4 Myths About Female Glute Training

Plus How to Really Perfect Your Glute-Ham Tie-In

by Bret Contreras   

Here's what you need to know...

•  Judges of female figure and bodybuilding shows look for a glute-ham tie-in, but most women prefer glutes with a more prominent profile.

•  There is no glute-ham tie-in muscle! If you want to maximize the muscularity of the glutes and hamstrings, hammer them with a variety of hip extension and knee flexion exercises.

•  Attempting to carve the glutes with spot reduction exercises like the Stepmill doesn't work.

•  Sprinting doesn't spot reduce fat off from the posterior chain and it doesn't activate the posterior chain muscles to a greater degree than hip thrusts or back extensions.

You've heard of the glute-ham tie-in, the area that separates the glutes and hamstrings. In bodybuilding and figure competitions, judges look for a smooth transition between these two muscles. It's therefore of great interest for physique athletes to optimize the appearance of this region. However, there are several misconceptions pertaining to the glute-ham tie-in.

Myth #1 Do Cardio for Preferential Fat Burning in the Glute-Ham Area

I just don't get it. We see so many physique athletes slaving away for hours on the Stepmill, claiming that it sheds fat and etches in the details in the glute-ham region. According to the research, spot reduction is a myth - it doesn't work. The Stepmill can indeed hit the type I fibers and potentially aid in total muscle building efforts. However, this could also be accomplished via incline walking, cycling, the elliptical, or simply adding in some high-rep, low-load resistance training. I'm not saying that cardio (or the Stepmill) should be avoided; just know that it doesn't preferentially burn fat in the glute-ham region.

Myth #2 You Should Do Special Exercises

I've overheard many bodybuilders and figure competitors mention that a certain exercise "really works their glute-ham tie-in." The trouble is, there's no glute-ham tie-in muscle! The gluteus maximus is one muscle. You also have the hamstrings, which consist of the biceps femoris long head, semitendinosus, and semimembranosus (the biceps femoris short head doesn't apply to the glute-ham tie-in because it only crosses the knee joint). Finally, you have the adductor magnus, which can also contribute to the appearance of the glute-ham tie-in.

There are plenty of exercises that do a great job of activating the glutes and the hamstrings at the same time. Deadlifts and back extensions both hit the glutes and hammies very hard. There are also plenty of exercises that might make you feel sore in your lower glute region, like walking lunges and Bulgarian split squats. However, if you want to maximize the muscularity of the glutes and hamstrings, you'll need to perform a variety of exercises. No single exercise will optimally build both muscles. Rather than looking for a special exercise to help you with your glute-ham tie-in, make sure you hammer your glutes and hamstrings with a variety of hip extension and knee flexion exercises (which we'll review below.)

Myth #3 Sprinting Will Improve Your Glute-Ham Tie-In

Sprinters tend to have impressive posterior chain development, and sprinting works the backside very well. So wouldn't sprinting be a good candidate for improving the glute-ham tie-in? The answer might surprise you. Sprinting is an ultra-high intensity activity. Most physique athletes who decide to take up sprinting will fail to condition their bodies properly and will inevitably injure themselves. Several clients I've worked with have gone against my recommendations and implemented sprinting into their preparatory training and suffered negative consequences as a result. Typical injuries include hamstring strains, hip flexor strains, and sacroiliac joint injuries. I can help you improve your glutes and hamstrings, but only if you're healthy.

Sprinting doesn't spot-reduce fat from the posterior chain and it doesn't activate the posterior chain muscles to a greater degree than hip thrusts or back extensions. These exercises are much easier to control than sprinting, and they lend themselves to slightly greater levels of metabolic stress due to the constant tension they provide.

One last thing - sprinters also lift weights, and much of their muscular development can be attributed to this. If you think back to how sprinters looked before weight training for track & field athletes was the norm, you'll note that their posterior chains weren't quite as developed. My advice for physique athletes is to stick to weights and leave sprinting to the sprinters. If you insist on sprinting, then ease into things gradually and make sure you spend ample time warming up.

Myth #4 A Smooth Transition Between Glutes and Hams Always Looks Best

An aesthetically pleasing glute-ham tie-in is in the eye of the beholder. I like a great deal of separation between the glutes and hamstrings and I like the glutes to pop out visually from the hamstrings. It looks like I'm not alone. Think about which ladies possess the most popular booties worldwide. Jennifer Lopez or Kim Kardashian probably come to mind, or, perhaps you're familiar with Jen Selter. These ladies have big ol' booties and their hamstring development is lackluster, but it doesn't seem to be hurting their popularity.

