Exercise of the Week: Kettlebell Squat Thrust

Fixing Your Squat

Watching the way most people squat is not a pretty thing. And it's usually not a strength issue as much it is a mobility issue. The following video gives you three pretty simple mobility exercises to incorporate into your warm up or to use before your next squat session to maybe help clear up some of those mobility issues.

Bits & Pieces....

....picked up from the Hardstyle Kettlebell Training workshop we hosted this past Saturday.

• More than goes into the swing than you think. If I was going to watch 10 people perform a swing, I'd bet eight out of them would be butchering the exercise. Watching a YouTube video or two would not be the suggested way to learn either because a lot of what you're going to find on YouTube is crap. Get with a certified instructor or trainer who has been schooled in the mechanics of the swing.
• Done right, the swing should not stress your lower back, knees, elbows or shoulders. It's not a squat. It's a front raise. And it's not a combination of those two. It's a swing generated from your hips snapping forward. "Pop the hips".
• Think of the swing just as your would think of doing a broad jump. Your hips should push back in order to explode forward.
• So my swings are pretty good. I understand the hips back, neutral spine concept. But my snatches are absolutely horrible. It's going to take some time and practice to get those down. I was basically trying to snatch the kettlebell like I was trying to snatch a dumbbell, but there's big differences between the two. The kettlebell snatch has much more of an arcing motion with just a flip of the wrist. There's not much of a catch phase as there is in a dumbbell snatch.
• If you're learning how to perform kettlebell snatches be ready to have your forearms banged up. And take off that nice watch of yours unless you're in the market for a new one.
• The first place to start squatting with load should probably be the kettlebell goblet squat. A nice progression would be a kettlebell goblet squat to a barbell front squat to a barbell back squat.
• It's nice to be able to get into a rock bottom squat. That is if you can maintain lordosis in that rock bottom position. Once your hips are about to round under you and your back is about to flatten out, that's where you're squat depth ends, especially under load. As nice as it sounds to get everyone to squat "ass to the grass", it's not so nice if you can't your ass to the grass without rounding out at the bottom. If you're having trouble getting appropriate depth before this occurs it's time to clear up some mobility issues that could be occurring at the ankles or hips.
• My squat under load is much better than without any load. Why? My core stability kicks in under this loaded environment.
• If anyone tells you they than can hold a plank for two minutes, call "bulls***".
• I thought my plank was alright, until I learned the Hardstyle version which teaches you to push the hells back. Doing so engages that entire core area a whole lot more.
• A nice teaching tool to learn the plank correctly is to lay a dowel lengthwise along the spine. The dowel should have three contact points: your head, your thoracic spine and your glutes. And the spaces that are created underneath the dowel should not change the entire duration of the plank.

A special thanks goes out to Mike Perry of Skill of Strength for showing us the finer points of some of the most basic kettlebell exercises. We look forward to having him back in the future.

Exercise of the Week: Single Arm TRX Push Up

A great core stability exercise. A great shoulder stability exercise. Another way to use the TRX. Play around with your foot position to increase or decrease the difficulty of the exercise. Feet being back and narrower will increase the difficulty. Feet being further out and wider will decrease the difficulty. In the following video, you'll see me adjusting my position to find the right level of difficulty.

Random Thoughts...

...while trying to figure out what is wrong with my fantasy football team.

• I hated biology in high school. I hated biology in college. And I still hate biology now. Why do I mention this? The initial parts of studying for my Precision Nutrition certification require some reading and knowledge about what goes on at the biological level in regards to nutrition. I just want to get to the part where I find out what materials Twinkies and Ring Dings are made of.
• The need for a training partner or great training environment is greatly underestimated. I know personally. I will never be as strong as I was when I was in college. Why? It's not because I'm not lifting heavy weights anymore. I still do singles or work up to three rep maxes. But I have no one encouraging me to do more or work harder. It's mentally tough to get through a workout on your own. As Alwyn Cosgrove states, "Psychology trumps physiology every time". Find the right training environment. Get with the right training partner. Watch your results take off.
• Yes, nutrition can be complex. But for most of us it doesn't have to be. I hear people talking about supplementation, carb cycling, nutrient ratios, etc.. Yet, these same people do not have any of the basic principles in place. Supplementation doesn't matter if the majority of your calories are coming from what could not even be considered "real food". Carb cyling doesn't work if your first meal of the day is not until that Subway sandwich run for your lunch break. A simple way to look at good nutrition comes from Michael Pollan's Food Rules, which I suggest reading, "Eat food. Mostly from plants and animals. Not too much".
  
