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Reserve your spot for class. As the new year is here, class sizes are going to be larger and as a coach it’s easier for us to be able to make the accommodations necessary to ensure a safe and organized class to occur.

When you are doing a deadlift, as the weight gets heavier what starts to happen to your form ? More than likely, your hips shoot up, your chest collapses forward, and you lose the maximal force you are trying to apply.

When the hips rise too fast, you lose the opportunity to move big weights. Regardless of your preference on starting hip height, a straight leg reduces the involvement of your glutes, hamstrings, quads, and adductors. The more you are able to use these significant muscle groups, the more chance you have of producing a higher strength output.

The reason for these errors is simple. It’s a lack of tension and bracing. Not creating tension in a muscle before you intend to move at maximal velocity can be a recipe for disaster. When you ask relaxed muscles to contract with as much force as possible, they will take the easiest route rather than the route you need for a maximal lift – which means hips up.

Try this simple test to understand more:

1. Use your thumb and forefinger to flick something (or someone – but I can’t be held responsible for their retaliation). Notice the speed of the finger.
2. Now take away your thumb and try and flick your finger with the same speed. You can’t. It’s slower and far less powerful.

When you use your thumb to hold your finger back, you pre-load the muscle and contract it with maximal force before you unload that tension in a fast movement. Now let’s apply that to the deadlift. At the start up, it might be hard to get tight and create tension at the bottom of the movement.It’s far harder than a squat, as you have to engage muscle groups when you are already cramped up in the bottom position. It’s hard to feel yourself getting tighter.

The simplest way to activate the major muscle groups when in the set up position for the deadlift is to gently push your knees outwards into your forearms. Don’t force your arms off the bar  just use a gentle squeeze. You will immediately feel the hamstrings, glutes, adductors, and even the quads begin to engage. If you allow this tension to develop through your upper back, you can take off the handbrake on the muscles, explode up, and apply that maximal output by driving your heels into the floor. You will instantly notice how the legs don’t automatically straighten and self-sabotage. Rather, they drive your hips through in the right sequence, contributing force to your deadlift.

Take a look at the CrossFit games and your likely to see many “new” elements that give athletes something to work towards. For instance, the peg board game. Not only was that a different element that was brought in but it left some of the top athletes wondering why they couldn’t do it. There are so many skills that are now considered “easy” for many athletes like handstand walking. For the common CrossFit person this is STILL a challenge but for the elite they need more. Here are some new elements they are taking from different sports to give a challenging twist for the athletes.

Atlas Stones
-Stones demand strength, skill, agility, balance, coordination, and guts like no other movement. Nothing challenges every single ancillary muscle fiber, right down to your fingertips, like a stone.

Backward Roll to Support

-Now muscle ups are easy for the elite. They don’t pose any challenge because it is now a standard movement for many RX competitions. So how can you make it harder ? Make it a backward roll to support. CrossFit has stayed away from this movement as a competition piece, but it’s time to bring it to the Games. It’s an extremely technical movement, and entertaining to watch. Greg Glassman taught these back in 2013 to the HQ seminar athletes. Don’t be shocked to see it at the games !

Rope Muscle ups

-Standard ring muscle ups, once the holy grail of every CrossFitter’s repertoire and a staple at the Games, are as routine as air squats now. Everyone can do muscle ups, so why not take it up a notch and separate out the elite athletes with high-level bodyweight movements?Using a rope takes muscle ups to the extreme and tests something that rarely gets tested in its truest form: grip strength.

There is always the need for balance between entertainment and testing for fitness. Of course, testing for fitness supersedes entertainment value, which is why we have rowing for calories, assault bikes, and the TrueForm treadmill. It needs to be both entertaining for people to watch as it is challenging for that athletes to perform !

Beyond sport practice though, there are 7 movement categories that are present in the training of all my speed/power athletes including non-strength athletes. Movement is universal. Along with the premise of CrossFit, you need to be proficient in all domains and not be specialized in any.  If you want to become a better athlete that is well rounded then you should incorporate these things into your training protocol !

Sprints

-Sprints are the highest velocity movement you can perform and will have great transfer to any land based sport, because sprinting is ‘sport specific’ to them all. Even aquatic athletes, like swimmers and water polo players, will benefit from sprint based drills to improve their lower body power.

Jumps

-Improved jumping ability both horizontal and vertical will improve sprinting acceleration and explosive lower body power across the board, plus it is simple to teach to athletes. Jumping is also of great benefit as it will teach the athlete not just to produce force, but the landing phase will also help them learn how to properly absorb forces.Jumps though can run a wide gamut from extensive low amplitude hops to depth jumps from a 1m box.

