Nowadays there seems to be an emphasis on being good at the basics. You'll hear quotes along the lines of this theme. For example, 'an inch wide, a mile deep' was one I heard from my friend Sal at UCLA. What he meant by this was that in the weight-room they spend a lot of time getting really good at a few movements such as the squat and deadlift rather being just average on a number of exercises. And it makes sense. Too often we see athletes, led by poor coaches, trying to do too much. Maybe it's too much load. Maybe it's too many exercises. Many it's too many different tools to learn to become proficient. Maybe it's just too much volume. It could be a combination of a number of these. So why does this happen? Well I guess part of it comes down to a coach not having confidence in their philosophy. It's a coach not believing in their own program. 'If we only do a few basic things really well surely we will be missing out on something?' So they throw everything and the kitchen sink at the athlete. And with these comes lots of tools and gear. And we defend this type of training by calling it 'functional'. And with this topic Occam's Razor comes to mind. This means that the simplest solution is usually the best. For example, if I want to get my legs really strong, squats are going to be a really good choice. The version and stance doesn't matter as much as the selection of the exercise in this case. They would be better than lunges or step ups. Squats give me the best chance to overload the legs with resistance and stimulate a strength gain. So squats would be an example...

A colleague wrote a blog post recently about the leg press machine. He made some great points that I thought should be shared with you. So here are some of the reasons to be cautious with the leg press and some tips to perform this lift as safely as possible.For many people when they want to do a lower body workout there are a lot of exercises they could choose from. They could perform squats, deadlifts, lunges, step ups, leg extensions, leg curls, leg presses with multiple variations of each of these.But if we don't have a lot of experience in the weight room we may shy away fromt the free weight exercises. And as a result people tend to migrate towards the leg press machine.And even if we're not a newbie to the gym we will sometimes opt for the leg press because it's one exercise where we can really load up the machine with lots of weight and feel strong.But the leg press has some limitations. One of the biggest is that it results in a posterior tilt of the pelvis as the knees and hips flex to lower the platform.And as the pelvis tilts posteriorly it causes the low back to go into flexion and increases the chance of disc herniation.And nobody wants this. But there are certain things we can to minimize this from happening.First, our core works the best for us when we establish proper posture.  From the head down through the trunk we know this to mean:* neutral head* chest tall* shoulders down and back* neutral spineIf we can establish these positions prior to initiating the lift we'll do a better job of protecting the spine.What we sometimes see happen  are the following mistates:* forward head* flexed neck* chest and shoulders rounded forwardSo before we even attempt...