Being in great physical shape is never easy and it is not smooth sailing as many people think. It takes hard work, consistency and discipline to achieve great results and be able to stay there for a long time. And even when you do all of these things, sometimes life throws you a curve ball and really messes things up. I should know as I cannot tell you how many serious injuries I have suffered in recent times that have completely derailed my strength, my fitness, my ambitions and of course my health. To get myself back to good functioning capacity I needed to spend a lot of time with boring, tedious exercises and methods for the "fun stuff" I was used to was just not realistic. And it is at these times you can lose the plot, lose all motivation and feel your world caving in around you. I am lucky for I am around so many people with worse problems than me, and I get to work with them and help guide them through these problems and see just what it is possible if you stick to the plan. And it is in these people I get my motivation when things are getting tough. This article I am going to share with you some of these stories so you too can feel inspired.

As a person who has had a strong passion for sport and exercise all my life, I have made many mistakes that led to injury and pain that could easily have been avoided. For the past 14 years I have worked closely with many clients as a trainer and seen countless others make these same mistakes. The desire to get the most out of my own body and also my clients, motivated me to learn as much as I could about the best methods and strategies to deliver great training results without the risk of more pain. Many of you reading this article are like me, trying to find the missing ingredient or magic formula to maximize performance success. With such a determined focus on progression and performance it is easy to begin to push too hard, train too long or simply do way too much. It is in our nature to strive for perfection and often we are led to set goals that may be out of reach. While we can work to achieve our potential, we must always consider our abilities and our limitations and avoid the danger of over-training which can be a serious problem to your health. It can lead to decreased performance, decreased energy, depression, and potentially serious injury. Stress, nutrition and hydration, training, practice and, competition schedules, rest & recovery are all important factors to be carefully considered and organized in order to avoid over-training. This article we will give you some great ideas and knowledge to avoid the mistakes I and many others have made.

Earlier this year we gave you our Top 7 Pulling exercises and last year we gave you our Top 7 Squats. I had a few questions as to why we never followed up with the opposing movement of pulling, being pushing patterns, and what were our preferred exercises to use. The pushing action is very important for use in daily life and a weakness with pushing movement is linked to many of the shoulder and neck problems people suffer with. Most of the exercises people struggle to gain strength are with pushing, in particular females who have never completed strength training before. But true pushing movement patterns are not limited to the upper body, as the trunk and legs play pivotal roles in creating optimal positioning, stability and timing to execute this movement efficiently. This is the mistake so many people make who limit their training to body building exercises that eliminate the use of the legs. This article we are going to list our best pushing exercises in order of easiest to hardest. They are all great exercises in their own right, and make up a big part of our training programs for people of all ages and all abilities.