Throws

-Throws of any form, whether you’re throwing a medicine ball, shot put, keg, pud or any other weighted object is a great way to develop total body explosive power and coordination in multiple directions. There is no deceleration phase in a throw as the implement will accelerate out of your hands, making it a much more true explosive movement than DE lifting or weightlifting movement alternatives. Throws are also simple to learn, can be done in multiple planes of motion and by utilizing different weight implements, can attack different parts of the force-velocity curve. The bigger variable to manipulate with throws for athletes of different levels and at different phases of the training is the weight of the implement being thrown, but some more complex variations such as jumps + throws should be reserved for more advanced athletes.

Squats

-When you think of squats, you more than likely thinking a front or back squat. The type of squat will depend on the athlete that is training. You might have to alter the movement pattern to get a more effective squat progression such as a box squat or goblet squat. You should choose exercises for athletes based upon 3 factors, can the athlete do them safely and with good technique, can the athlete produce some good output on the movement meaning they can  move some weight  and does it fit within the context of the athlete’s plan at that point.

Upper body Push

-Pressing strength in the upper body is going to help athletes improve pushing/punching strength in their sport, add muscle mass and perhaps most importantly, help protect them from injuries in the shoulder girdle.A barbell bench press is a great exercise to develop strength in the chest, shoulders and arms, but for an athlete like a pitcher or quarterback who doesn’t do any direct pushing as part of their sport performance, they may be better served to use a neutral grip bar or dumbbells that allow them to find a more natural/comfortable position to press in.

Hip Extension

-Powerful hip extension through the glutes and hamstrings will help an athlete sprint faster, jump higher, hit harder and a range of other important qualities. The exercises you choose to strengthen the hamstrings, glutes and low back for improved hip extension need to also be chosen appropriately for the athlete’s and their preparedness. The snatch is certainly a powerful exercise to build explosive extension abilities but many athletes will not have the requisite movement abilities or relative strength to perform the movement safely and effectively.

Upper Body Pull

-Everything you do, you must undo inherently sports are internal rotation dominant for the shoulders so whether athletes are pushing, throwing or swimming, they’ve almost always become internal rotation biased in their shoulders and need appropriate volumes of upper back training to restore balance and maintain health.Movement progressions and regressions aren’t quite as significant for upper body pulling movements as they are all fairly remedial and will mostly be progressed or regressed by load.

These 7 simple movement categories are the foundation for nearly all of my athlete’s training and will help you create powerful, well-rounded and healthy athletes. Think critically about what your athletes are ready for within these categories and their results and health will be improved.

References

http://www.jtsstrength.com/articles/2015/09/20/7-things-all-athletes-need-to-do/

Did you ever ask yourself why it’s important to train with odd objects? Well for starters, in life everything is an odd object. From the groceries, your children, and even boxes you need to move. How are you supposed to know how to maneuver them if you have never trained in this domain?

Once we get to standing from all of the fundamental postures (lying, quadruped, and kneeling)we have three options:

1. A bilateral stance (squats and deadlifts)
2. A split stance (lunges)
3. A single leg stance (kicking and running)

If you spend most of your training time in a bilateral stance, which most of us do, you will miss out on about 70 percent of the options available to you that your body needs to train. And when it comes to increasing athleticism, you’ll find far more activities are dependent on a split or single-leg stance than they are on a bilateral one. his is where loaded carries came in. They encompass all possible foot patterns.

Carries exist in a variety of forms. Here is a guide on how to squeeze the most athletic benefit from them:

Farmers Carry

-The simplest carry is the farmer’s carry, or farmer’s walk. Simply begin by grabbing two objects of the same size and weight and carry them for distance or time.

–  In terms of challenging the body, the farmer position is the easiest. Just like with foot positions, there are three possible hand positions  such as hands down, in the rack position, and overhead. These other positions are by far more challenging from a stability point of view.

Suitcase Carry

-A suitcase carry may be described most easily as a single-sided farmer’s carry.

-The reality of a single-sided carry is that it just doesn’t work well. If you use a moderately heavy kettlebell or dumbbell the weight will hit your leg and make it difficult to maintain posture. Your options are either to reduce the weight or choose a different variation, such as the rack or overhead carry.

Rack Carry

-The rack carry is perhaps the best combination of all for loaded carries. Keep in mind, the weight on your chest will make breathing difficult. The reason this is so important is that good breath function dictates how well you can do just about everything.

-The first variation to attempt is the bottom up kettlebell carry. This is where you flip the kettlebell over and have it balance with the bell side up as you hold your forearm against your chest.

Overhead Carry

-Holding something heavy overhead while maintaining good posture is hard. Even if you have decent pressing abilities many struggle when they have to hold load overhead for any period of time. Even the smallest glitches in their abilities will be highlighted.