To provide further evidence, look at Bikini Olympia winners, like Ashley Kaltwasser. Note the emphasis on glute development over hamstring development.

In bikini, competitions are won from the rear, but glute shape seems to trump hamstring shape, which isn't necessarily the case with men's bodybuilding. For females that compete in bikini, glute training should probably be prioritized over hamstring training.

Glute-Ham for Female Bodybuilders and Figure Competitors

There are three things that are vital for aesthetically-pleasing glute-ham tie-ins:

1. Low body fat levels
2. Muscular glute development
3. Muscular hamstring development

Attaining Low Body Fat Levels

This one is obvious, but it can't be stressed enough. If your body fat isn't low, your glutes aren't going to look good, at least from a figure or bodybuilding standard. Attaining low body fat levels is best achieved through a periodized combination of dieting, strength training, and cardiovascular training. You won't be able to optimize your body fat levels if you fail to incorporate all three strategies.

Building Muscular Glutes

The weapon of choice for glute development is the hip thrust exercise. Hip thrusts can be performed with a barbell, with bands, or one leg at a time. However, no exercise on its own will optimally develop any muscle. Variety always trumps single exercise performance when it comes to hypertrophic gains. Competitors also need to perform squats, walking lunges, Bulgarian split squats, barbell glute bridges, back extensions (done in a glute-dominant fashion), and the American deadlift. In case you're not familiar with the American deadlift, it's very similar to the Romanian deadlift, only you incorporate some pelvic motion. At the top of the motion, the bar moves straight forward as your glutes push the hips forward. Think of it simply as a glute-centric Romanian deadlift.

For rep ranges, hit the full spectrum - do some heavier sets in the 3-8 rep range, some medium sets in the 8-12 rep range, and some lighter sets in the 12-20 rep range. I'll even have my female clients perform sets of 30 when using bands for hip thrusts, monster walks, sumo walks, or seated hip abduction.

Building Muscular Hamstrings

For optimal hamstring development, you want to utilize variety. You'll already be hitting the hamstrings hard with American deadlifts and back extensions, but make sure to add in good mornings, Nordic ham curls, glute ham raises, and various leg curls (lying, seated, and standing are all good choices). Stick with low reps and an eccentric emphasis with Nordic ham curls and glute ham raises, but go for high reps and constant tension with the leg curl variations.

Non-Competitive Female Lifters: Focus on Glutes

With most of my female clients, I focus primarily on glutes. It's not easy to create the coveted "pop" that gives the glutes such a 3D appeal. This is why we hip thrust multiple times per week. I'm trying to create a visual discrepancy between the glutes and the thighs.

When focusing on glutes, the quads and hams will become strong and shapely. This is due to the performance of squats, lunges, deadlifts, and back extensions. However, if I added in too many leg extensions, leg presses, leg curls, and glute ham raises, or if I prioritized these movements, then over time some of my female clients would develop legs that were too big for their liking and not enough glute prominence. This doesn't happen with everyone, but it does with some, especially after a few years of progressive training. If you grow the legs without growing the glutes, it makes the glutes look relatively small.

Think of your body as a sculpture. Determine where you want to add clay, and then hammer that region with exercises that activate it. If you don't want more clay on a particular region, then avoid highly activating that area to the best of your abilities. If you want to lose fat, engage in progressive overload, adhere to a sound nutritional plan, and judiciously utilize cardio. It ain't rocket science.

Exercises You've Never Tried: Hamstring and Glute Edition

by Ben Bruno – 1/10/2012

I'm a sucker for lower body training, so I'm going to share some cool exercises for you that focus primarily on the lower half of the back side of the body, namely the glutes and hamstrings.
Every-day gym rats often ignore these muscles because they can't see them in their favorite bathroom mirror cell phone picture. But before you build an 8-day-a-week program devoted to chest, shoulders, arms, and abs, remember that just because you can't see them, doesn't mean other people can't. Nobody likes a flat ass.
To build appreciable muscle mass or just get generally cockstrong, it all starts with the foundation.

The Posterior Chain

The posterior chain begins with deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts (RDL), and glute-ham raises. What if you can't deadlift due to a back injury? Or if your gym doesn't have a glute-raise apparatus? What if you're just flat-out sick of what you're doing and need a change?
Here are some cool exercises to spice things up.

1. Split Stance RDL

The single-leg RDL is an awesome exercise, but until you get the hang of it and master the balancing aspect, it can feel more like a sobriety test than a viable way to get stronger and add muscle.
Enter the split stance RDL.

