Personal Training Foundations — Chapter 5

Exercise Technique Library

Push, Pull & Lower Body Essentials

A comprehensive library of key exercises with coaching cues, external focus points, and technique breakdowns.

By KC Jugran — CHEK Holistic Lifestyle Coach, founder of Living Foundations. Part of Personal Training Foundations.

Hinge Exercises

The exercises below all load the same hip-hinge pattern introduced in Chapter 3, but each one changes where the resistance sits — on the back, the front, or hanging from the hands — which shifts the balance demand and the muscles worked.

Good Morning

Good Morning — a hinge that develops the entire posterior chain

Place the barbell at the "meat" of the upper back, just below the neck.
Brace and hinge as practised, though be more mindful of technique as the weight is heavier.
Look down or slightly ahead while performing.

Front Squat

Front squat — elbows high, weight on front deltoids

Keep the barbell on the meat of the front shoulder muscles (deltoids), while keeping the elbows as high as possible.
Take a deep inhale and sit down "between your legs", imagining a well on the ground between your feet.
Go only as low as you can without significant butt wink.
Come up using pursed-lips breathing as practised.

Back Squat

Back squat — bar on the upper back, drive through the upper back on ascent

Technique remains the same, except the bar is placed on the meat of the upper back.
Note the tendency to lean forward more. To counter this, actively push through the upper back on the ascent.

What is the use of plates below the toes/heels?

PUSH EXERCISES

Exercises that usually target the chest, triceps, and shoulders.

Push-Up

Push-up — body in full stack, lower chest toward the thumbs

Come into the push-up position with the body in stack — hands slightly wider than chest-width.
Bend the elbows, letting the chest come down while aiming the lower part of the chest toward an imaginary line drawn between the thumbs.
Gently touch the ground with the chest — ensuring nothing else contacts the floor.
Push back up maintaining your stack.
Elevate the hands to make easier, or elevate the legs to make tougher.

Bench Press

Bench press — forearms perpendicular to the floor determines grip width

Bring your arms down by your side until your forearms are perpendicular to the ground — this is your grip width.
Also notice how low you can go before you feel a "lock" in the joints. This is your maximum safe range — do not force beyond it.
Grab the bar with the width found appropriate and slowly start lowering it toward the chest.
Push the bar up to complete a rep.

Closer than shoulder-width starts to affect the triceps a little more, and wider grips target the chest more. However, excessively wide grips can place excessive strain on the anterior deltoid over time.

A simple rule of thumb for new coaches: if a client cannot explain why they chose a particular grip width, default them to the "forearms perpendicular" measurement above rather than whatever width looks strongest on social media. It is a safe, joint-friendly starting point that can be adjusted later once the client has enough experience to feel the difference themselves.

Poliquin Press

Poliquin press — neutral-grip dumbbell pressing variation

Placing the dumbbells on your thighs, start to lie on the bench with your shoulders gently squeezed together.
Keep the palms facing each other as you press the weight up overhead, ensuring a gentle shoulder blade squeeze throughout.
Start bringing the weight down until the dumbbells gently touch the top of the armpits — then press back up.

The neutral (palms-facing) grip keeps the shoulder in a more naturally stable rotational position than a standard barbell press, which is why this variation is a common substitute for clients who report shoulder pinching or impingement symptoms on flat or overhead barbell pressing.

High-Incline Overhead Press

High-incline overhead press — incline angle depends on shoulder flexibility

Set up a bench to around 60–90° of incline.
Kick up the dumbbells one by one to your shoulder like you are holding a bazooka.
Lift the dumbbells overhead, aiming your hands to go slightly backwards — most people tend to press too far forward, which reduces deltoid engagement.
Note: the amount of incline is determined by the flexibility of the person's shoulder joint. If they overarch the lower back to press overhead, reduce the incline.

The steeper the bench angle, the more directly the resistance loads the front and middle deltoid rather than the upper chest, making this a useful bridge between a flat bench press and a strict standing overhead press.

Pike Push-Ups

Pike position — hips high, body forming an inverted V

Place your hands on a step or bench, wide enough so that your elbows can come down and your collarbone touches the surface.
Without bending the knees too much, walk your legs forward until you reach the appropriate position — body forming a pyramid shape.
From here, start to bring the upper body down in a diagonal line — "like going underneath a low fence" — until the collarbone touches the step.
Push back up reversing the same diagonal path.
Elevate the step to make the exercise easier, or elevate the legs to make it harder.

