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

Safety in the Gym

The single biggest mistake I see people making in the gym is this:

They imitate what they think they see other people doing.

There are a few key factors here that can add up to any combination of injury, ineffectiveness and frustration.  They are:

1. Unless you have a solid understanding of exercise kinesiology, the movement that you saw and the one that you re-produce when you attempt it yourself may be very different.
2. The person you are imitating may have no idea what they are doing.  This can even be the case if they appear very fit, are well-built or (gasp) they are a trainer themselves.
3. Your training goals are different then the training goals of the person you are imitating.  This happens most often when a person training for fat loss imitates the training of a bodybuilder.

This is one reason that I advocate everyone invest in a few weeks worth of training sessions with a qualified trainer when they first begin working out.  I also recommend buying a few sessions every 3-6 months, just to help you with form checks, exercise progressions and matching goals to programming.

The issue of safety in the gym becomes and increasing concern, now that movement based exercises like squats, lunges, deadlifts, cleans and overhead presses are coming back into vogue.  On the surface, they appear to be fairly simple movements to imitate.  In practice however, the difference between performing them properly and going through the motions, or performing them improperly has huge ramifications with regard to:

• Your safety.
• The metabolic advantages of the movement
• The development of the muscles each movement is intended to target.

Train smart; Eat right.

Technorati Tags: Deadlift,Movement patterns,Performance,Squat

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.

Improving Your Squat

Following is a checklist of some of the most common problems with an individual's squat.

• Leans too far forward with the upper body
• Knees cave in as you descend
• Can't get into the bottom position (below parallel)

Now let's look at how to correct each of these.

Leans too far forward

Commonly, this is associated with a lack of mobility at the hip joint.  As the hips descend, overly tight hip flexor muscles pull the torso forward, rather than allowing it to remain upright.  This can be fixed by dynamically stretching the hip flexors and quads.  In your pre-workout warm-up, begin to perform Rocking Hip Flexor mobilizations.  To do this, stand in a split stance, with one foot out in front of the other, as if you were about to perform a lunge.  Push your weight forward over your front foot, placing a stretch on the muscles at the front of the back hip.  Hold that position for a one-count, and rock back onto your back foot.  Perform 8 repetitions per side.

Knees cave in as you descend

This problem is generally caused by over-active adductors (the muscles on the inside of your thighs) and weak, or under-active, abductor muscles.  It is very common in women.  A nice little trick that I learned from Mike Robertson's blog is to take a piece of rubber tubing or exercise band and tie it around your knees as you squat.  By putting this little bit of pressure on the outsides of the knees, you cue the abductor muscles to keep the knees in proper alignment.

Can't get into the bottom position

This is generally a problem associated with the tight hip flexors.  If you've fixed those and are still having problems getting all the way down, then a few coaching cues might help.

• Hips back - as you begin your descent, make sure that you are pushing your hips back first.  (As opposed to bending the knees first.)  Some coaches will cue you to think about closing the car door when you have two arms full of groceries.
• Keep your weight through your heels.  In the squat, your weight should never be on your toes, or the balls of your feet.  You should be able to wiggle your toes through the entire range of motion.
• Practice, practice, practice!!!

Good luck taking that squat form to the next level!

Train smart; eat right!

Pete

Technorati Tags: functional movement,movement patterns,performance,squat

Quality Movement

When looking at movement quality, it is generally agreed upon by physical therapists, strength coaches and other movement specialists that gross motor patterns, as they apply to exercise, can be broken down into a few basic movement patterns:

1. Squat
2. Lunge
3. Vertical Push
4. Horizontal Push
5. Vertical Pull
6. Horizontal Pull

It is also generally agreed that there are several inhibitions we place on our ability to perform many of these patterns by living a 21st century lifestyle.  These inhibitions are generally related to the amount of time we spend sitting.

At its worst, sitting will inhibit the glutes and hamstrings, tighten the hips, cause distorted arching of upper and lower spine, and creating a stiffness in the lower back.  Think about how you used to squat when you were a little kid, or how a member of a primitive culture is able to squat down and sit back "on their haunches."  When was the last time you were able to do this.  The reason that you can't is that you spend so much time sitting in a chair, that you have developed many of the issues mentioned above.

If you are an endurance athlete or weightlifter, who is not currently performing a mobility routine, it is likely that these problems are even worse for you.  The reason being that not only have you developed improper movement patterns, but you are reinforcing them on a constant basis, under load.  Thereby further ingraining them in your central nervous system, the place where all of our movement patterns are stored.

At age 20, these problems are minor inconveniences for everyone except the highest performing athletes.  In our 30's and 40's, the stiffness starts to set in, and begins to inhibit our lifestyles (getting on the floor and playing with the kids becomes uncomfortable, shoveling the driveway leaves us stiff for a couple of days.)  By our 50's and 60's it's no longer "It's not comfortable to do that", it becomes "I can't do that."  By our 70's and 80's, these same inhibitions are what lead to many of the issues that lead to helath problems, including slipping and falling. It is also a large part of what leads to the inability to perform daily tasks, and the accompanying need for additional support from family or professionals.

The good news is that regardless of age, we can all make significant improvements to our movement patterns through a simple stretching and mobility program.

Over the next few posts, I will discuss each of these problem areas and give you some tips to help you improve them.

Technorati Tags: movement patterns,performance

Men's Exercise Magazines

When I was in high school, the only magazines around that addressed exercise were the bodybuilding ones. So my friends and I would read them and copy the routines of the latest "presumably" (apparently it's politically correct to always say presumably before making this wild and crazy allegation) steroid induced Mr. Olympia contender. The results we got were reasonable, because an untrained physique will respond to almost any stimulus. They were not however, ideal for the lifestyles we were trying to live (athletes who also wanted to look good on the beach in the summer.) We were constantly over-trained and, as a result, our gains in both size and strength were limited.

During the 20 years since, much has changed in the world of fitness publishing. Currently, every bookstore in the nation has copies of over a dozen health and fitness magazines aimed at the general population that is looking to get or stay fit, while improving performance. "Performance" is a key criteria I use when looking at all types of fitness products. If a product (or exercise) will improve my performance then it has some value. If not, then its value decreases drastically, in my opinion. You might be surprised at how much of the exercise equipment out there is actually detrimental to your performance. (We'll be coming back to this theme many times in the future.)

For a while, much of the information in these magazines was repetitive, boring and run-of-the-mill. If you had a subscription for one year, you had read everything they had to say, and the value of a second year was significantly reduced. That is changing.

Men's Health, Men's Fitness and Men's Journal seem to be getting it right, by and large. They each have some fantastic contributor's each month. They are bringing forward some great techniques and cutting edge research, which are available for free on some of the author's blogs, but would take years to trickle down to your local gym population without them. Yes, you'll still see people doing dumb things, like single legged romanian deadlifts on a bosu ball with 5 lb. dumbbells, or using the smith machine for anything other than a place to hang their coat (more on both of those later,) but the trend is toward more athletic, performance based movements.

Over the next few posts, I'll share with you some of my favorite tips from this month's issues of these magazines, as well as links to some of the blogs put out by the outstanding author's of them.

Train smart; eat right.

Technorati Tags: Men's Health,Men's Fitness,Men's Journal,performance