- What's up Thenx athletes?
It's Chris Heria, and welcome to another Thenx video.
Today, I'm gonna be sharing with you one thing
that you can start doing right now to change your life,
that's going to have you develop more strength
and muscle while you're working out.
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Assuming you're already putting in the time to train
and you're taking nutrition seriously,
there's one thing that you can start doing right now,
to transform your body without even taking into account
increasing your reps in resistance, or reducing rest time.
And that is using perfect form.
And if you've been struggling to see results,
this can be a complete game changer.
It might sound or seem obvious,
but a lot of people ignore this and simply don't do it,
either due to not knowing that they're using improper form,
or simply just being lazy.
But if you're already putting in the work,
and you're already doing the required amount of repetitions
for an exercise, you might as well do them right
and get the max benefits out of them
as you spend the same amount of time
doing them with improper form anyway,
while missing out on the strength and muscle gains.
Professional athletes
that train for a specific sport or goal
always practice with perfect form,
not only to build the muscle memory of the movement,
but to get the most out of it.
And you definitely wouldn't want to build muscle memory
of improper form.
Using perfect form
involves full range of motion of an exercise,
which provides for a better quality contraction
and increased time and attention,
and allowing you to move on to harder progressions,
improving you as an athlete overall.
And as I always say, it's not practice that makes perfect,
it's perfect practice that makes perfect.
And by implementing perfect form into your training today,
you can literally change your life significantly,
improving the outcome and the results of your training
and expediting your fitness journey,
getting you in the best shape of your life,
not just looking strong, actually being strong.
So for today, I'm going to go over the fundamental exercises
as well as some calisthenic skills
and show you how you should and should not be doing them.
And if you're ready to follow along,
all you're gonna need is to download the Thenx App
in the App Store or Google Play Store.
Open up to the YouTube workout section.
You should find this routine.
Smashed the light button on the video,
and we're ready to get started.
The first fundamental exercise we're gonna get into,
is a push up.
Now, remember not all reps are equal.
You can have someone do 10 reps with perfect form,
and another person do 20 reps with sloppy form.
The person that did the 10 perfectly
is gonna see more results
and develop more strength and muscle.
So in my opinion, you want to increase your perfect reps,
not your sloppy reps.
I see it all the time when people are doing pull-ups,
they'll do 20 sloppy pull-ups
and wonder why they still don't have the strength
to be able to do a muscle up.
Meanwhile, the person that can do 10 pull-ups,
is doing muscle-ups already.
But when you look at the form and the reps,
the 10 is a lot harder to do
than the half repping, really bad form 20.
So in the end, if you're not striving for perfect form
and you're still counting the reps,
you're only cheating yourself.
So with that said, we're getting to pushups, perfect form.
I'm gonna go for 10 reps and then break it down.
Starting off with the things that you want to make sure
that you're getting right,
you want to make sure that your core is engaged,
but you can still breathe comfortably,
and regulate your breathing.
You want your chin up and you wanna be in a straight line
from your heel to your shoulder,
squeezing your glutes, along with your core,
your calves and the grip on the ground.
You want to lower your body all the way down
till your chest reaches the floor,
and then all the way back up using only your arm.
You definitely don't want to rush this movement,
and you want to use complete full range of motion,
all the way up, all the way down.
All right There we have pushups, with perfect form.
If you're rushing the pushup,
of course you're going to be able to do more reps,
but you're not gonna get the quality contraction
and you're not going to build the strength and muscle
and get the results that you want as fast.
I promise you slow and steady really wins the race,
and you're going to feel it's a lot harder
to do them slow and controlled, which is a good thing,
which is how you know it's superior to doing them fast.
Now there's many variations of pushups,
but this is gonna be the basic checklist for all of them.
If you want to learn how to do your first pushup
or increase your repetitions,
definitely check out my video, "How to do a pushup".
And if you follow this checklist correctly,
you won't have to worry about doing your pushups
with improper form,
or not getting the most results out of them.
