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I asked Krissy Cela for exercise advice and she came up with four no-nonsense tips that can help anyone get stronger
Krissy Cela—co-founder of the popular sportswear brand Oner Active—is a well-known face on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.
She’s also an experienced trainer and the creator of the EvolveYou app, who knows how to get the most out of a gym session.
So when I sat down with her a few months ago, I asked her for her favorite tips on how to fix your form, especially if you’re new to the gym. Here’s what she suggested.
Krissy Cela, a global fitness entrepreneur, is the co-founder of the female activewear brand Oner Active and the fitness app EvolveYou. She also leads The Krissy Cela School Initiative, which provides strength training workshops and distributes free sports bras and activewear from Oner.
1. Deadlift
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Deadlifts are notoriously tricky, especially for beginners, because it’s easy to be overly reliant on your lower back when executing the lift.
But Cela says you can overcome this by concentrating on your foot-to-floor connection.
She suggests pretending you have a piece of gum on the heel of your shoe that you’re trying to scrape off on the floor during the movement.
“You’ll dig your heels more into the ground and you’ll push back more,” she says.
When you bend down in the movement, she also says it’s a good idea to imagine that you’re trying to close a door behind you with your bum—this should help you find that natural hinge movement in the hips.
2. Squat
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A squat is a functional movement that you do every day without realizing it, for example, whenever you get up from a chair.
Despite this familiarity, it’s not easy to an easy exercise to get right straight away. A common mistake is letting your torso fall too far forward, whether you’re doing the movement with or without weights, but Cela has a tip to help you stay upright.
“I always imagine I have a piece of string pulling me up. So your chest is always upright—you don’t want your chest too forward,” she says.
Keeping your chest upright will help protect your back during the movement and ensure you’re targeting your leg muscles.
3. Overhead press
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This shoulder-focused movement is another gym favorite, typically performed with dumbbells, but as you get stronger, you can transition to a barbell.
I’ve always struggled to scale up my overhead press (I find it difficult to jump from 2x8kg to 2x9kg), but Cela offered another way to make the move more challenging, without increasing the weight.
“Always stop [the dumbbells] at eye level, nothing below,” says Cela.
Pausing the move at eye level helps you maintain tension in your shoulder muscles, which makes the move more challenging.
4. Lat pull-down
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This vertical pull movement targets the large muscles in your back, which are important for stabilizing and supporting your shoulders.
To do it, you have to grip a bar with your hands and pull it down towards you—but Cela says you will get more out of the movement if you make sure your thumbs are out on top of the bar, rather than gripping them under.
If you grip the bar with your thumb, you’re more likely to recruit secondary muscles like your biceps. Taking your thumb out of the equation makes it more of a challenge for your lats.
