Barbell exercises are one of the most effective and popular ways to build strength and grow muscle. Whether you train for sports competitions or just aim to improve your fitness, doing barbell exercises—such as the squat, deadlift, and bench press—provides many benefits. 

However, before you start loading up the barbell, you should know a few things to prevent injury and get the most out of your workout. Without further ado, here’s what you need to know before performing barbell exercises.

Proper Form

One of the most crucial aspects of barbell exercises is maintaining proper form. This means keeping your back straight, knees bent, and core engaged. Poor form can result in a wide range of injuries, from back pain to strained muscles. 

Practice with lighter weights until you gain the strength and confidence to maintain proper form with heavier weights. Additionally, pay attention to your body. Gradually increase the intensity of your workout over time without overstraining, and take time off if you notice an injury forming.

Equipment Knowledge

Before you start lifting, ensure you have all the necessary equipment. This includes a barbell, weight plates, and a spotter for lifting heavy weights. You could also consider investing in weightlifting shoes, which offer improved stability and support. 

Furthermore, you should understand the different weight-lifting plate types for optimal exercise performance, form, and safety. Traditional cast-iron plates, bumper plates, and urethane plates can assist your barbell exercises in different ways. Lastly, regularly check the condition of the equipment you use to prevent accidents or injury.

Warm-Up and Stretching+

Never underestimate the importance of warm-ups and stretching before engaging in barbell exercises. Warm-up movements before exercises and stretching afterward prevent injuries and improve performance. 

This is especially important before barbell exercises since some of them require significant strength and flexibility. A good warm-up should include some light cardio followed by dynamic stretching exercises, such as lunges, squats, and shoulder circles. Cooling down could include light walking, slow stretching, and breathing exercises.

Breathing Techniques

Barbell exercises require you to hold heavy weights, which puts significant pressure on your body. To prevent injury and improve performance, learn and practice proper breathing techniques.  The most common technique is to inhale before the lift and exhale during the exertion phase. This can help maintain proper form and prevent injury. To improve your breathing and control of your breathe, consider practicing yoga or meditation.

Recovery and Rest

Lastly, allow your body to recover and rest after a barbell workout. To assist recovery, get enough sleep, stay hydrated, and eat a balanced diet. Avoid working out the same muscle groups two days in a row to prevent injury. Additionally, incorporate active recovery techniques, like stretching, foam rolling, and yoga, to help improve flexibility and avoid muscle soreness.

Barbell exercises can be an effective way to build strength and improve fitness. Maintaining proper form, using the appropriate equipment, warming up and stretching, learning proper breathing techniques, and ensuring recovery and rest are all important elements of safe, effective barbell use. Now that you understand what to know before performing barbell exercises, you can assist your fitness goals with this powerful exercise.

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You don’t have to go to the gym, you can simply have your own at home by investing in some workout equipment that will help you achieve that fit body you’re looking for. Depending on your goals and budget you can choose the pieces that work for you and slowly expand as you need.

Exercise Ball

The cardio exercises you’re going to practice on an exercise ball are limitless. It is an excellent tool that allows you to do a full-body workout. Make sure you choose the right size that suits your body and you can watch online videos to learn how to use it in your workout routine.

Pregnant and postpartum women can benefit a great deal from it too as it relaxes the pelvic floor muscles. The exercise ball will take your workout to the next level as it can help you a lot in increasing your stability, which will assist you in strengthening your core and protecting your joints.

Sit-Up Bench

Since you won’t be going to the gym, you may need multi-purpose equipment that allows you to do more than one exercise. You can start with a sit-up bench as it is a flexible piece of equipment. You can use it to strengthen your core muscle and you can do various other exercises on a sit up bench to target other muscles that can give you great results. Trunk extension, Russian twist, crunches, leg lifts and push-ups are among the exercises that can be practiced on this amazing piece of equipment.

Elliptical Machine

If you’re a fan of running, you need to get an elliptical machine and run at home. You can also buy one that includes a bike; that way you will run and bike without leaving your house. This piece of equipment allows you to do excellent cardio exercises and strengthens your heart, lungs and leg muscles.

It also helps you burn a ton of calories; you can burn up to 400 calories in 30 minutes if you do a high-intensity workout. An elliptical machine can have equivalent results to those of the treadmill, yet it is way better as it doesn’t put stress on your joints, especially if you have any knee injuries.

Jump Rope

A skipping rope is also a great piece of equipment that will help you strengthen your legs, shoulders and heart muscles. It is an incredible cardio workout that helps with speed and coordination as well.

Dumbbells 

In case you’re looking to intensifying your workout, you will need a dumbbell set that comes along with different weights. A complete workout routine should include both, cardio and weightlifting, therefore, make sure you specify some time to lift weights or you can also incorporate many bodyweight exercises to get started. You can start with light weights then increase them bit by bit. 

It is important that you take care of your health and maintain a fit body. You will achieve great results when you follow a healthy diet and exercise. If you find going to the gym hard and tiring, you can transform a room in your house into a mini gym, where you can work out anytime you like.

Try to invest in some workout equipment that will facilitate exercise time and can make you do without the gym if that’s not your scene. 

Photo credits:

• Lindsey Saenz on Unsplash

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Something that can give your motivation a bit of a jolt is getting some new gym equipment for your home workouts. Whether it’s something as small and simple as a new resistance band or a new set of weights.

