Page 33 of Safe Hands

Good start.

Lauren widened her stance. “You want your feet about shoulder-width apart, then send your hips back as you bend your knees.” She demonstrated slowly, exaggerating each stage for the camera.

Too slowly.

“What are you doing?” Carly asked.

Lauren held the squat, quads trembling. “Showing the movement.”

“You’re turning it into mime.”

“I’m stressing the mechanics so people can see.”

“They can see. They just won’t want to.”

Paige made a noise behind the camera, half cough, half laugh.

Lauren straightened. The smile stayed fixed, but something brittle crept in at the edges. “Right. Less mime.”

Carly stepped forwards, unable to stop herself. “It needs to look natural. Controlled, not staged. People trust confidence.”

“I am confident.”

“Then stop looking like you’re about to be marked on it.”

Lauren’s cheeks coloured.

Paige lowered the camera slightly. “Do you want me to cut?”

“No,” Lauren said quickly. “It’s fine. I’ll go again.”

Carly stepped back, folding her arms.

Lauren reset beneath the lights. She shoved her sleeves up. Carly caught herself watching the tendons shift in Lauren’s forearm as she braced, and filed it under paying attention to the demonstration, because that was what she was here to do.

“In this video, we’re looking at one of the most common movements people get wrong in the gym: the squat. Start with your feet about shoulder-width apart. From there, brace through your core, send your hips back, and make sure your knees track in line with your toes.”

Better.

Much better, actually.

But Carly was tired, and Lauren was smiling too hard, and the room was too hot under the lights.

“Don’t say brace through your core unless you explain what that means.”

Lauren stopped halfway up. “I was about to.”

“Were you?”

“Yes.”

Paige looked between them. “Do you want me to cut now?”

“No,” Carly and Lauren said together.

They stared at each other.

Lauren took a breath. “Brace through your core,” she said, turning back to the camera, “basically means tensing your stomach as if someone’s about to poke you in it. You want your body stable before you move.”