• Speaking of good nutrition, I love hearing peoples views on good nutrition. I hear everything from, "no sweets after 7pm" to "I get my Italian subs on a wheat roll" to "I only consume about 800 calories a day". Good nutrition is more than just eating certain foods or taking in so many calories. Dr. John Berardi has four criteria that good nutrition follows: 1)It controls energy balance 2)Provides nutrient density 3)Achieves health, body composition and performance goals 4)Is honest and outcome based.
  
• What is going on with the recent increase in concussions? You hear about it a lot on the professional level, but I'm also hearing it happening on the youth and high school level. And it's not just football. It's all sports. Is what we used to term as getting our bell rung now termed a concussion? I understand the concern, but I do not know if there is a solution. Better equipment? Less equipment? Better screening and diagnosis? A lot of questions need to be looked at.
• Looking forward to the the Hardstyle Kettlebell workshop, we're hosting this weekend at Accelerated Fitness. RKC certified strength coach Mike Perry is basically going to give us an intro on the right way to use the kettlebell as a training tool. The right way to do the swing, the snatch and the goblet squat. Yeah, they sound like three pretty simple exercises, but there is more to them than you think. One person I would suggest not learning the swing from? America's most popular trainer, Jillian Michaels

That's not what a swing should look like. I don't even what should look like that.

• One last thing. If you live in the Lexington area and are looking for a quality massage therapist, I highly recommend the staff at Essential Bodywork and Massage.

Exercise of the Week: Low Cable Push Press w/Rotation

Our newest personal trainer makes sure my technique is spot on with this week's exercise.

Hardstyle Kettlebell Workshop

Skill of Strength and Accelerated Fitness have teamed up to offer Kettlebell Workshops this fall.
Mike Perry, RKC, invites you to learn Hardstyle Kettlebell training techniques. In this intro
workshop you will learn all of the basics you need to know to begin training with kettlebells.

This is a great workshop for current kettlebell users who want to refine their technique or for
beginners looking to start training with this incredible tool. What you’ll learn:
• The Swing
• The Snatch
• Goblet Squats
• RKC Hardstyle Plank

When: October 23, 2010 10:00am – 12:00pm
Where: Accelerated Fitness
153 North Street, Lexington, MA
Cost: $99
Space is limited – sign up now!

Call (781)538-6664 or send an email to rich@acceleratedfts.com for more information or to reserve your spot in the workshop.

Open House Reminder

One last reminder, Accelerated Fitness will be holding an open house this upcoming Saturday from 9am-12pm. I'll be holding a free conditioning class from 9:00am-9:45am which will be followed up by the chance to receive a chair massage from the people at Essential Bodywork and Massage or undergo a Functional Movement Screen. Sound interested? Good. Send an email to rich@acceleratedfts.com or call 781-538-6664 to reserve your spot in class or time for a massage or screen.

And we couldn't hold an open house without giving you the chance to win something. Attend and you'll have the opportunity to win one month's worth of semi-private training!

Hope to see you this weekend.

Exercise of the Week: Low Box TKE w/Cable

The Terminal Knee Extension (TKE) is one of my favorite exercises for maintaining or increasing knee health. By working in an unsupported position from the low box you're also going to get some glute medius involvement, an important hip and knee stabilizer. To kick it up a notch, I'll add some cable resistance from a low pulley positon. With the added resistance from the cable being on the opposite side of the working leg you're going to stress that glute medius a bit more.

Train Your Ass On: Part Two

So in Part One, I discussed why glute training is a must from a performance perspective, injury prevention perspective, low back health perspective and to get that Ines Sainz look.

I swear that's my last reference reference to this accomplished television reporter. Now, let's discuss how to place emphasis on your glutes in your training program. I feel there are three ways to get after the glutes. One is during the early part of your workout during your movement prep period, if you have a movement prep period. The second way to get at the glutes is through squat and deadlift variations. And the third way is through single leg training.


Movement prep could be referred to simply as your warm up period. It could contain some foam rolling, some static stretching, move onto dynamic flexibility work and then get into some activation or what some are now referring to as awareness work. This activation or awareness work is where some of your lower level glute work can fall in. This is where you actually remember that, yes, you have glutes. Here we get the glutes to work as their specifically intended: hip extension, hip abduction, and hip external rotation. Some exercises that fall into each of these categories are:

• Hip extension: supine bridge, supine bridge w/march, supine single bridge, quadruped hip extension and bird dogs.


• Hip Abduction: side lying leg raise, lateral mini-band walks and X band walks


• Hip External Rotation: side lying clam shells, side lying clam shells with band and quadruped fire hydrants

Pick one exercise from each category and perform in a circuit fashion for 10-15 reps of each exercise. Two sets of each will do a nice job making you aware that your glutes are there.