Buying free weights or dumbbells can get quite expensive, depending on the weight amounts, but if you could make them yourselves, that would be a win win. A great little project to do at home and an end product that you can keep and use for workouts to come! Check out this cool video showing how simple it can be to make your own dumbbell weights at home! 

How To Make Homemade Weights at home

Photo credits:

• Cyril Saulnier
• Gene Jeter
• Victor Freitas

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Dr. Tara Swart is a neuroscientist, leadership coach, award-winning author and a medical doctor. She explains how an individual can determine how much sleep they actually need.

I have always wondered how people who manage with such little sleep can get by, while I struggle through the day if I get less than 6 – 7 hours sleep per night. Dr. Tara explains it so well in this video and it really makes logical sense. So sleep how much you need, but when you know what you need be sure to give your body the rest it deserves.

Photos by:

• Alexandra Gorn 
• Kinga Cichewicz on Unsplash

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We all hope that everyone we meet and have to interact with has some sort of manners, maybe not extreme manners, where they want to help us in every possible way but I think we hope that they will at least have the courtesy to treat us well and in a decent manner.  The same goes in the gym.

There are certain things you just should not do, and certain things which you should use your initiative to do, in order to help yourself and others around you.  Some of these acts may seem so arbitrary but you will be amazed how many people do not even bother with them due to laziness or thinking they are ‘bigger’ and better than everyone else.

All it takes is a bit of manners or ‘niceness’ and initiative and we can all get along so much better and be way more efficient.  After all we all have something in common and are all in there for more or less the same reason, so let’s help each other where we can instead of acting like meat heads thinking we are too big for the game.

OK so here is a list of some of the things which I think we should and should not do within the gym environment.  If any of you have any others which you think need to be added to the list please comment below or send them to us and I’ll be glad to post them up.  Or if you have encountered these acts in YOUR gym please do share your experiences so we can all learn from it.

1. Don’t Interrupt a person in the middle of their set

If a person is using a piece of equipment which you want to use, please WAIT for him/her to finish doing their set before you go and ask them how many sets they have left.  It is extremely annoying when, in the middle of your set on an exercise, someone comes and asks you how many you have left, as it can cause you to lose focus and mess up your momentum.

2. Do not sit and stare while you wait for a piece of equipment

If you have asked someone how many sets they have left on a piece of equipment, and whatever their number left is, you decide to sit and wait for them to finish, please DO NOT sit right next to them and watch them until they finish.  It is very uncomfortable for the person and makes it harder to focus.  So rather ask them if you can use the equipment after them and ask them to let you know once they are done.  Then go and use a different machine while you wait for them.

3. Stop socializing for extreme periods between sets

Don’t hog one machine for ages while you rest in between sets for ten minutes, or talk to your buddies at the gym or on your cell phone.  You came to the gym to train, so TRAIN!

4. Ask and you shall receive 

If you want to use a certain machine and someone is using it, all you have to do is ASK them how many they have left or ask them to go in between them.  Don’t be shy.

5. Sharing is caring

We all know that most gyms get extremely busy in the afternoons, especially after five pm when everyone comes from work, and it is very difficult to find a machine to use amongst the many people.  So if you are training during this time and if someone wants to use the machine you are on, at least offer to allow him/her to use it in between your sets.  This will help that person out tremendously and maybe you can make a new friend in the process J

6. No curling in the squat rack

I think this happens so many times.  If you are doing bicep curls using the Olympic bar in the squat rack and someone asks you to move so that they can use the squat rack, to, yes SQUAT, please agree and move.  You do not need the rack to curl and they do need it to squat.

7. Always be willing to learn

Within the gym, a lot of people think they know everything and there are some people who always feel the need to give out ‘advice.’  If you are going to give out advice please feel free to do so, but do not overextend your advice, even if you really do know you are right.  There are some people who you can try to give advice to (when for instance you see them doing something terribly wrong) and they will just get angry with you and argue that they know better. 

So it is always better to offer a brief bit of advice to them and let them decide.  If they want to know more, they will ask, trust me. 

On the other hand though, there are many of us who are always willing to learn and hear different people’s opinions, so if you are very knowledgeable and experienced and someone does ask you for advice, please feel free to express your opinion so that we can all learn.

8. Focus on YOUR goals

Don’t judge the way other people do certain exercises and what weights other people use.  You never know what they are trying to achieve by doing them and what their specific goals are.  Just focus on yourself and on improving in everything you do to achieve YOUR own goals.

9. Please pack your weights back

For example, some guys after using the leg press machine and piling on the weights on both sides, will just move to the next piece of equipment and not even bother to remove ANY of the weights.  Then the next guy/girl comes along and needs to use less weight; now they must waste their time removing all those plates.  That seems somewhat unfair.  At least be courteous enough to remove some of the plates.

Or another example is when guys do drop sets with dumbbells.  They cart 4 or 5 pairs of different weighted dumbbells across the gym to use in one corner, and then once they are done they just leave them there.  Now the next person has to look all over the gym to find those weights which SHOULD be at the weight rack.  Let’s use some common sense here.

10. Most importantly be friendly to everyone in the gym

Treat others how you would want to be treated!

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