Holly Desai Personal Trainer

Holly Desai Personal Trainer Co-Owner of WRK Gym, Sutton Coldfield Personal Trainer based at Velocity Training Club, 9 Poplar Drive, Birmingham, B6 7AD.

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29/06/2021

Chest up for proper chin ups 💪🏼⁣
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TAG a friend who needs to fix their form!⁣
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I see this so often, especially when someone is busting out a high rep set.
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Get your chest to the bar and maintain a neutral neck position, your numbers may go down but you will be using a full range of motion, and may save yourself from a neck tweak in the future.⁣
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Iso holds in the top position are one of my favourite ways to work on this. Start with 5s holds and work up to 20s+ to upgrade your chin ups 💪🏼⁣..⁣
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23/06/2021

3 Lateral squat/lunge variations💪🏼

🏷 TAG a friend who should try these out

Everyone (not just athletes) could benefit from including some lateral movements in their training. Life is multidirectional yet we largely neglect the frontal plane when it comes to strength training. These movements tick a lot of boxes when it comes to improving stability and mobility at the hips, and encouraging some length in the adductors. They also work the quads and glutes really well, because they are basically another form of single leg squat.

With all lateral squats/lunges the aim is to stack the hip, knee & ankle in the bottom position, with the weight over the bent leg, and the toes pointing pretty much straight ahead. You can perform them with an upright torso with more forward knee travel or with more of a hip hinge. Where you hold the load will dictate this, for example a goblet hold (more upright) vs a suitcase hold (more lean).

Here are 3 of my favourites that you might not have tried:

-Lateral Box Squat
A great way to work on depth, you can work on reducing the height of the box as your range of motion improves. The aim is to completely sit on the box (without rocking back) and drive up from a dead stop.

-Landmine Lateral Squat
The landmine provides some extra stability, and forces you to sit back into the hips a little more , which can be great for those who shift the weight to the toes and tend to lift the heels. There is also a greater capacity to load here.

-Slider Lateral Lunge
The sliding plate provides some resistance meaning the adductors have to work to pull the leg back in. It also means you have to work harder to prevent the knee from caving in. As well as increasing the KB weight you can place a weight plate on top of the slider to further increase the demand on the adductors.

What a first month it has been at WRK🤩⁣⁣⁣Feeling extremely thankful that despite a global pandemic meaning we had to clo...
21/08/2020

What a first month it has been at WRK🤩⁣
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Feeling extremely thankful that despite a global pandemic meaning we had to close our doors one week after first opening (pretty bad timing huh), me & have managed to make it through to the other side without killing each other 🥇😂We put our equally questionable DIY skills together, and produced something pretty cool, with a lot of trial and error and a little help from our more talented friends 😆⁣
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To every single client who has come to train at the new studio in the past few weeks, or bought online programmes, I am so grateful for your loyalty & support. 🙏💙⁣⁣
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Crazy to think back in January we had absolutely no plans to do this. Things in life can change pretty fast if you want them to. Maybe 2020 isn’t such a s**t show after all!⁣⁣
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It’s only right that my first post after 2 months is showcasing one of my amazing strong AF clients, ⁣
Time to WRK 👊🏼💫

Don’t just post.Read, learn, unlearn, listen, have difficult conversations, challenge other views, support.
02/06/2020

Don’t just post.
Read, learn, unlearn, listen, have difficult conversations, challenge other views, support.

13/05/2020

⚡️3 B-Stance Exercises you can do with Dumbells.

Tag someone who would find this useful!

👉🏼B-Stance, kickstand, staggered stance. Whatever you want to call them, there is a lot or confusion around these kind of exercises.

⚡️What is a ‘B-Stance’?
Keeping the majority of
your weight over one leg, whilst keeping the ball or heel of the foot of the non working leg in light contact with the ground. The non working/supporting leg maybe set slightly behind the front leg, off to the side or a bit of both, this will vary based on the exercise.

⚡️How do I do it?
Here I am showing 3 variations using dumbells because that’s what most people have access to at the minute, although all 3 work with a barbell too.

👉🏼B Stance RDL
For this I like the back foot set just behind the front. The front knee will be unlocked as in a normal RDL, the back knee will bend slightly more as you lower. Try not to allow the back foot to rotate outwards, toes should be facing forwards.

👉🏼B Stance Squat
The back foot will be slightly wider here and externally rotated (pointed outwards).
I like to set my feet around hip width apart but you may go narrower or wider depending on your mobility. Whole of front foot stays in contact with the ground. Keep the back foot ‘light’ and make sure the knees are tracking in the same direction as the feet are pointing.

