Latest posts
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How to Do Banded Squats (And How to Tell If They’re Working)
Most people’s knees drift inward when they squat. Not because they’re weak exactly — because the glutes and outer hips haven’t been trained to push back against that tendency. The band fixes that. It adds resistance in the direction of the failure pattern. Your body has to produce an answer to it. Three or four…
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How to Do a Back Extension (And Why Most People Are Doing It Wrong)
The back extension trains the one thing a heavy deadlift asks of your lower back before anything else: hold a flat, neutral position while the load tries to pull it out of one. It looks too simple to think about — lower the torso, raise it, repeat — which is why it so often gets…
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How to Do Hanging Leg Raises: Complete Guide to Advanced Core Training
The hanging leg raise looks the same whether you’re on dip bars or a pull-up bar. It isn’t. The dip bar — parallel handles that support the arms at the sides — gives the torso something to brace against. The movement is still challenging, but the body has a reference point. On a pull-up bar,…
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How to Do Weighted Pull-Ups: A Complete Technique Guide
Weighted pull-ups came out of a specific problem. I was pressing consistently — bench, dips, overhead — and the pulling work was not keeping pace. Not because it wasn’t there, but because I hadn’t taken vertical pulling as seriously as everything else. The imbalance eventually showed up in how my shoulders felt under load: tighter,…
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How to Do a Barbell Row: A Complete Technique Guide
The barbell row wasn’t a movement I took to immediately. It’s demanding in a way that isn’t obvious until you try to do it properly — holding a heavy hinge position while pulling with your back rather than your arms is harder than it looks. Early on I was probably going too heavy and not…
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How to Do a Barbell Bench Press: A Complete Technique Guide
The first time I benched properly was because someone who knew what they were doing showed me before I had a chance to develop bad habits. He walked me through the setup — retract the scapula, align yourself with the bar at eye level, feet pressed into the floor, back locked into the bench. Then…
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How to Do a Conventional Deadlift: A Complete Technique Guide
I came to the deadlift the way most people do — I read that it was the king of compound movements and I wanted to get bigger without spending two hours in the gym. If it trained almost everything at once, it made sense to make it the centre of what I was doing. So…
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How to Do a Barbell Back Squat: A Complete Guide for Serious Beginners
No machine, no isolation movement, no squat variation comes close to what the barbell back squat demands from your body — or what it gives back in return. The hack squat and leg press will build your legs. But the barbell back squat does something they can’t — it loads your entire system. The bracing,…
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Moving to Advanced: What Changes When You Start Training the Big Compound Lifts
If you’ve been working through the beginner and intermediate movements on this blog, you’ve already built something most people skip — a real foundation. You know how to move. You’ve learned what it feels like to engage the right muscles, control your body through a full range of motion, and build strength without rushing the…
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How To Do Negative Pull-Ups For Beginners
Learn proper negative pull-up form and how to progress to chest to bar pull-ups. Clear cues, common mistakes, and step-by-step coaching.