The Pistol

I was reviewing our single leg series this morning and realized that I neglected to discuss the pistol, so here you go.

The Pistol is the king of single leg work.  It is an extremely athletic movement, requiring high levels of strength, mobility and flexibility.  Essentially, it is a single leg squat with the non-working leg sticking straight out in front of you at the bottom of the movement.

As far as loading is concerned, some people find it easier to learn the movement while holding a moderate weight kettlebell in the goblet position.  This can help with your sense of balance and groundedness while performing the movement.  I would recommend trying it loaded and un-loaded to find which works better for you. 

Start the movement by balancing on one foot, with your weight going straight through your heel into the floor.  Push the hips back.  As you descend into the squat, raise the heel of your non-working leg, keeping it just an inch or two off the floor, throughout the entire movement.

The bottom position of the movement is when your non-working leg is parallel to the floor.  At this point your tail should be within inches of the ground.  Keeping your weight through your heel, press back up into the starting position.

At the outset, it is unlikely that you will be able to get into the bottom position at all, much less press back up out of it.  The best way to regress the movement is to perform it to an increasingly lower box or step to give you support and a depth finder in the bottom of the movement.

As you are working toward progressing to the full pistol, it is important that you hammer away at your hip mobility, hamstring flexibility and glute strength, as these are the key factors which will affect your ability to perform a pistol.

I'd love to hear about your progress in the comments section.

Train smart; eat right.

Technorati Tags: Athletic Development,Exercise Descriptions,Functional Movement,Movement Patterns,Performance,Single Leg Work,Squats

Implements and Tools vs. Toys and Gadgets

So I was at the gym the other day, and there was another trainer there working one of his clients. He was a new client, only his second session with the trainer. I'm on the mat doing my foam rolling and mobility work, and I look up to see the client doing push-ups with his hands elevated on a bar inside the squat rack to make it easier. At the same time, he is wearing a 20 pound weight vest to make it harder.

I think to myself, "That's odd, but maybe he needs the added weight of the vest for his next movement." Nope. The next movement is bodyweight lunges, and the guy can't do a single one with a full range of motion. Now I'm puzzled. When they are done with the not push-ups and the partial lunges, they move on to front squats. The client does not have the range of motion in his wrists and shoulders to use an olympic fronts squat grip, so he is using a cross face grip. Now the weight vest is restricting his grip and causing the bar to slide down his chest with each rep.

To me, this is a classic example of a trainer not knowing the difference between a toy/gadget and a tool/implement. A weight vest is an outstanding tool when used properly. In this case however, it was hindering everything the client was trying to do. Having your clients wear a weight vest during a workout is a great way to boost metabolism and progress bodyweight movements. But if the client can't do the movement(s) without the vest, then the vest is just a toy that hinders their performance and their opportunity to make gains.

So now the question becomes, why would a trainer do such a thing. The only answer I can come up with is that the trainer wants other gym members to see his clients using his toys so that they will want in on the action. It's an advertisement. "If you work out with me, you'll get to do this fun stuff too." To the uneducated eye, it can look very appealing.

The same can be said of all of the other tools trainers have at their disposal: medicine balls, Bosu balls, swiss balls, suspension systems, kettlebells. The list goes on. These are all great tools when used with the right client for the right exercises and with the goal of increasing performance in mind. Too many trainers don't know how to properly use these tools, simply because they have not looked at the research, or have chosen not to educate themselves properly.

If you are a trainer who uses UST (if you need me to tell you what that stands for, you should probably turn in your certification, but for the non-trainers in the audience: Unstable Surface Training) with your clients, do them a favor and pick up a copy of Eric Cressey's Unstable Surface Training. Read it before your next session. Your clients will thank you.

Train smart; eat right!

Technorati Tags: Athletic Development,Movement Pattern,Silly Trainers

The Single Leg Deadlift

Sorry for my lack of posting in the last week, I was out of town with my wife Lisa. Actually, we were in the rainforest in Puerto Rico celebrating our 10th anniversary. Technology wasn't quite what we were expecting and ended up with no internet access for the week. Expect some great quality content over the next several days.

The single leg deadlift is an oft neglected movement. Unlike the two legged version, it is not a great movement for building raw strength or hypertrophy, but when it comes to improving athleticism and movement quality, I view it as a must use tool. It is outstanding for training balance while opposing large external forces. It is also useful for training the glutes in the transverse plane (that is while twisting,) something they are often subjected to in sport.

