1) Spare your neck! Look out at eye level or above, to keep from rolling your shoulders forward.
2) Keep your face relaxed and tension-free.
3) Relax your shoulders and lift up your chest.
4) Elongate your spine by pretending your head is being pulled up by a string.
5) Count the reps of each exercise aloud.
The counting will help you remember to breathe continuously.
6) To support your lower back, keep your abs tight. If you practice sucking in each time you enter a car, elevator, etc., it will start to become automatic.
QUIZ: Are You Getting Enough Exercise?
7) Keep your knees slightly bent to avoid locking them.
8) Make sure your hands are in sight when doing shoulder exercises.
9) Move between exercises to keep your heart rate up. If you’re unable to hold a conversation, you’re exercising too hard. But, if you’re able to fill in a friend on every detail, you may not be pushing hard enough.
10) As you get stronger, go longer (rather than harder) with cardio workouts. With weight exercises, you can go stronger. That means doing more repetitions of any non-weight-bearing exercises. This will help prevent injury from overexertion. If you feel very weak, hold the exercise positions without moving, and slowly work up. It’s more important to have perfect form and do fewer repetitions, than do a lot of repetitions with sloppy form.
