This is one of those exercises that gets little attention but can deliver powerful results. Unilateral leg strength is vital for most human movement and this exercise is the first step in gaining it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AMfbdugbcL8]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4I9F9rIqwM]
Lunges rank up there as one of the most common yet poorly executed exercises out there. In order to get the best results from this great exercise, and save your knees, you should follow these tips and progressions…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6H-VijOBB8]
-James Wilson-
There are a lot of exercises that look too simple to be any good but the reality is a lot of them are essential to the long term progression of your exercise program. For example, most people simply do not know how to recruit their glutes to help power lower body movement and this results in a lot of bad things. This makes mastering the single leg hip lift a priority early on in a program.
For those who want to look better, getting your back side toned up is usually a priority. However, if you do not know how to recruit your glutes then you will never use them enough with other lower body exercises to notice a difference. This is why you have people with nice, toned legs but a saggy butt. Taking the time to get strong with this exercise and learning how to apply the lessons from it to all of your lower body exercises will help eliminate this problem.
If you are an athlete then this exercise is indispensable. Strong hips are the key to running faster, cutting quicker, jumping higher, hitting further and basically dominating your competition. Without having strong, functional hips you are not only cutting down your performance potential but also opening yourself up to hamstring and groin strains/ injuries. In fact, one of the most common sources of injuries in athletes is an inability to powerfully contract the hips like they are supposed to be used.
In other words, if you have not taken the time to learn and master this exercise then you are leaving a lot of results on the table, no matter what you training goals are. Watch this video to learn how to use and progress this great exercise.
-James Wilson-
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyJPxZ1foIQ]
[polldaddy poll=1048672]
One thing that I see a lot of is people who are at odds with themselves and their fitness program. What I mean by that is that they usually set the bar extremely high for themselves and get upset when they inevitably mess up somewhere. I see a lot of this with new clients at our facility since they are usually very motivated when they sign up and want to do everything perfect so that they can see the fastest results possible.
While I certainly encourage people to set goals, I also encourage them to be realistic with them. Odds are that if you have been eating poorly and not exercising for several years (or decades) then you have some bad habits that you will need to identify and correct. For most, this process will take more than a week to go through.
At a certain point you need to make peace with yourself and your fitness program. The truth is that you do not need to be perfect to get great results. It is called the “Rule of 90%” and it basically states that the results you will get from 100% adherence to every aspect of your program will not be significantly greater than the results you see from 90% adherence.
Taking on this mindset will help you out in many ways. First, trying to be perfect is a daunting task and if you think that is what you have to accomplish then it can be hard to even get started. Second, once you do get started this mindset will help you keep things in perspective. If you do miss a cardio workout or mess up on your diet you haven’t “blown it” – you simply messed up once and you move on.
Take things 4 weeks at a time. We use an accountability journal at our facility where we set weekly goals for each aspect of a program. As clients do them they mark them off on the days they did them and after 4 weeks we look back and see how they did. This gives us an objective look at how things are going and helps us identify areas we can improve on over the next 4 week period.
Trying to make the next 4 weeks a little better than the previous 4 weeks will systematically help you build up to and achieve the goal of 90% program adherence. Trying to overcome years of bad habits in just a few weeks will usually just lead to frustration, negative self talk and, eventually, quitting. Small steps in the right direction over a period of a few months will help keep you sane, happy and, eventually, help you surpass your goals.
-James Wilson-
True strength is not a result of just lifting some weights and simply working out. The truth is that strength is a skill that must be learned in a systematic way in order to get the most out of your efforts. Unfortunately though few people truly appreciate this fact and instead just go through a bunch of random exercises that do nothing to teach them the true skills of strength.
Remember that your brain controls your muscles and ultimately “learns” strength just like it does anything else. To illustrate my point think about how children are taught academic skills in school. Let’s take math for example. Do children start out in kindergarten learning advanced algebra? No, they are first taught their basic numbers and nothing else. Once they have mastered that they then move on to counting, then addition and subtraction and then division and so on.
Each grade they are taught slightly more advanced skills that build on the skills they learned in the previous grade. In addition, there are benchmarks that must be met in order for a child to be allowed to advance. If they do not demonstrate adequate mastery of the skills taught in their current grade level they are held back until they do. This ensures that they do not get overwhelmed and fail to learn what they need to at the next level and retard their long term development.
In addition, if a child shows exceptional skill and advancement they are allowed to move ahead faster and start to learn more advanced skills before most of their peers. They are not arbitrarily thrown into the next grade level because they are a certain age and should be at a certain level, regardless of where their skill level is truly at.
Now, compare that learning model against how most people learn the skills of strength. Almost no one approaches strength training from this same perspective. Instead, they simply jump into whatever program they picked up out of a magazine or their friend is following. There is no thought as to establishing basic skills first and then advancing to the next level after adequate mastery is established.
Let’s look at one of the most common and seemingly simple exercises in the gym – the bench press. Ask any high level power lifter and they will tell you that the bench press is most certainly a skill that they spent years and years practicing and mastering. However, ask anyone in your local gym how they learned the bench press and they will most likely tell you that they simply laid down, took the bar and pressed it up – what more is there to it?
