Mountain climbers have earned their place as a staple exercise in boot camps, CrossFit sessions, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) routines. Known to burn calories and improve strength of the full body, mountain climbers work various muscles and push up heart rates within a very short time. Although mountain climbers look simple, bad technique would bring down its effectiveness. In fact, some such mistakes can result in a less productive workout and even injury.

How Long Should You Do Mountain Climbers For?

Mountain climbers should be performed in sets of durations between 20 seconds and 1 minute for best results. Beginners should begin with short, controlled sets. More advanced athletes can include higher-intensity intervals. Many HIITs feature mountain climbers that are conducted for 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds of rest. For better challenge and effect as you increase it, do more, taking much more time while controlling in slow movement on half and quick the next half in a set. Common mistakes many make and still go with those poor workouts making mountain climbers nearly worthless: avoid these to truly maximize benefit with your workouts.

1. Rounding or Arching Your Lower Back

One of the most common mistakes during mountain climbers is rounding or arching the lower back. As your core starts to fatigue, there’s a tendency to lose control over the spine’s alignment, leading to a dropped or excessively arched back.

This has a couple of downsides. For one, it compromises the posture required to activate your core and stabilize your body. For another, poor spinal alignment can raise the risk of lower back strain and discomfort. The secret to a successful mountain climber exercise is to keep your spine neutral and rigid during the movement.

Ensure you’re holding a strong plank position before initiating any movement. Keep your back flat and avoid excessive bending or arching. If holding the plank position proves difficult, start by practicing with modified versions, such as elevating your hands on a box or chair, or performing the exercise with your knees on the ground.

2. Excessive Lower Back Movement

One common error is when the lower back over-rotates, over-extends, or over-folds during an exercise. It often happens if the core does not have sufficient strength or the hip mobility compromises the body's ability to hold stability during movement.

This places unnecessary stress on the spine as it moves unnecessarily and can also lead to injuries, and due to this extra movement, it cannot be properly used by your muscles. And any kind of shifting in your spine will decrease your ability to work your core, making it difficult to get stronger and endurable.

Focus on keeping your back in a neutral position, minimizing any unnecessary shifting during the exercise. Take every rep slowly and with control, ensuring your core is engaged before you move your legs. Once you are able to perform the technique, you can gradually increase your pace.

3. Taking your hips too high or sagging in your core

Another error that happens during mountain climbers is lifting the hips too high or letting the core sag. Both actions can decrease the effectiveness of the exercise and take away from the intended challenge. When the hips rise too high, it can lead to poor body alignment, reducing the effectiveness of the exercise on your abs, arms, and legs. Conversely, when the hips sag too low, it strains the lower back and creates instability.

The aim of mountain climbers is to keep the body form straight and diagonal from your head to your heels. It makes the hips lie in line with the shoulders so that the correct muscles get targeted for these exercises- your abs, your obliques, and your shoulders.

Engage your abs and glutes throughout the exercise. Lower your hips to keep them aligned with your shoulders without letting them drop toward the ground. Avoid letting your hips shift up or down—keep them stable to maximize the workout's benefits.

Also Read: Master Burpees With These 6 Easy-To-Follow Steps

4. Leaning Your Head Forward

Most people, while focusing on form during mountain climbers, forget to keep their head and neck in proper alignment. The error here is leaning the head forward, which is all too easy to do once you start to get tired. This one will not necessarily hurt right away but puts undue strain on the neck muscles over time and can cause anything from discomfort to full-blown injury.

Also, malalignment of your head may affect your breathing, which is essential for sustaining energy and effectiveness during the exercise.

Align your head with your spine by tucking your chin down a little. Try not to lift your head or look straight ahead excessively because it causes undue strain in the neck and generally will disrupt your form. Imagine lengthening your neck and keeping your head in a neutral position during the lift.

5. Winged Shoulder Blades

During mountain climbers, your shoulders are integral to stabilizing the body. So many people allow the shoulder blades to "wing" or fan out from the back and ultimately end up with instability in that shoulder area, weakening the ability to generate strength in movement.

Winging of the shoulder blades also causes aching pain within the shoulder joints after a few sets of working.

Focus on pulling your shoulder blades down and back, away from your ears, and push forward toward your spine. Think about pushing the ground away from you with your hands, which will naturally engage your shoulders and keep them in proper alignment.