These fix the main things that people always get wrong,
like their hips dropping too low, not engaging your core,
not breathing not using full range of motion,
going too fast in your repetitions
and not getting a quality contraction,
and not using full body engagement
throughout the entire movement of the exercise.
And pushups is a great exercise to build strength
and muscle in your upper body.
And it can be done without any weights,
and absolutely anywhere.
So once you've mastered the pushups,
this will definitely change your life.
Next fundamental exercise, we have the pull-up.
I'm gonna go for 10 reps, and then break it down.
Now you can really tell when someone's using perfect form,
because they're not trying to use momentum.
In fact, they're trying to work against momentum,
maximizing the amount of resistance
that they can place on the muscles with each rep.
If you're swinging or using momentum,
that's going to be taking off some resistance.
And if you're using improper form,
that's going to be taking off resistance
from the intended muscle groups that you're trying to work.
So specifically with these movements,
you want to reduce the amount of momentum
and help that you're using.
All right. There we have 10 pull-ups with perfect form.
So when doing pull-ups with perfect form,
you want to make sure that your core is tight.
Your feet are also tight and pointed together
which allows your body to stay as a unit,
while you simultaneously squeeze your calves,
glutes and back.
And you want to make sure
that you're activating the scapulas
and retracting them back before you even start to pull up.
Also make sure you have a strong and firm grip on the bar.
The stronger your grip,
the easier it's going to be to pull up.
Once everything is engaged and in perfect form,
you can begin to pull up with full range of motion.
You always want to try to pull up towards your chest.
That would be the minimum requirement.
If you can't yet do so and you're only hitting your chin,
that's okay
but you still want to work towards hitting the chest line.
You don't want to be satisfied just pulling up to here.
If you want to learn how to do your first perfect pull-up
and increase repetitions, you can always check out my video,
"How to do your first pull-up".
So if you're doing all of these things correctly
with each rep, then every rep should count.
If you're not doing any one of these things correctly,
then the reps shouldn't count
and you should go ahead and try it again with perfect form.
If you haven't yet, and you start doing your pull-ups
like this, you're going to be doing one arm pull ups,
and muscle-ups like crazy really soon.
Now, moving on to the next fundamental, we have dips.
I'm gonna go for 10 reps with perfect form.
As I do these dips with perfect form,
I'm going all the way up,
and all the way down using full range of motion.
I'm not doing it too fast.
I'm getting the quality contraction,
wheezing tight with the grip of my hands
for the entire duration of this exercise,
from the bottom to the top, keeping my core tight
and only using my arms to lift my body.
I'm not hopping with my lower body,
and I'm not kicking with my legs at all.
I'm keeping them tight, stationary and together.
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All right, so there we have dips with perfect form.
And now with more of an understanding,
you should be able to spot the differences
in the repetitions.
So make sure you're not speeding through these reps.
Make sure that you don't have your legs all over the place,
and make sure that you're not cheating yourself,
going through the entire checklist
and making sure that you're doing every single rep,
as perfect as you possibly can, to get the most benefits.
Moving on to the next fundamental, we have squat.
So when you're doing squats,
make sure that you have weight on your heels.
You also want to make sure that your back is straight
with the open chest.
Your chin is up using full range of motion.
You're not leaning too far forward.
And your core and glutes and legs are tight the entire time.
And you don't want to rush this exercise.
You want to do it slow and controlled
for a quality contraction, to get real results.
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All right, there we have 10 squats with perfect form.
And as you can see, I did it with the wall
right in front of me to ensure that I'm using perfect form.
A lot of times when people are going for squats,
they could be leaning way too far forward
with their knees way past their toes
and a majority of their body weight
moving onto the balls of their feet,
resulting in their heels to rise
or reducing the weight from their heels.
And now that we've covered the fundamentals,
let's go over some calisthenic skills.
The first one is going to be a handstand.
When you're in a handstand,
you wanna be in a perfect straight line
from your hands to your toes.
You have to be completely engaging
every single muscle in your body,
from your feet tight and pointed together,
to tighten your calves, your glutes, your quads,
your core, your shoulders, your back, your arms,
and down to the grip of your hands on the floor.
