'll use the same repetition range and number of sets as you did with the bench press.
So, if you do four sets of the barbell bench press with 6 to 8 reps, you would match that up on the seated pronated-grip row exactly the same. Four sets of 6 to 8 reps.
I'm keeping this very basic to make it as simple as possible.
If you did a pull up for 5 sets of 4 to 6 reps, you could match this up with the standing overhead barbell press for 5 sets of 4 to 6 reps.
If you did a standing barbell curl for 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps, you could match this up with lying dumbbell tricep extensions for 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps.
Are you starting to see the pattern here?
Most people I see at a regular gym (I say regular because it doesn't happen at my facility since I'm training or at least over looking the training here) or people that ask me questions about training, don't do this. These people typically do one exercise at a time, sit or stand there in between their sets doing nothing, and sometimes don't even bother thinking about the opposite motion or the opposite action of the particular joint/joints being used.
Here's another explain to illustrate what I mean:
- Flat Barbell Bench Press: 3 sets of 10 reps
- Rest: usually long enough to have a conversation with someone at their gym or stare for awhile at the other people training. Their rest is never timed, and therefore never measured.
- Another set of the flat barbell bench press.
- Repeat.
After the three sets they have planned, they usually move onto another chest exercise because that's what the body building magazine or one of their buddies told them to do.
Soon they start having the posture of a eighty year old woman with osteoporosis accompanied with shoulder pain whenever they bench press.
Why?
Because of poor structural balance between pushing and pulling muscles and the joints involved.
That's the quick and easy readers digest version.
Keep striving for improvement,
Chris Grayson
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