This movement can be performed with one or two dumbbells or kettlebells. Kettlebells will give you a starting point which is higher off the ground, which can be advantageous when first learning the movement. If you don't have kettlebells in your equipment arsenal, you can get the same effect with dumbbells by placing them on an aerobic step or at the bottom of an open platform. When first starting out, I would strongly advise against using a barbell or hex deadlift bar. The risk of losing your balance and your inability to recover from a potential fall is significantly increased with either of these implements.

To perform the movement, set up on one leg, with the other foot held just a couple of inches off the ground. While maintaining a neutral spine, push the hips back and down, allowing the knee of the plant leg to bend. Grasp the weight and return to the starting position. Points to focus on:

• Drive your weight through your heel. Do not come up on the ball of your foot.
• Force your scapula down and back before lifting the weight. Maintain that position throughout the movement.
• Keep your spine in it's natural, neutral position throughout the movement.
• Start with light weights for several sessions until you get a real good feel for the movement.

Progressions:

• Use one heavy dumbbell on the side of the plant foot to challenge the anti-rotator muscles of the core.
• Use one heavy dumbbell on the side opposite the plant foot to challenge the anti-rotator muscles of the core in a different manner.
  
• Add a small hip rotation at the top of the movement. Be certain not to twist so far that you feel a pull in the knee. The knee is a joint that is designed for stability, not mobility.

Train smart; eat right.

The Reverse Lunge

The reverse lunge is a great movement for developing glute and hamstring strength. When weighted, it is also a great progression towards the holy grail of single leg movements, the pistol, or one-legged-squat.

To perform it, simply step back and drop down by bending your front hip and knee until the rear knee grazes the floor. Return to the starting point, by rising up and bringing the rear foot forward. Do not push off the front foot and come up to a new position one step back from where you started. You want the leg that carries the tension on the down portion of the movement to be the same one that carries the tension on the return.

Train smart; eat right.

The Forward Lunge (corrected version)

NOTE: Due to technical difficulties (read: I'm a newbie and a techtard) this post was originally published in a significantly truncated version. Here's the whole shebang.

The forward lunge is the most basic of all of the single leg movements. It is also the easiest place to start for single leg movements, because while it does begin to activate the glute, it is still a quad dominant movement, thereby playing to most people's strengths, while working on their weaknesses.

It has many variations, including, walking, goblet, traveling, overhead and spiderman. Any of these can be weighted, to increase the level of difficulty. Each of them places different demands on the body, while increasing performance. Depending on loading, each of them is also a top performer for increasing strength or mobility: your choice.

Let's start with the most basic, the walking lunge. From a standing position, take one large step forward. Pressing your weight through the heel, come down by bending the front leg until the knee is bent to a 90 degree angle and the back knee touches the floor. Keeping your weight through the heel, drive back up to a standing position, so that you've taken one step forward. Repeat with the opposite leg. That's one rep. This will test:

• Balance - did you wobble?
• Glute strength - did you have to add a little extra movement in the upper body to get the momentum to get back up?
• Hip mobility - was it difficult to get all the way down because of a stretch in the front of your back hip?

The traveling lunge is just a slight variation, in that the lead leg remains the lead leg until the prescribed number of reps are completed, then switch. The benefit here is that it allows you to place more stress on each leg by reducing the rest time between reps. When doing traveling lunges, I recommend that you perform with your non-dominant leg first. This will keep you from wearing yourself out on the dominant leg, and not having the energy to complete your reps with the non-dominant leg.

The goblet lunge is a weighted variation that allows you to work the legs harder without placing too much stress on the upper body. Simply hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in front of your chest, close to your body. Focus on keeping your chest high so that you don't bend forward and over-stress the low back muscles.

The overhead lunge can be performed weighted or unweighted. As an unweighted movement, it challenges hip flexibility and low back stability. Simply raise your hands straight up, with the palms facing in. Now perform a walking lunge. Resist the temptation to allow the upper body to fold forward. If you add weights, in the form of dumbbells, a barbell or a keg, you will add a shoulder stability component to the movement. You will also place an excellent stress on the entire core (the girdle as it is often referred to when talking about engaging all of the muscles in a wrap-around fashion.)

Finally, the spiderman lunge is a great mobility movement, challenging range of motion in the front of the hip. It is performed unweighted, similar thot he walking lunge. The difference here is that instead of having the arms down at your sides, you put them in front of you, so that at the bottom of the movement you can touch the ground with both hands. This forces you to focus on getting low in the front in order to be able to reach the ground.

