As a person who has had a strong passion for sport and exercise all my life, I have made many mistakes that led to injury and pain that could easily have been avoided. For the past 14 years I have worked closely with many clients as a trainer and seen countless others make these same mistakes. The desire to get the most out of my own body and also my clients, motivated me to learn as much as I could about the best methods and strategies to deliver great training results without the risk of more pain. Many of you reading this article are like me, trying to find the missing ingredient or magic formula to maximize performance success. With such a determined focus on progression and performance it is easy to begin to push too hard, train too long or simply do way too much. It is in our nature to strive for perfection and often we are led to set goals that may be out of reach. While we can work to achieve our potential, we must always consider our abilities and our limitations and avoid the danger of over-training which can be a serious problem to your health. It can lead to decreased performance, decreased energy, depression, and potentially serious injury. Stress, nutrition and hydration, training, practice and, competition schedules, rest & recovery are all important factors to be carefully considered and organized in order to avoid over-training. This article we will give you some great ideas and knowledge to avoid the mistakes I and many others have made.

Earlier this year we gave you our Top 7 Pulling exercises and last year we gave you our Top 7 Squats. I had a few questions as to why we never followed up with the opposing movement of pulling, being pushing patterns, and what were our preferred exercises to use. The pushing action is very important for use in daily life and a weakness with pushing movement is linked to many of the shoulder and neck problems people suffer with. Most of the exercises people struggle to gain strength are with pushing, in particular females who have never completed strength training before. But true pushing movement patterns are not limited to the upper body, as the trunk and legs play pivotal roles in creating optimal positioning, stability and timing to execute this movement efficiently. This is the mistake so many people make who limit their training to body building exercises that eliminate the use of the legs. This article we are going to list our best pushing exercises in order of easiest to hardest. They are all great exercises in their own right, and make up a big part of our training programs for people of all ages and all abilities.

Choosing the right exercises is never an easy process if you do this correctly. There is many variables to consider such as current health status or previous injuries, and there are many things you must assess before hitting the gym and lifting big weights. What works for one person may ruin another, so an assessment is critical. But before you even do an assessment you need to know WHAT is the objective of this workout? What is your goal? This is very important for the process of program design and what will be the focus on the training. In this article I am going to explain why the order of exercises is just as important as selecting the right exercise or method, and how you could either enhance or lessen the effectiveness of your program by where you place key exercises in your workout.