I'd classify this as hybrid between a traditional RDL and a true single-leg RDL. If you do these correctly, the front leg should do the majority of the work and handle most of the loading, while the rear leg provides stability so you don't topple over like an 18-year-old girl on 99-cent shooter night.
You can easily adjust the difficulty of the exercise by altering your setup.

Feet wider = More stable = Easier
Feet closer together = Less stable = Harder

Start with your feet fairly wide and bring in your stance as you feel more comfortable. I like to set up with the toes of the rear foot even with the heel of the front foot. A closer stance also allows for a more natural hip hinge without torqueing the pelvis.
Strive to keep as little weight as possible on the rear leg. You'll need to be hyper vigilant with yourself at first as you adjust to the movement.
This can be used as a good progression to work towards a true single leg RDL, or as a way to get a unilateral training effect with heavier loads since stability is not as much of an issue.

2. Eccentric One-Leg RDL

This variation requires more stability than the split stance RDL, but still less than a true single-leg RDL. Do a single-leg RDL on the eccentric, then put the other foot down and pick the weight up using either a conventional deadlift or a traditional bilateral RDL, your choice.

Like the split stance RDL, this can be used as a progression to work towards single-leg RDLs. For more advanced lifters, it offers an interesting unilateral training effect by allowing the eccentric component to be overloaded with greater loads than would be possible if you did the entire movement on one leg.
One of the big keys to mastering the single leg RDL is to remember that both legs still need to work. The "non-working" leg shouldn't just dangle passively; instead, squeeze the glute of the "up" leg and actively reach the foot back as you hinge at the hips, just as you would in a bilateral RDL. This will not only help you stabilize your torso but will also ensure that you maintain a neutral spine.
However, you should only try this variation if you have the hip mobility and hamstring flexibility to descend all the way until the bar reaches the floor without rounding your lower back as it's awkward and potentially dangerous to transition from one to two legs with the bar in midair. If that's not possible, it's probably best to try something else.

3. Single-Leg Barbell RDL/Row Combo

Here's one on the other end of the stability continuum. Like the name suggests, it's a single-leg RDL combined with a barbell row.

We could technically call this a Pendlay row since the torso is parallel to the floor and each rep is performed from a dead stop. I'm generally not a fan of barbell rows because they tend to get sloppy and deteriorate into a sort of ballistic row/upright row/shrug mess.
However, in this case, the nature of the exercise helps to keep your form tight because if you try to cheat, you'll lose your balance. Fact is, because this exercise is so technically demanding, it will immediately expose any form flaws, meaning there's no way to do it other than correctly.
It certainly ain't for beginners, but if you can pull it off, it's an incredibly effective and efficient exercise that allows you to hammer the entire posterior chain at once. Furthermore, if you develop the stability required to do these well, regular single-leg RDLs will feel like a breeze when you go back to them and your numbers should skyrocket.

4. Paused Hip Thrusters

My good friend and fellow T Nation contributor, Bret "The Glute Guy" Contreras, has already written extensively about the hip thrust on this site, so I won't rehash what he's already said. If you want to learn more about it, read this.
I have to admit, when Bret first introduced this exercise, I wasn't sure if he was being serious or if it was some sort of sick joke. I resisted trying them for a while because they looked a little ridiculous and I figured my glutes were getting enough work from squats, deadlifts, and single-leg work anyway.
That said, I'm a big believer in the adage, "don't knock it til you try it," so eventually I broke down and gave it a shot. Right away I could see what all the hoopla was about. I've never felt such a big contraction in my glutes before, and the nice thing is that the following day they don't leave you feeling like you spent the night in prison the way squats and lunges often do.
The biggest problem I see with this exercise is that many guys try to use too much weight and fail to reach full hip extension at the top, instead opting for lumbar hyperextension. This is not only an ineffective way to work the glutes, it's also extremely dangerous for the lower back.
To make sure this doesn't happen, I recommend pausing each rep at the top for 1-3 seconds to keep you honest and ensure the glutes are doing the work. If that's not possible, the weight is too heavy. You may need to drop it down slightly from what you're used to, but so what? Last time I checked, there's no such thing as a hip thrust competition.

You'll notice in the video I'm using a curved buffalo bar. This isn't essential by any means, but if you have one already, it'll make it much easier to roll the bar into position. If you don't have a buffalo bar, you can also try elevating the plates on small risers.
If you're worried about looking foolish, get over yourself. You never know, maybe that cute cardio bunny you've been eyeing will take notice of your thrusting prowess and start up a conversation.