Start adding these variations into your routine to see great improvements in strength, mobility and athleticism.

Train smart; eat right.

Single Leg Work

I find that a common misconception among guys in the gym is that single leg work is somehow not manly. I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's because we have images from the covers of yoga magazines of women in leotards doing single leg deadlifts with 3 lb. pink dumbbells.

Thankfully, this is changing. As the training industry makes a shift to more functionally based, athletic type movements, lunges and the other single leg lifts in all of their glorious variety are making a return to training programs everywhere. If you've never done any single leg training, you've been missing out on a great way to:

• Expose left/right imbalances.
• Activate and strengthen weak glutes, improving posture and reducing back pain.
• Improve your hip range of motion.
• Strengthen your ankles and improve balance.
• Eliminate front/back muscle imbalances, one of the leading predictors of muscular and joint injuries
• Boost your training poundage on the two leg squat and deadlift.

If that list doesn't convince you, then clearly training to improve health, lifestyle and athleticism is not on your list of goals. I recommend that you go back to reading Muscular Development for your training advice. Have fun making gains on that 5 day split at 2 hours a day. I'm sure your back will be bigger than Dorian's by this time next year you hypertrophy freak.

One of the beauties of these movements is that they follow a nice progression in difficulty level. With each new level you reach, you will improve mobility, strength and balance. They are also fantastic for anyone who is rehabbing from a back injury, in that with many of them, there is no need to load the spine, as bodyweight is sufficient.

Over the next few posts, I will review the finer points of and coaching cues for the following single leg movements, along with their corresponding progressions and variations:

• Forward Lunge
• Reverse Lunge
• Bulgarian Split Squat
• Single Leg Deadlift
• Single Leg Romanian Deadlift
• Pistol

Until then - Train Smart; Eat Right

Technorati Tags: Athletic Development,Functional Movement,Movement Patterns,Single Leg Work,Squat

The Forward Lunge

The forward lunge is the most basic of all of the single leg movements. It is also the easiest place to start for single leg movements, because while it does begin to activate the glute, it is still a quad dominant movement, thereby playing to most people's strengths, while working on their weaknesses.

It has many variations, including, walking, goblet, traveling, overhead and spiderman. Any of these can be weighted, to increase the level of difficulty. Each of them places different demands on the body, while increasing performance. Depending on loading, each of them is also a top performer for increasing strength or mobility: your choice.

Let's start with the most basic, the walking lunge. From a standing position, take one large step forward. Pressing your weight through the heel, come down by bending the front leg until the knee is bent to a 90 degree angle and the back knee touches the floor. Keeping your weight through the heel, drive back up to a standing position, so that you've taken one step forward. Repeat with the opposite leg. That's one rep. This will test:

• Balance - did you wobble?
• Glute strength - did you have to add a little extra movement in the upper body to get the momentum to get back up?
• Hip mobility - was it difficult to get all the way down because of a stretch in the front of your back hip?

The traveling lunge is just a slight variation, in that the lead leg remains the lead leg until the prescribed number of reps are completed, then switch. The benefit here is that it allows you to place more stress on each leg by reducing the rest time between reps. When doing traveling lunges, I recommend that you perform with your non-dominant leg first. This will keep you from wearing yourself out on the dominant leg, and not having the energy to complete your reps with the non-dominant leg.

The goblet lunge is a weighted variation that allows you to work the legs harder without placing too much stress on the upper body. Simply hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in front of your chest, close to your body. Focus on keeping your chest high so that you don't bend forward and over-stress the low back muscles.

The overhead lunge can be performed weighted or unweighted. As an unweighted movement, it challenges hip flexibility and low back stability. Simply raise your hands straight up, with the palms facing in. Now perform a walking lunge. Resist the temptation to allow the upper body to fold forward. If you add weights, in the form of dumbbells, a barbell or a keg, you will add a shoulder stability component to the movement. You will also place an excellent stress on the entire core (the girdle as it is often referred to when talking about engaging all of the muscles in a wrap-around fashion.)

Finally, the spiderman lunge is a great mobility movement, challenging range of motion in the front of the hip. It is performed unweighted, similar thot he walking lunge. The difference here is that instead of having the arms down at your sides, you put them in front of you, so that at the bottom of the movement you can touch the ground with both hands. This forces you to focus on getting low in the front in order to be able to reach the ground.

Start adding these variations into your routine to see great improvements in strength, mobility and athleticism.

Train smart; eat right.