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Pete Williams_FMA, London, London (2026)

06/02/2026

So this exercise is perfect for helping you get big and strong and it helps reduce your risk of falls. We just need a chair, make sure it’s on a non-lip floor and we are driving out of the chair. We are first lifting our knees up so we get really strong hip flexer involvement and then we want to drive them hard into the floor. We want to feel that floor. And then you come up out of the squat making sure that knees are really travelling, getting a direction over the feet and then you drive all the way up onto tiptoes. Now again, on to tiptoes, you’re going to be challenged with a little bit of balance and then I want you to sit back quite briskly and maybe you your arms out in front to counterbalance that movement and make it a little bit safer to sit down. I appreciate that some people may have saw knees and they’ve got to mitigate the way around this exercise. But it’s a really good exercise. You’ve got a lot of muscle mass being involved. We’ve got a lot of balance work being involved as well. And of course, your heart rate is going to get up. So very simply, I would like three sets of 10 to 12, maybe 20 seconds, repair and recovery in between all of them. And it’s a real cracker exercise snack that is also important for risk reduction of falls.

04/02/2026

So this is exercise of the day. Obviously, I’m in the office and you can be sat down for long periods and of course, getting up and just stretching and getting some blood flow into your body is a really good thing to do. And we’re always trying to work on 30 minutes sat down with 2 minutes standing up and we know from the scientific literature that that’s really helpful for the brain. So what I’m showing you today is a simple stretch that we can pretty much run right from the ankle, right up to the top of the arm. So it’s a really lovely stretch. It involves stretching, particularly around the side of the hip, the big glute muscles running down the side of the leg. But we also get that side, we get the hip flexes and we get all the way up through the back, particularly the lats, which, of course, insert onto the top of the shoulder. So sorry, on the top of the arm. So you will feel a stretch through the arm on the. And again, what you’ve just got to do is to say is cross the legs and lean over, trying to get both hands onto the wall as I’ve demonstrated. And then a question, it’s just a question of repeating each side and just trying to just move into the stretch. You want to get you want to know that you’re in a really good stretch, but you don’t really want any pain. And as you go through sort of repetitions of stretching, you should be able to go a bit further. So a simple stretch when you sat at the desk, all you need is a wall, and then you can really do stretch of the day.

02/02/2026

Welcome to Monday exercise of the day, just a classic plank role. So assume plank position, thinking about shoulder blades down and back, thinking about strong thighs, squeezing those positions, and maybe rotating the pelvis under a little bit to switch the abs on. And then you go from classic plank position and you roll off to the side, rotating your hip down. And just to be aware that, again, some people can’t get the hips down to the floor or they’re not flexible enough through their back and what happens is one of their arms come up, comes up, just play with a range that you’re happy with to start with. You don’t have to go all the way down. But if you can and you’re strong enough, then it gives you a really good trunk exercise. So dropping the hip down, do it under control. Your feet are going to rotate out that by the time you get down, your feet will both be facing in the same direction and then you come off the floor strongly, rotate back up to the top, so you’re almost in normal plank position and then you’re rolling off to the opposite side. You are going to feel this quite a lot on the upper body. You’re certainly going to feel it in the sides of your trunk because where those obliques are working quite strongly on this position. I like to do three sets, 10 reps, with a tap to the floor being one repetition. And that’s exercise of the day. Give it a go.

30/01/2026

So a really nice trunk exercise, but also an exercise for the upper body. You’re gonna feel this through the shoulders, particularly through the back of the arms as well. And obviously you’re going to get that lovely posterior chain stretch really going from lower back, glut, hamstrings and calves as you go back. So a combination of everything on this exercise. When you come forward, keep strong through your tummy, keep the control, K the floor, and then push yourself all the way back into that down doglike position. For some people you can hold hold it for a second or two seconds to really develop that stretch and then essentially you just bring in your weight forward again. Obviously, as they say, the key players here, you’ll feel it really on the back of the arms and through the shoulders. Tummy maybe not so much, even though it’s working really hard. Do not feel any aspects of your lower back on this exercise. You need to change that pelvis position if you do. For me, I like to do three sets of 10, maybe 20 seconds in between. It’s a really nice exercise to do. As I say, you feel as though you’re getting some flexibility at the back of the exercise and then obviously you can feel the loading that creates the strem training as you come down. So there is exercise of the day.

