Digital Packs

Digital Packs Banner Digital Packs Banner

strong women series

Strong women series Day 2: how to load the squat bar

how-to-load-the-bar-by-healthista.com-main-image.jpg

Healthista’s new Strong Woman series brings you a lesson a day to get you started lifting safely and effectively. Today, coach Nicola Addison, personal trainer of Eqvvs training who trains models Elle Macpherson, Daisy Lowe and Erin O’Connor shows you how to load the squat bar without breaking a toe

Day 1 Strong Women series: How to use the power cage

Lifting is super trendy right now, but it’s also – actually – quite dangerous for the uninitiated. Ask anyone who has been injury by a flying squat bar and never set foot in the weights room again.

We’re all about education at Healthista and that’s why we asked celebrity trainer Nicola Addison to work with us on a weightlifting for beginners series. The series runs for a fortnight and this week, week one, Nicola will be bringing you short videos all about lifting safely and including the little things trainers and super fit lifters seem to do instinctively that most of us have no idea about.

Today, we’re talking about the bar, a starting point for any heavy lifting workout. In this video, Nicola is holding an Olympic bar which is seven feet long and weighs 20kg without any weight plates on either side.

Watch the video for full instruction. Meanwhile, here are some points to remember:

  1. Always start with the lightest bar in your gym – a marking at the end of the bar should tell you how heavy it is in pounds or kilograms.

2. Load on your weight plates so they’re tight and snug at the edges.

3. Once you have loaded the weight, apply the safety clasps to ensure the weight plates stay in place. Then, click each one closed so you hear the click. Give the weight plates a wobble to ensure they don’t move.

4. Remember to bend your knees when you lower your body to load the bar, it’s better for your back.

Tomorrow: How to be safe in the power cage

Nicola-Addison

With over 18 years of successful industry experience in some of the UK’s most prestigious wellness centres, Nicola Addison currently provides consultancy services to businesses and individuals in the UK and Europe. Having opened upwards of 18 independent exclusive commercial leisure facilities, she has had a successful career to date, both within large and small businesses with varying degrees of complexity.

Nicola is a well known industry voice and regularly publishes across the national press. Nicola is fully media trained and contributes to TV & radio as well as providing video content for her clients.

READ MORE

Are you ready to be a strong-woman?

5 easy ways to make your relationship stronger

Celebrity trainer secrets: PT to Drew Barrymore and Jennifer Aniston reveals two things key to a celeb body

14 gym bag MUST HAVES from the Healthista team

Like this article? Sign up to our newsletter to get more articles like this delivered straight to your inbox.

More Healthista Content