It’s become quite rare for me to discover new exercises that I haven’t at last attempted let alone ones that I’ve never heard of, which is not surprising considering I’ve spent at least 5 days a week in the gym for the last several years. Enter the decline spider for the current XIT’s condition circuit. I’ve done my fair share of spiders and decline push-ups, but had no idea you could combine the two into one move. I was confident that I’d be able to pick up this move pretty, so I approached it full out as I would the individual components.

I felt pretty good for the first couple reps and then my hips started popping and hurting. So I asked our coach what I was doing wrong, and she told me to just do regular spiders as I can do those with no problems. I, however, did not want to give up so easily. She said it was possible that I was moving too quickly to maintain the core stability I needed to not wrench my hips with each rep. The second slower and more controlled attempt was so much better and I was able to complete the full 24 reps pain free. It’s very easy to always want to rush through an exercise, but you open yourself up to bad form and the possibility of injury if you just rush through things. It was a great reminder that I can take my time and really get the most out of each and every rep.