By tilting the torso closer to vertical, this bodyweight variation shifts load away from the chest and onto the shoulders far more than a standard push-up, making it a natural stepping stone toward a handstand push-up for clients with no overhead pressing equipment.

PULL EXERCISES

Exercises that usually target the back, biceps, and rear shoulders.

Australian Pull-Ups (Inverted Row)

Grab onto a bar, rings, or TRX at roughly navel height and lean back until the arms are straight.
Ensuring your body is straight and stacked, pull until your thumbs touch the inside of the armpits. Squeeze the shoulder blades strongly.
Slowly go back down as you straighten the arms.
This exercise has many variables — grips, knee bend, height of the implement — all of which change the difficulty and muscles involved.

This is one of the most useful exercises in a coach's toolkit precisely because of its scalability. A deconditioned client can perform it standing almost upright, with feet close to the anchor point, making the exercise closer to bodyweight-assisted. A stronger client can lower the body angle until it is nearly parallel to the floor, dramatically increasing the load. This means a single piece of equipment can serve an entire group class of mixed abilities, which is discussed further in Chapter 14.

Dumbbell Rows

Here we will cover 3 highly effective row variations.

All three variations below share the same underlying principle — the torso is braced against a stable surface (a bench, an incline pad, or the coach's own leg) so the client can pull with the back muscles alone, without needing to stabilise against momentum. The difference between them is simply the angle of the pulling arm relative to the torso, which is what shifts emphasis between the lats and the upper back.

Shallow Lat Rows

Holding a dumbbell in hand, place your forearm on an object at hip height or higher.
Assume a staggered stance with the left leg forward and right backwards. Place your forehead on your left forearm for support, letting the right arm hang.
From here pull the dumbbell towards the hips, trying your best not to rotate your torso. Hold for a second or two and then slowly bring down.
The height of the object can be adjusted according to comfort and desire — higher objects target the upper trapezius, while lower objects target the lats more.

One-Arm Dumbbell Row

One-arm dumbbell row — bench-supported for stability

Holding the dumbbell, place your left knee and left palm on the bench for support.
Pull the dumbbell up until your thumb touches the inner part of the armpit, ensuring the chest faces downward.
Also push hard with the supporting hand so that your body remains rigid.
Lower down slowly and repeat.

Supported Two-Arm Row

Set up a bench to an incline of your choice. Lie prone on it, with your knees on the seat pad and your head at the top.
Make sure the arms can hang fully after each rep without touching the ground.
Pull the weights the same way, ensuring a second or two of pause at the top.
Like shallow rows, higher angles are more upper back and traps, while lower angles are more lat.

Lat-Focused Pulldown

Lat-focused pulldown — underhand grip, elbows driven toward the hips

Making sure the pads are securely fitted on your thigh, hold the bar about shoulder-width, using an underhand grip.
Letting the arms gently stretch upwards, pull the elbows down, aiming towards the hips. There should be a stack of the spine.
Slowly let the weight pull the arms up. Repeat.

An overhand grip works on the forearms and back more, while an underhand grip allows fuller range and easier technique to teach.

Upper-Back Focused Pulldown

Wide overhand grip, pulled toward the chest — upper-back and mid-trap focus

Making sure the pads are securely fitted, hold the bar slightly wider than shoulder-width, using an overhand grip.
Pull the bar until it touches your lower chest, actively arching the back and squeezing the shoulder blades together.
This should activate the mid and upper back very strongly.

Many clients who complain of rounded, hunched shoulders from long hours at a desk respond very well to this variation, since the strong scapular squeeze directly opposes the posture they hold all day. Two or three sets of this movement at the end of a session is a simple, low-risk way to address postural complaints without a dedicated corrective-exercise routine.

Pull-Ups

Standard pull-up — chin rising above a fixed high bar

Technique remains identical to a lat pulldown. A great idea is to reach a lat pulldown load exceeding your bodyweight before attempting full pull-ups.

