Second, I reminded her to arch her back and keep her chest pointed toward the ceiling so that the bar touched just below her collar bone on the bottom instead of passing in front of her chest parallel to her body. Finally, I noticed that the client had a tendency to bend her wrists downward during the movement. I reminded her to maintain a firm grip and not to move her wrists during the exercise. Toward that end, I suggested that she visualize her hands as hooks and to imagine that she was attempting to touch an imaginary wall behind her with her elbows at the end of each full contraction.
Exercise Plan Changes Necessitated by Circumstances
Because an exercise ball was not available for us to ball chest presses, we used a plate-loaded chest machine instead. The client asked to do more lat pull-downs instead and I explained that pull-downs are not a substitute for any chest exercise because chest exercises...
However, I determined that this would not be safe because there was too much potential for the two pieces to slide and become unstable. Instead, I had the client perform several sets of legs extensions to pre-exhaust her quadriceps in order to make the single-platform step-ups more challenging without increasing the risk of instability. One point of self-criticism is that while I did instruct the client to stand straight, look forward, and plant her feet firmly in middle of step and not near or at edge, I neglected to explain the importance of maintaining foot-knee alignment during the exercise.
