How can you ensure effective chest compressions during CPR?

Ensuring effective chest compressions during CPR is crucial for maintaining blood flow to vital organs, particularly the brain and heart. Keeping your arms straight and locking your elbows allows you to use your body weight to drive the compressions more effectively. This technique maximizes the force applied to the chest, which is essential for producing the necessary pressure to circulate blood adequately. Straight arms enable better leverage and help avoid fatigue, allowing the rescuer to deliver compressions with consistent depth and rate over time.

Other choices present methods that either don't contribute effectively to the quality of compressions or might detract from them. For instance, using your knees for support or placing hands on the abdomen won't generate the necessary pressure on the chest, and compressing at a rate slower than 100 per minute does not meet the recommended guidelines for effective CPR, which call for a rate of 100 to 120 compressions per minute.