Liam Thompson Personal Training

The core is much much more than the abs! So core training is much much more than sit ups, crunches and leg raises! 👊🏼

Whether you want to improve athletic performance, build muscle or generally keep the aches and pains away I recommend using a variety of exercises that challenge the core in different ways 💪🏼

I like to use exercises that train the body to resist different movement types. For example, the video shows the following exercises;
✅ Anti-Flexion/Extension
✅ Anti-Rotation
✅ Anti-Lateral Flexion

Consider this when making a programme, rather than getting to the end of a session and doing a plank for a minute or a few sit ups til it burns… you know who you are 👀😂

And as always, if you’re not sure give me a shout and I’ll do my best to help 👍🏼

Stop looking like you’re having a seizure when doing your lateral raises and actually fry your middle delts 🍳🔥

I’m sure you know what I’m talking about here, the fellas that rock back and forth like they’ve got hypothermia swinging the dumbbells up & down… is this you? 👀

Don’t worry, it was me as well about 10 years ago throwing the 17.5kg’s up 🙈 and while doing this I never properly felt my middle delts, only looked like a tw*t 😂

I would mainly feel it in my upper traps, because I was throwing the weight up and down and shrugging massively in the process. And I was also going directly out to the side too ❌

Then once I learned about the movement and moved the arm slightly in front of the body in the scapular plane and most importantly dropped the ego… my shoulders lit up like a Christmas tree 🎄

To help keep the ego in check I like to either;
💪🏼 Put my chest against a bench while using dumbbells to stop me from rocking back & forth
💪🏼 Lie on a bench using the cables to provide stability and again stop me from moving all over the gaff

Try these changes and swap your shoulders for boulders lads 🪨

If you want any more info on how to do certain exercises or how to effectively implement them into training programme, flick me a message and I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction 👍🏼

DISCIPLINE > MOTIVATION! Being disciplined is getting sh*t done even when you don’t feel like it, because it’s what’s required to reach the goal 💪🏼

Eg when you can’t be arsed training after a big day at work but you do it anyway! When you’ve not eaten, you’re hungry and want to rationalise going to the Golden Arches 👀 but you wait or find a better alternative instead of taking the easy route 👊🏼

Now this isn’t to say you can’t have some freedom with nutrition etc. And as you might’ve noticed from my previous posts I’m all for that… when it’s planned, accounted for and moderated!

For example if the goal is fat loss and you’ve; planned a meal or night out, saved calories in advance and it’s done every now and again… fill your boots 🥾

But if you’re regularly smashing takeaways or going out on a bender every weekend… chances are you’ll not achieve what you set out to!

So there often has to be some delayed gratification, where we say no to certain things we like in order to achieve something greater down the track (‘the greater good’😂)

Hopefully the tips in the video help you adhere to your plan to get to where you want to be! And if you’re unsure what that process may look like, give me a message and I’ll be happy to point you in the right direction 👍🏼

I see this around 5 times a week, and it’s about as good as Vegemite… which is terrible 🤮

Only joking Aussies, I know saying that is forbidden and puts me at risk of losing my citizenship 😉🇦🇺

Anyway, in all seriousness the first example is a waste of time. So if you do the external rotation movement, make sure you work against resistance 👍🏼

Bit of bonus info for those of you who read captions. While I sometimes programme external rotations in a warm up, I often use alternate exercises to ready the upper body 💪🏼

I like to use the Lock Lat Pull & Lock Big 3, created by the late Andrew Lock to prime the lats, retractors and external rotators. And/or the face pull exercise to fire up the retractors and external rotators 🔥

And for those of you who just walk in the gym and start slinging tin around without warming up (I miss those days 😂), remember this saying… ‘you can’t fire a cannon off a canoe’ 💣🛶

Basically means make sure your base is stable so that you can be explosive and produce more force! Priming our back improves our base so that we can push with more force, safely 👊🏼

So I urge you to invest 5-10 minutes each session performing this type of work. Not only will your gains be better, but your future self will thank you too 👴🏻

If you’ve got any questions about what warm ups may suit you and your goals, give me a shout and I’ll let you know what I’d do 👍🏼

The resemblance is uncanny in my opinion…

Get known as ‘Barry Big Back’ with these tips on rows & pulldowns 💪🏼

Here’s an added bit of info for those of you reading this who have attention spans better than goldfish🎏😂

Something I see regularly is people training their back by going from one exercise to the next using pretty much the same movement pattern throughout ❌

For example, doing a single arm dumbbell row, then a narrow grip cable row, followed by a narrow grip machine row. I’m not knocking those particular exercises, all of them may have a place in a training programme.

HOWEVER, I would put them into different training days rather than on the same day. OR I would use those exercises, but use different elbow paths and sternum positions ✅

For example, dumbbell row driving the elbows out & back. Narrow grip cable row driving the elbows down towards the hips. Machine row lifting the chest (thoracic extension) and squeezing shoulder blades together hard 👊🏼

That way you roast all parts during a pull session 🔥
If you want more info on how to structure a training programme efficiently & effectively, give me a shout and I’ll be more than happy to give you my ten pence worth 👍🏼