27/01/2026

You may have just heard of this new study from Cambridge University which is the first of its kind to investigate the effects of menopause and HRT on mental health, cognition and brain structure in a very large sample of women. We know that menopause is linked to brain changes similar to those seen in Alzheimer’s and we also know that Alzheimer’s is predominantly a female disease.
The study of over 120 000 women showed that menopause is associated with decreased brain grey matter volumes in important areas for memory and learning suggesting that the menopause may make the female brain more vulnerable to the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. The study also looked into the impact of HRT on symptoms of menopause. If you are interested in reading the study see the link in the bio.
Now, we know that there are lots and lots of things that women can do to help with the transition through menopause to help with symptoms affecting mental health and cognition such as eating well, exercising, having good social interactions, learning new skills and hobbies.
One of my favourite people in this field is Neuroscientist and Women’s Brain Health Specialist, Dr Lisa Mosconi. Dr Mosconi is author of two fantastic books empowering women to prevent dementia.
So really good references, have a good read of them and see what you can do from there.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/emotional-and-cognitive-effects-of-menopause-and-hormone-replacement-therapy/E9D94A6EB0B8A3C03113A93D34A99FD0

26/01/2026

So just some postural sequences where if you are sat working at the desk for long periods and really the very simple aspect is to reverse the position that you’ve been in. So, again, very simple. Bring your arms out, chest up, Lock your shoulder blades down and back, palms open, chin back. Once you’ve done that and felt for that position, bring your arms up, drive them above the head, work for that stretch, bring them back down and fold them forward whilst really working on shoulder blades down and back. No shrugging of the shoulders, if you can, and then return back to the position. You can do this as many times as you want. Obviously, if you’re going to sit for a whole day in front of the computer and there’s a couple of things you really probably need to be doing this quite often just to make sure that your brain doesn’t get comfortable with you sitting forward. Again, so it’s always a question of just reversing the position that may shorten your muscle groups and, of course, remember that for every 30 minutes sitting you should really get up for two minutes at a time because that really helps bring blood flow back to the brain and you’ll also find that actually you’re probably more motivated and more able to concentrate if you do that. So there you go.

23/01/2026

So I use this exercise to help work my thigh muscles sometimes because my knees can be a bit sore and because I’m in this position, I’m not loading my knees, but I’m given a strong contraction through my quadriceps, those thigh muscles, but also we get the get the slight plank position, but also the slight down dog position with this. So we’re working the upper body. We’re working through the shoulders, the shoulder blades. We’re working from some of the muscles that keep our scapulars down, particularly the seratus anterior at the front of the of the chest in between the ribs. And of course, we are always getting the abdominals working quite strongly as well. So it really is a really good exercise all round, and of course, as you push into the sort of modified down dog position, you’re going to get that big stretch running through the back of the legs and into the calves. So it’s a really good all rounder. Now, a couple of tips on this again, if you can use a band, then it really does add another level of resistance, makes it much harder and obviously you’ll feel your heart rate will get up with that. But also, again, when you’re sort of punching a rhythm through of 10 to 12 repetitions for two to three sets, you know, you might do that over five minutes. It really is giving you a new exercise that does a lot. So give it a go, maybe three sets of 10 to 12 repetitions, and see how you go.

21/01/2026

This tapping on the wall drill is just a really great exercise from a point of view of number one, you’re going to feel a big shift of heart rate. Number two, you’re going to feel quite sort of an isometric sort of hold right through the body, particularly in this sort of trunk reg, in the abdominal region, where your body is working isomemetrically just to allow the legs to get into the rhythm. And then, of course, there’s a rhythm aspect to this. And rhyth and flow for me is just a really good indication of a brain and nervous system and muscular system working well. So get on the balls of your feet and then you’ve got to work to do things, keep this movement forward and back with your feet and tap onto the wall in a rhythm that is equidistant and the sound sounds the same as well so that you’re trying to keep each step into the wall and each tap into the wall the same. If you do this, go for maybe 40 to 50 taps on the wall, have a breather and then maybe do that three or four more times. And that will give you a really nice exercise snack, working pretty much full body. You’ll certainly feel it through the trunk, but also we’re getting all that fall reduction work done as well.

19/01/2026

This tapping on the wall drill is just a really great exercise from a point of view of number one, you’re going to feel a big shift of heart rate. Number two, you’re going to feel a sort of isometric hold right through the body, particularly in this sort of trunk region, in the abdominal region, where your body is working isomemetrically just to allow the legs to get into the rhythm. And then, of course, there’s a rhythm aspect to this. And rhythm and flow for me is just a really good indication of a brain and nervous system and muscular system working well. So get on the balls of your feet and then you’ve got to work to do things, keep this movement forward and back with your feet and tap onto the wall in a rhythm that is equidistant and the sound sounds the same as well so that you’re trying to keep each step into the wall and each tap into the wall the same. If you do this, go for maybe 40 to 50 taps on the wall, have a breather and then maybe do that three or four more times. And that will give you a really nice exercise snack, working pretty much full body. You’ll certainly feel it through the trunk, but also we’re getting all that fall reduction work done as well.

Pete Williams_FMA

06/02/2026

04/02/2026

02/02/2026

30/01/2026

27/01/2026

26/01/2026

23/01/2026

21/01/2026

19/01/2026

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