For lat focus, keep your legs straight and slightly in front of you to keep the core engaged. Pull until the collarbone touches the bar.
For upper and mid-back focus, bend your knees behind you and pull with a big thoracic arch until the lower chest touches the bar.

Assisted Pull-Ups

One of the best ways to learn pull-ups (besides using a machine) is to have a training partner assist by holding the hips or ankles, decreasing the assistance progressively as strength improves.

LOWER BODY EXERCISES

Split Squats

Split squat — starting in half-kneeling position

Starting in a crawling position, put one foot forward until both knees make a 90° angle. Then stand your upper body up.
Putting hands on your hips, stand straight up, ensuring the heel of the back foot is raised.
Go straight down slowly until the back knee gently touches the ground — imagine the back knee is like a feather landing.
Keep weight relatively equal on both legs.

Training one leg at a time exposes and corrects side-to-side strength imbalances that a two-legged squat can hide entirely — a client can be noticeably weaker on one side and still squat a barbell evenly, since the stronger leg quietly compensates. Split squats also load the spine far less than a loaded bilateral squat for the same leg effort, making them a useful option for clients who need to train hard around a back complaint.

Bulgarian Split Squat

Picking a bench slightly below knee height, come into crawling position facing away from it.
Hook one of your feet onto the bench and come up into tall kneeling. Stand straight up, feeling if further adjustments are required.
"Sit down and back — imagine the back knee is a hammer trying to hit a nail just below the bench."

Elevating the rear foot increases the stretch demand on the rear leg's hip flexors and deepens the working leg's range of motion compared to a standard split squat, which is why it is usually introduced only once a client has mastered the flat-footed version and has adequate hip mobility to keep the front knee tracking safely.

Leg Press

Knees are bent only to the point where the tailbone begins to rise off the seat — this is your safe range. Foot placement also matters in what muscle groups are emphasised.

Leg press — foot placement affects which muscles are emphasised

Difference Between Free Weights, Machines and Cables

Neither of these is better than the other. They are simply different tools with different properties and different uses. All three can produce excellent results and should be selected based on the client's goal and capacity.

In practice, most well-rounded programmes use all three across a training week: free weights for the main compound lifts where full-body stabilisation is the goal, machines when a client needs to push a muscle group close to failure without a spotter, and cables for accessory and isolation work where the ability to angle the resistance precisely matters more than raw load.

Free weights require the body to stabilise load moving in any direction, training smaller stabiliser muscles. Generally less irritating to joints due to freedom of movement.
Machines provide a fixed movement path, allowing maximum effort without risk of weights falling. Excellent for training to failure safely.
Cables allow resistance to be redirected to virtually any angle needed. Very effective for targeting specific body parts and positions.

Deadlift (Conventional)

A combination of a squat and a Romanian Deadlift — it begins like an RDL but the weight is lowered all the way to the floor and picked back up.

Stand behind the bar with feet slightly wider than hip-width, shoelace knot just below the bar.
Bend the knees until they touch the bar. At this point freeze the hip position.
Without moving the hips, grab the bar and put the spine in a stack.
"Push the Earth away" as you stand up until the bar comes close to the knees, then extend the hips like an RDL to lock out.
Reverse the movement — push the hips back like an RDL until the bar reaches the knees, then squat the bar back down to the floor.

Nordic Curls

Stand on your knees with your heels/ankles supported by a sturdy object.
How far forward you try to reach with your head is completely dependent on your strength level.
Pull back up to the start, imagining you are trying to lift the foot support into the air with your feet.

This is a demanding hamstring exercise and should be introduced with a very small range of motion — sometimes only a few centimetres forward — before gradually increasing the range over weeks. It builds the hamstrings' ability to control the knee while lengthened, which is directly protective against the kind of hamstring strains common in sprinting and change-of-direction sports.

Hip Thrust

Lie on a bench around knee-high with the bottom of your shoulder blades touching the bench.
Bend your knees until your feet can comfortably be placed on the ground. This is the start position.
From here push your hips up until your body is parallel to the ground. "Tucking the tailbone at the top fires the glutes even more strongly."

"Isolation" refers to exercises that target a single muscle group. While compound movements form the foundation of any programme, isolation exercises address weak links, add targeted volume, and personalise programmes to individual client goals.