If you truly want to get the most out of this exercise there is much more to it. First, mastery of bodyweight should be established. Until someone can perform 2-3 sets of 8-12 push ups they have no business adding external resistance through a barbell. Second, unilateral strength must be established. Most of us have a dominant side and when doing a bilateral exercise such as the bench press that dominant side will take over and do most of the work. This just re-enforces that imbalance, holds back our strength levels and increases our injury potential. In order to avoid this scenario time must be spent doing single arm dumbbell bench presses in order to force the body to balance itself out.
Once bodyweight has been mastered and balance has been established the bench press can be introduced into a program and the real learning begins. Even at this point there is far more to it than simply lying down and pressing the bar. Something as seemingly simple as learning how to get set up takes time. For example, you must know how to get the upper back set up tight and strong, pulling the shoulder blades back and down in order to restrict scapular movement during the exercise.
This will help you create a strong and stable platform to press from that will not only make you stronger but also decrease your risk of shoulder injuries, a common problem among those that do a lot of bench pressing incorrectly. And this is one of just a few dozen things that you must learn in order to safely make the most out of this “simple” exercise.
Hopefully I have demonstrated my point – strength is a skill that must be systematically taught and learned. Failure to realize this will not only lead to sub-par results but also increase the risk of injury. Far too often we are tempted to rush into more advanced exercises and techniques for no other reason than to entertain ourselves or to try and realize some short term gains at the expense of our long term development.
-James Wilson-
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P95a6UMrYZ4]
Here is a video demo of the Y.T.W.L. exercise. this exercise is great for strengthening the muscles that control and stablize the shoulder blades. Poor control of the shoulder blades is the number one reason that people get shoulder and neck pain and the real cause of most rotator cuff problems.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xck3d8LidME]
Q: I’ve heard that you should never lock your knees out while doing leg exercises. Is that true?
A: There are a lot of myths about lower body exercises and this is one of the most common. The thought is that by locking your knees out you place too much stress on them. The problem with this logic is that joints, like anything else in your body, can and should be progressively stressed in order to make them stronger.
The key words here are progressively stressed. If you have relatively weak joints then ignoring that weakness in order to lift more weight is foolish as this just makes the situation worse. You are really only as strong as your weakest link so avoiding the reality of the situation only results in false gains built on a shaky foundation.
Tudor Bompa, one of the fathers of modern training principles, has what he calls the Rules of Strength Training. They basically focus on how to lay a solid foundation for future gains and one of the rules is “before you strengthen the prime movers (big muscles) develop joint strength and mobility”.
The take home message is this-unless you have hyper mobile knee joints, locking them out while doing lower body exercises is a must since we do that in daily life. The trick is to not rush into doing too much in your program. If your joints hurt following a training session then you need to stretch more and do less weight and volume (sets and reps).
-James Wilson-
Core training is a big buzz word in the in the fitness community. Having strong, injury resistant core is obviously important, but what exactly constitutes proper core training for most individuals? Surprisingly, most people are going about it all wrong.
One of the problems that people run into is that most suggestions come from sources that do not understand 21st Century core training. When you analyze how the body works, the main function of the core is to stabilize and protect the spine while creating a strong platform for movement to be created around. This means that core training should rely on teaching the midsection to stabilize, not move. Teaching the core to create excessive movement actually enhances your injury potential.
Another problem is that a lot of new core training fads center around the use of highly unstable objects such as stability balls, BOSU balls and wobble boards. The theory is that these unstable surfaces force the core to stabilize more and therefore are beneficial in creating the before mentioned core stability we need in real life. While this theory has some merit, like many training tools they can be misapplied and overused.
Real life does not take place on an unstable surface. Instead, it takes place on a stable surface and forces us to deal with an unstable external object, such as picking up a child or box. This quality is trained to a much higher degree using that exact formula – stand on the ground and use implements such as kettle bells and sand bags to teach the body to better deal with an unstable object.
So what should you be doing in your quest for a good looking, injury resistant core? These 2 exercises are a great way to get you started down that path.
Draw In – Get down on your hands and knees. Get and keep your back straight while relaxing your abs. You should feel your belly button sink down towards the ground without bowing your lower back. Proceed to “draw in” your abs by thinking about touching your belly button to your spine. Make sure that you are not arching your back as this only gives you the illusion of creating this movement – nothing else should move but your lower abdominal wall. Hold the draw in for a count of 5 and then relax, repeating for 6 reps.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTwcpGJ98r8]
Iron Cross – Much harder than it looks, hold a dumbbell in each hand. Raise your arms straight out to the side with your palms facing forward, your feet shoulder set width apart and your abs drawn in like you learned from the previous exercise. Thinking “tall and thin” will usually help you get the abs engaged properly. Proceed to squat down while bringing the dumbbells in front of you. Stand back up from the bottom position while bringing the dumbbells back out to the starting position. Your arms should remain parallel with the ground the entire time and your shoulders should remain down and back, not letting them hunch up at any time. Do 8-12 reps for 2 sets.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NhL3Zk14d2w]
A true understanding of what is needed to increase the strength of the core based on the latest advancements in our understanding of this area is vital to make sure that you are not wasting your time or, even worse, sabotaging your own efforts in the gym. Implementing these two exercises will go a long way towards creating the type of core that we are all after.
-James Wilson-