6. Poorly Positioned Hands

A very common error is the positioning of the hands. For mountain climbers, your hands should always be directly under your shoulders, with your wrists, elbows, and shoulders stacked in alignment. As fatigue sets in, it's easy to slide your hands too far forward or too far back, which can cause your shoulders to slump, affecting the stability of your hips and the effectiveness of the exercise.

The duration of the workout should be fully spent with hands placed directly below the shoulders, which provides stability and keeps all other parts in the right alignment, especially keeping the hips rightly aligned. Right hand placement would also help ensure that the weights are evenly dispersed throughout the body and core areas, thus improving control.

7. Overextension of Duration and Intensity

Lastly, another common error is pushing yourself to do mountain climbers for too long or at too high an intensity without proper form. Mountain climbers are excellent for boosting endurance, but attempting long sessions or fast-paced reps without control can quickly lead to fatigue, and poor form can creep in. This diminishes the effectiveness of the exercise and increases the risk of injury.

Begin with short bursts of 20-30 seconds, focusing on good form. Once you feel comfortable, you can increase the duration of each set or build up to higher-intensity intervals. Listening to your body is key to ensuring you maintain a high-quality workout while minimizing the risk of strain.

Your pelvic floor muscles do much more for your sexual health than most people realise. These deep muscles support the bladder, uterus, and bowel, but they also play a big part in pleasure, performance, and confidence during intimacy.

Whether you’re healing after childbirth, managing incontinence, or simply aiming to feel more connected with your body, training your pelvic floor is a natural way to improve sexual wellness.

What Is Pelvic Floor Exercise?

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Benefits of Pelvic Floor Exercise For Better Sexual Health

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5 Pelvic Floor Exercises to Boost Sexual Health

1. Kegel Exercises

• Squeeze the muscles you use to stop urinating.
• Hold for 5 seconds, then relax for 5 seconds.
• Repeat 10–15 times, two to three times daily.

2. Bridge Pose

• Lie on your back with your knees bent and feet flat.
• Lift your hips upward while tightening your glutes and pelvic muscles.
• Hold briefly, then lower down.

3. Deep SquatsHow to do it:

• Stand with your feet hip-width apart.
• Lower into a deep squat, keeping your chest lifted.
• Engage your pelvic muscles as you come back up.

4. Bird-Dog

• Begin on your hands and knees.
• Extend your right arm and left leg at the same time.
• Hold, then switch sides.

5. Pelvic Tilts

• Lie on your back with your knees bent.
• Flatten your lower back into the floor by tilting your pelvis upward.
• Hold for a few seconds, then relax.

Football, the world’s most popular sport, may come with an invisible cost: brain health. While players are celebrated for their stamina, skill, and longevity on the pitch, research shows that elite footballers are more likely to develop dementia and related neurodegenerative diseases later in life compared with the general population.

The main factor? Heading the ball.

The Swedish Study: What It Found

A major cohort study, published in The Lancet Public Health in 2023, followed 6,007 male footballers who had played in Sweden’s top division between 1924 and 2019. Their health outcomes were compared with 56,168 men from the general population.

• 8.9% of footballers were diagnosed with a neurodegenerative disease versus 6.2% of controls.
• Footballers had a 1.46 times higher risk of developing these conditions.
• Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias were significantly higher among players, with a 62% increased risk.
• No increased risk was found for motor neuron disease.

Surprisingly, footballers had a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease.

But the most striking finding was the difference between player positions. Outfield players, who head the ball regularly, showed a 50% higher risk compared with the general population, while goalkeepers, who rarely head the ball, showed no significant increase in risk.

This position-based difference strongly suggests that repetitive head impacts, even those not causing concussions, play a central role in long-term brain health risks.

Confirming Earlier Evidence

These Swedish results echo a 2019 Scottish study published in The New England Journal of Medicine, which found that former professional footballers were 3.5 times more likely to die of neurodegenerative disease compared with controls. That study also highlighted that defenders, who head the ball most often, were at the greatest risk.

Together, these studies strengthen the link between heading the ball and higher dementia risk, adding to growing international concern about football’s long-term safety.

Also Read: 21-year-old Billy Vigar Of Chichester City Dies Of Sustaining Brain Injury

Why Football Differs From Other Sports

Sports like boxing, rugby, American football, and ice hockey are already well-known for head injury risks. However, football is unique because concussions are relatively rare (<0.1 events per 1,000 player-hours), yet players repeatedly use their heads to control and redirect the ball.