Any weak link or muscle not engaged
is gonna break that straight line.
All right, so there we have the handstand hold
with perfect form.
Now right off the bat, if you don't know how to handstand
and you'd like to learn how right now, check out my video,
"How to handstand in five easy steps".
Now, when it comes to handstands,
it's easy to spot the errors
or if you're using perfect form,
make sure your head is not too far forward
because you want your body to be aligned
in a perfectly straight line.
So you want to make sure
that your body is completely stacked,
from your hands to your head, glutes on top of your head,
and feet on top of your glutes.
And make sure that no part of your body is loose.
That's another main thing that people do.
They'll have some muscles tight and others not,
and that's going to make your foundation really wiggly,
it's gonna make it harder to hold your hands down.
And also if your hips are not engaged,
you're gonna start to bend in your handstand,
and end up with a banana looking handstand.
And lastly, don't be looking around
while you're doing a handstand.
Whenever you move your head or move your eyes,
will drastically move your body.
Once you can master it, it's a great thing to learn later on
but when you're first trying to do your handstand,
it can actually be one of your biggest setbacks.
So make sure you're looking at
and staring at one point on the ground.
I explained exactly where to do it in the video.
Go ahead and check it out.
Now we're ready to move on to the next calisthenic skill,
the full planche.
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All right, there we have the full planche.
Little quick planches to show you guys perfect form.
Now, if you don't know how to planche
and you'd like to start learning right now,
check out my video, "How to full plant step-by-step".
Now there's a lot of components
to executing the full planche, but when looking at somebody,
if they're doing it with perfect form, it's easy to see.
For starters, your arms should be completely locked out.
In fact, they should look hyper extended like this.
This is a straight arm exercise.
So if your arms are not locked or not straight
in any shape or form, you're not doing a full planche,
you're doing a bent arm planche
which is tremendously easier.
Even if your arm look straight, if it's not locked out,
it's a huge difference in strength and skill.
You also want to make sure
that your body is in a straight horizontal line,
and you don't want to have a droop
or a bend in your lower back or your lower body.
And what's going to help keep your body in a straight line
is maintaining your core engagement,
and hollowing out your back,
protracting your scapulas instead of retracting them.
And those are the main things that people get wrong
with the full planche.
Other than that, if you're checking everything off the list
and you're doing it correctly, and you checked out my video
on how to full plant step-by-step,
you should be doing it with perfect form.
If not already, then in no time.
I'm moving on to the last calisthenic skill.
I'm gonna show you the front lever with perfect form.
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All right, and there we have a front lever
with perfect form.
Again, if this is an exercise that you can't do
that you'd like to learn, then check out my video
on how front lever step-by-step.
And just like the full planche,
the front lever has a lot of components to it.
But visually you can see right away
when someone's using proper form, or improper form.
And those cues are going to be bents in the body or the arm.
They're not engaging their core
or they just don't have enough core engagement strength,
same thing for their lower back.
They can also not be retracting their scapulas
as they should be,
especially when you're trying to go up into a front lever.
That's what's going to bring your body up
into that horizontal position.
And if your arms are bent as well,
that's another thing that you don't want to be doing.
You want to make sure that your arms are straight
when you're doing a front lever.
And a big sign of that
is if your body is not in a locked out straight line,
even if you have a tiny bend in the hip area,
which is one of people's biggest mistakes,
even people that think that they're doing front levers
and they're not.
In order for you to lift your lower body
into a straight line,
the majority of the engagement has to be in your lower back,
kind of like as if you're doing a deadlift.
This is what's gonna keep your legs up,
and in a straight line.
If you're trying to raise your knees like this,
as you can see, your hips are gonna bend,
and you're never gonna maintain a straight line
if you're trying to lift your feet
or your knees into a front lever position.
But I cover all of that
as well as all the techniques that you can use
to learn how to front lever.
So check out my video on how to front lever
and with that said, that's gonna cover today's video.
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And with that said, I'll see you next Sunday,
8:00 PM USA Eastern time.
Night love, and peace out.
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