5. Single-Leg Hip Thrusters

Once you feel comfortable with regular hip thrusts, you can try the single-leg version, which is a great advanced progression to challenge unilateral hip extension and rotary stability.
The downside to this exercise is that it can be tricky to add external load. You can drape chains over your waist or jerry-rig bands to provide some resistance, but at a certain point you'll need to use a barbell to keep challenging yourself.
The trouble with that is if you set up with the bar centered evenly over your hips like you would in a bilateral hip thrust, the bar will tilt and slide all over the place. Instead, center the bar over the leg you're trying to work, meaning that if you're working the left leg, you'll want to set up with the bar a little left of center.

Even if you're able to do loaded bilateral hip thrusters, don't just jump right to loading the single-leg version without mastering it with your bodyweight first because it's significantly more difficult and has a very different feel to it.

6. Pull-up Inverted Row Hip Thruster Combo

This is an awesome exercise with a sucky name.
I thought long and hard about trying to come up with something catchy to do it justice, like Mega Thrusters, Ladykillers, or Bruno Bootymakers, but in the end I ended up copping out and going with something boring and just calling it exactly what it is: a pull-up, an inverted row, and a hip thruster all rolled into one. If you can think of anything better, I'm open to suggestions.

For those of you big on training economy, it doesn't get much better than this. No muscles on the back side of your body are left unscathed.
For the upper body, it starts as a vertical pull and finishes as a horizontal pull. I strongly recommend using some sort of suspension training system (TRX, rings, blast straps, etc.) to allow your shoulders to rotate naturally and to increase the contraction in your upper back, but if you don't have anything, a bar will work just fine.
For the lower body, this works both the glutes and hamstrings through an extremely large range of motion. Through EMG research, Bret Contreras found that increasing the range of motion of a hip thruster by elevating both the feet and shoulders increased both glute and hamstring activation when compared to the floor version.
Bret obviously didn't test this variation specifically since I just thought it up, but considering the range of motion is greater than anything he tested, it stands to reason that these may be even better. Regardless, after experimenting with them extensively, I don't need a device to tell me that these totally kick ass (pun intended).
You'll need to elevate your feet on something higher than a standard bench to get the full effect of the hip thruster portion of the exercise. Ideally you'd start with your feet approximately level with your shoulders and your knees slightly bent so that your torso is parallel to the floor at the top of the rep.
If you're feeling especially frisky, try doing them one leg at a time. This is my personal favorite.

Note: Before you attempt either of these exercises, make sure you've mastered the more basic version of the shoulder and feet elevated hip thruster first – also an excellent exercise in its own right.

7. Dumbbell Leg Curls (Hips Off Bench)

I love dumbbell leg curls (essentially a lying leg curl with a dumbbell between your feet). Back in college when I used to lift in an insanely busy school gym, I'd take a bench and a dumbbell out into the stairwell to escape the crowds. I like them more than machine leg curls because they don't require any specialized equipment, they're portable, and you have the added challenge of squeezing the dumbbell between your feet, which brings the adductors and calves into play.
To make an already good exercise even better, try setting up with your entire legs hanging off the bench. The goal is to maintain a straight line from your head to your knees and hold that position throughout the entirety of the set.

These may look simple enough, but they're friggin brutal. The glutes have to kick into overdrive to keep proper alignment and keep the hips from sagging, so you get more bang for your buck than a traditional machine leg curl.
Don't expect to use much weight on this one. I can handle a 110-pound dumbbell for 15 reps with regular dumbbell leg curls with my thighs on the bench, but once I hang my legs off the bench, I struggle to get even 6-8 reps with just 25 pounds.
Keep your ankles plantarflexed and point your toes while you do these (a good tip for machine leg curls as well). Also, stop just short of full extension at the bottom of each rep to keep constant tension on the hamstrings.
The burn and pump you'll get from these is diabolical. Consider yourself warned.

8. Single Leg Eccentric Stability Ball Leg Curls

I don't use the stability ball much, but I like it for leg curls. The beauty of this exercise compared to a machine leg curl is that the glutes must fire to keep the hips extended while the hamstrings work to resist knee extension during the eccentric component and flex the knee during the concentric component.
This simultaneous hip extension and knee flexion also makes it a great progression to work towards doing glute-ham raises.
The problem with stability ball leg curls is that it's hard to progress since you can't really add weight. You can switch to the single-leg version, but I've never had good luck with that as the heel has a tendency to shift around, which causes the ball to roll awkwardly and kills the rhythm of the set.
Instead, I prefer using two legs for the concentric portion to curl the ball in and one leg for the eccentric. Alternate legs each rep to enhance the rotary stability component.