👉🏼B Stance Hip Thrust
The heel of the stabilising foot should line up with the toe of the working side. You may prefer it slightly offset, I like to keep it fairly centered. Try not to push through the heel too much or you may start to use the hamstring on the non working side.

⚡️Why use it?
True single leg exercises such as SL RDL’s can take a long time to master and balance becomes the limiting factor making it difficult to add load. The B-stance bridges the gap between these type or exercises and their bilateral counterparts. The back leg aids with stability meaning the exercise can be performed with more load, whilst the front leg still does around 70% of the work. It shouldn’t be a case of doing either single leg OR B-stance exercises. The two can co-exist in a training programme as they provide different benefits 😊

Have you tried B-Stance exercises before? Any questions? Drop me a comment.

Flashy DOES NOT equal more effective.⚡️The fundamentals, think squats, hip hinges, lunges, pulling, pushing, rotating & ...
06/05/2020

Flashy DOES NOT equal more effective.

⚡️The fundamentals, think squats, hip hinges, lunges, pulling, pushing, rotating & carrying should be the foundations of your training no matter what level you are at.

⚡️There is a difference between exercises that BUILD strength VS those that DISPLAY strength. A good foundation is built on becoming a master of the basics, & most people aren’t showing you the boring stuff they do behind the scenes, but that’s the stuff that allows them to do the fancy s**t now.

⚡️If you DO want to get stronger you need to stick with some form of programme for a few weeks at a time. If you do new exercises every time you train, you never get better at anything! This can be more challenging in the current situation, but far from impossible.

⚡️Now is a great time to work on your weaknesses. Always struggled with press ups? Work on some incline and negative variations a few times a week. Avoid single leg work? Introduce some form of single leg squat, or some slow tempo Bulgarians. Usually neglect core work? The majority of core exercises don’t require much weight at all.

⚡️Strength training doesn’t have to involve heavy weight, but it does need to be progressive. Keep a record of what you are doing each session so you can improve on it next time. This is a great way to keep you motivated.

⚡️The bottom line - getting really good at some basic strength exercises will do more for you than randomly jumping around your living room ever will.

29/04/2020

SLIDING HAMSTRING CURLS🦵⁣
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Check the videos for a breakdown on form.⁣
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Summary of progressions:⁣
⚡️Eccentric leg curl⁣
⚡️Standard leg curl⁣
⚡️2/1 leg curl⁣
⚡️SIngle leg curl⁣
And an alternative double leg variation:⁣
⚡️Body Curl (There is also the option to do these single leg but they are brutal and I’m not strong enough yet 😂)⁣
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⚡️ Don’t neglect those hammies just because you are training from home. Hamstrings cross the hip and knee and aid in knee flexion & hip extension, so it’s a good idea to include some exercises that involve both of these movements simultaneously. Enter the sliding leg curl!⁣
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⚡️ I love these because pretty much everyone can do them with minimal equipment, and there are plenty of variations to keep beginners and the more advanced happy. If you haven’t done these before they pretty much feel like a moderate - intense hamstring cramp. Don’t worry, this is normal, you can handle it! 😆⁣
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⚡️The hamstrings are one of the most common injury sites in runners & they play a key role in decelerating knee extension. You should consider adding some direct hamstring work into your programme if you’ve taken up running through the lockdown!⁣
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⚡️For all of the variations above I would encourage you to think about slowing the eccentric (lowering) phase down (as the legs are straightening), 3-5 seconds is ideal, as always - quality over quantity.⁣
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Let me know if you give any of these a go 👊🏼

23/04/2020

A press up tutorial, discussing some of the things almost everyone gets wrong, & how to correct it!

03/12/2019

It’s no secret that I am a big fan of Zerchers of all kinds 💪🏼⚡️⁣
Enjoyed playing around with some new variations thanks to the mastermind for thinking to stick our split squat pad on two landmines and using all the equipment in the gym in one go 😂💪🏼⁣
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Here we have:⁣
⚡️2 Landmine Zercher Squat⁣
⚡️2 Landmine Zercher Good Morning⁣
⚡️Zercher Prowler Push⁣
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Using the Zercher bar placement has a ton of benefits such as encouraging thoracic extension & increasing core & glute activation. Although often seen as too uncomfortable to load, I find a good hip thrust sponge solves the issue.

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