This creates frequent “sub-concussive impacts”, blows to the brain too mild to cause immediate symptoms but capable of triggering long-term neurodegenerative changes. Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a condition linked to repeated head trauma, has already been identified in athletes from other collision sports. Football’s heading tradition may be creating similar risks.

Changing the Game: Calls for Action

• Recognizing these risks, football associations have started to act.
• In the UK, heading is restricted in children’s training sessions.
• UEFA has issued guidelines limiting headers in youth football.
• In England, rules now cap the number of high-force headers in training for adult professionals.

Experts, however, stress that these measures may not be enough. Tara Spires-Jones, professor of neurodegeneration at the University of Edinburgh, noted that the stark difference between outfield players and goalkeepers reinforces the link between head impacts and dementia. She emphasized that while sports and physical activity overall reduce dementia risk, avoiding repetitive head injury is crucial for brain protection.

Has Modern Football Changed the Risk?

One question remains: do today’s footballers face the same level of risk as those who played in the mid-20th century?

The Swedish study noted that most players diagnosed with neurodegenerative disease had careers before the 1970s. Since then, major changes have reshaped the sport:

• Leather balls, which absorbed water and became heavier, have been replaced by lighter synthetic ones.
• Training methods, tactics, and playstyles have evolved, potentially reducing—or even increasing—head trauma exposure.
• The modern game involves far more matches and intense training, meaning players may head the ball more frequently over a lifetime.
• Researchers caution that the long-term risks for today’s players remain uncertain, and ongoing monitoring is essential.

For people who suffer from migraines, even normal activities like concentrating on work, holding a conversation can be difficult. These are things we do not think twice about, however, simply going through these can be a major task for people who suffer with migraines.

So, what about exercising? It is an activity that requires a lot of movements, some of which require you to do movements that jerk your body like jumping jacks. Is it safe for people with migraines to work out? According to Dr Sudhir Kumar, a Hyderabad-based neurologist, the answer is yes.

Getting regular physical activity is hugely helpful for people who get migraines because it can often make your headaches happen less often and feel less painful when they do occur. While a super-hard, intense workout might seem like it would only make your head hurt more, exercising smart and making it a habit can be a very effective way to prevent future migraine attacks. However, there are some things you need to keep in mind before doing so.

How to Exercise Smartly to Prevent Migraines

To get the most benefit from working out and avoid accidentally causing a migraine, people need to be mindful of five simple rules:

Be Consistent, Not Extreme

It's the steady routine that pays off. Doing regular exercise at a medium effort level (moderate intensity) helps keep migraines away. On the flip side, sudden, super-tough, or "all-or-nothing" workouts—like running a marathon with no training—can shock your system and easily trigger an attack. The goal is to build a steady habit, like a morning walk or a bike ride a few times a week, rather than pushing yourself to exhaustion once a month.

Figure Out Your Personal Triggers

Everyone is different, and certain activities might be a trigger just for you. For instance, some people find that lifting very heavy weights causes a headache, while others get one from running outdoors on a very sunny day or simply forgetting to properly warm up their muscles. The best way to understand these unique headache causes is to keep a diary of your headaches and write down what you did right before the migraine started.

Watch the Clock (Timing Matters)

Doing a very intense workout right before bed, late in the evening, can make it hard for you to fall asleep or get good rest. Poor sleep is a well-known migraine trigger, so late-night intensity can create a double problem. To protect your sleep, it's generally best for migraine sufferers to plan their workouts for the morning or during the day.

Pick the Right Environment

Your surroundings can put stress on your senses. To avoid this sensory strain, choose a workout spot that is comfortable. Cool, well-aired rooms with soft lighting are much better than places that are hot, stuffy, or have bright, intense lights that can make your head ache worse.

Try Adding Mind-Body Activities

You can actually increase the headache-fighting power of your physical activity by adding calming practices. Things like yoga, deep breathing exercises, and mindfulness meditation are great because they help you manage stress and relax tight muscles in your neck and shoulders, both of which are common contributors to migraine pain.

Do Aerobic Exercises Help Migraines?

Dr. Sudhir explains that scientific research has repeatedly shown that regular aerobic exercise—that's any activity that gets your heart pumping, like brisk walking, cycling, or swimming—is highly effective. The recommendation is to aim for a moderate effort level, for about 30 to 40 minutes, three times a week. In fact, some studies suggest that doing this type of exercise consistently can reduce the frequency and severity of migraines just as well as certain preventive medications. The very best approach combines this steady cardio with gentle strengthening and stretching exercises for your neck and shoulders.