Next we move onto the meat and potatoes, the sweet potatoes, of your workout, the strength work. First up, squats or deadlifts. Sound imposing to you? Well they shouldn't be. Squats and deadlifts are a movement pattern of every day living. Now we're just going to stress those patterns more by adding some load. But now you're going to tell me that you don't know how to squat or deadlift correctly. My response? Learn. Use progressions. Chances are if someone had no experience deadlifting or squatting or had horrendous technique, I would use progressions with them. For instance, with the squat a nice progression is a plate squat to a box then moving to a front squat to a box and then to a back squat squat with a box. For deadlifts a progression would be cable pull throughs then to Romanian deadlifts then to rack pulls and then to barbell deadlifts. These are just a couple examples. Other exercises or progressions can be used to get you the point where you're able to squat or deadlift with good technique.

Another thing with squats and deadlifts is that there are plenty of variations of each to use. When I say squat, it doesn't mean you have to just barbell squat. There's dumbbell squats, front squats, squats to a box and goblet squats as variations. The same goes for the deadlift. You have barbell deadlifts, rack pulls, trap bar deadlifts, suitcase deadlifts and deadlifts from an elevated surface as variations. Another reason why I love these two mainstays, plenty of variations.

Finishing up our glute training we move onto single leg training. The demand for stabilization is much greater when performing single leg exercises than when performing bi-lateral lower body exercises.. And what's the number one stabilizer of your lower body? Your glutes. Just about any single leg exercise, whether it's quad dominant or hip dominant is going to heavily bring the glutes into play. The list of single leg exercises is endless, but some of my favorites are: low box TKE's, high box step ups, rear foot elevated split squats, Valslide reverse lunges and single leg RDL's. No thigh master. No hip abduction or adduction machine, unless you you want to hop in the way back time machine and take a trip to a Bally's gym around the year 1988.


Hopefully, I've summed up my thoughts on glute trainnig in a pretty simple manner. It should not be imposing. It doesn't have to be complicated. It comes down to knowing why it's a must, how to get it done and putting some time and effort in. It's time to rid this country of flat butts, no butts and jiggly butts. It's time to put those glutes to work.

Train Your Ass On

You probably think I mean "Train Your Ass Off", right? I guess that would be the case if I was talking about training intensely or training with maximum effort. Instead I'm talking about training that targets the glutes and some of you have no ass to train "off". There's a lot of flat backsides patrolling the sidewalk and streets of America to the point where it's almost almost becoming an epidemic.

Now I'm half kidding when I say it is becoming an epidemic, but in terms of performance training, injury prevention and low back health having a flat backside is a big problem. Even though the glutes are one of the largest and most powerful muscles in the body, people have forgotten how to use them, afraid to use them or don't want to have them. I feel people have become subconscious about how their glutes look. In my opinion and without getting into to much discussion about how glutes should look, I think good pair of glutes looks a lot better than no pair of glutes. I'm not talking about a rump that shakes. I'm talking about a rump that is strong.

Ines Sainz knows about glute training

Forgetting about aesthetics let's look at three reasons to focus on glute training and then we'll look at three ways to involve the glutes in your training program.

1. Performance. As mentioned before the glutes are the most powerful muscles in the body. Just take a look at world class sprinters. You are not going to find a sprinter who has a a flat backside, male or female. Without a good pair of glutes you're not going to be very powerful, you're not going to be very fast and you're not going to be very strong.
2. Injury Prevention. Your glutes can handle high amounts of work stress. If your glutes are lacking that work stress is going to be transferred to other muscles or joints that are not going to be able to tolerate that stress as much. It's much easier easier to deadlift an object off the floor than it is to lift that same object by flexing the spine, correct? Deadlifting involves your glutes. Stooping over does not. Or how about the all to common hamstring pull? Some people will say it's because the hamstrings are tight, but in a good amount of cases it's because the glutes were under active. Your hamstrings and glutes are both hip extensors, with your glutes having the ability to generate much more force. If your glutes are not up to par, your hamstrings are going to have to generate forces they are not capable of and boom....the common scene of the guy grabbing the back of his leg like he just got shot by a sniper.
3. Low Back Health. The muscles of your lower back have little strength potential compared to your glutes. That seems pretty obvious just from a visual standpoint. Your lower back is also a joint that wants stability and doesn't like much movement involved. Yes, flexion and extension of the lumbar spine are not preferred movement patterns. Hip extension is a preferred movement pattern, but when the glutes aren't firing correctly or not strong enough lumbar extension will usually occur as a compensation. In simple terms, having a good set of glutes is going to take stress of your lower back.

So you know that having a strong set of glutes is a must. Know you need to know how to train them. I'll cover that in Part Two.

Exercise of the Week: Band Resisted Val Slide Leg Curl

The exercises you can do with a Superband or Valslides are limitless. Put the two together and you even get more exercises. Here a Superband is used to make the Valslide leg curl a bit harder.....actually a lot harder. Just anchor one end of the Superband around a post and place the other end behind your heels or lower leg.