Best Exercise Form Tips

7 Tweaks That Improve Every Exercise

Make any workout more effective with these simple, easy-to-remember exercise tips
By Greg Presto fitbie
 

Tuck Your Shoulder Blades Down and Back

You've probably read this tip before for pullups. But tucking your shoulder blades down and back—as if you're trying to tuck them into your back pockets—will help with just about every exercise you do.

"It's good for all back exercises," says Shawn Arent, PhD, an associate professor of exercise science at Rutgers University. "If you do it before you pull, you start to activate the musculature of your lats" before you even start the rep. This works for lat pulldowns, seated rows, pullups, bent-over rows, and inverted rows.

But it's also good for pushing, Arent says. Doing this tweak before you bench press "works the pec major more completely. It also helps you have more strength and power in your bench press."

Tucking your shoulder blades also protects you from injury, says Mike Wunsch, performance director at Results Fitness in Santa Clarita, CA. "You want to prevent anterior tilt of your scapula," which can increase impingement on your rotator cuff and biceps.

This coaching cue can also help with leg exercises: In a barbell squat, "it keeps your chest up," Arent says. "You also create a natural shelf between your rhomboids and traps on which to set the bar."

More: Transform your body with these nine fitness strategies.

Video: Get fit anytime, anywhere with this at-home workout.

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