The key here is to keep your hips raised throughout the entire set. Put another way, you should have a straight line going from your knees to your neck at all times.
If you watch how most people do this exercise, you'll notice their hips sagging, especially during the concentric phase of the rep. In my mind, that makes the exercise almost useless. If you can't do it correctly, regress to an easier version of hip lifts without the leg curl and build up your glute strength first.
Once you can knock out six reps on each leg with this variation, you should be all set to rock out glute-ham raises like a boss. If you don't have a glute-ham raise, this is a good substitute.

It's On You Now

I don't want you to go overboard with tweaking things and forget about the basics, but I also realize that after you've been training long enough, you start to get bored with doing the same old stuff all the time.
I hope that by showing you some new exercises, it'll reignite that enthusiasm for working the posterior chain and make training fun again. After all, that is the point, right?
Remember though, I can show you the exercises, but I can't do the work for you. Now it's on you to work your ass off. Or better yet, work it on.

The Contreras Files: Volume I

Volume I

by Bret Contreras – 12/07/2011

To say I'm a workaholic is like saying Tiger Woods has commitment issues. Through all the lifting, training, reading, and researching that I do, I'm constantly being exposed to and coming up with new ideas.
This column will introduce T Nation readers to just some of what I happen to stumble upon every day, in no particular order of importance. The typical lifter, athlete, personal trainer, strength coach, or physical therapist is bound to find something useful in this article.

1. Low Load Glute Activation is Legit

One thing I love about T Nation is that often the best coaches in the world are years ahead of the research. You might remember Mike Robertson and Eric Cressey writing about glute activation as early as 2004. I can remember thinking, "Why in the hell would I do some silly Jane Fonda exercises?"
When other top coaches including Mark Verstegen, Mike Boyle, and Martin Rooney started recommending glute activation, I could no longer ignore their advice. I got down on the floor and got my bridge, clam, and bird dog on and immediately recognized the potential in these simple movement patterns.
And thus began a love affair unparalleled by any other. Some guys have pictures of their girlfriend on their nightstand. Me? A picture of some glutes with a bouquet of roses stuck in-between the cheeks.
Kidding. But I do keep my eyes and ears open for new glute research. Case in point:
Australian researchers recently put 22 professional Australian Football League (AFL) players through three different warm-up protocols:

• Standing on a whole body vibration platform for 45 seconds at 30 Hz.
• A 5-7 minute, 7-glute exercise routine consisting of glute bridges, side lying clams, quadruped hip extensions, side lying hip abductions, prone single leg hip extensions, fire hydrants, and stability ball wall squats.
• A control group.

The researchers found that during a countermovement jump, the whole body vibration group fared 2.4%worse than the control group, while the glute activation group outperformed the control group in peak power by 4.2%, along with outperforming the whole body vibration group by 6.6% (Buttifant et al. 2011.).

My conclusion is that you'd be wise to include some low load glute activation work in your warm-ups. Remember, the purpose of glute activation isn't to "rep-out" or "max-out," but to groove proper motor patterns and focus on getting the glutes working efficiently. Ten high-quality repetitions of each exercise is all you need.

2. Cue the Glutes!

Speaking of glute activation, Cara Lewis and Shirley Sahrmann tested the gluteal activation of a prone hip extension exercise (Lewis and Sahrmann 2009). They showed that compared to no cueing, simply uttering the phrase, "Use your glutes to lift your leg while keeping your hamstrings relaxed," resulted in over double the gluteus maximus activation and caused the gluteus maximus to fire quicker in hip extension.
Based on my experience as a trainer, most beginners suck at using their glutes. It's important to remind individuals over and over to use their glutes until it becomes automatic.

3. Lifters vs. Weaklings – Lumbopelvic Rhythm

After a couple of months of training with me, my clients always tell me that their backs feel stronger and better than ever. Is it due to increased hip mobility, or is it core stability? Maybe it's just increased glute strength? Perhaps it's due to improved fundamental movement patterns? Or is it a case of all of the above?
In his book Low Back Disorders, Stu McGill discusses the mythical lumbopelvic rhythm pattern explained in textbooks – supposedly the first 60° of bending is accomplished by flexing the lumbar spine while the remaining flexion takes place at the hips (McGill page 74). While most individuals bend with a blend of spinal, pelvic, and hip motion, weightlifters possess unique movement patterns at the hip. Stu states that:

"Olympic Weightlifters attempt to do the opposite – they lock the lumbar spine close to the neutral position and rotate almost entirely about the hips."

Of course, Olympic weightlifters are better at hip hinging than normal individuals, but the importance of this information is that the movement patterns developed in the weight room transfer over to everyday life.Master the hip hinge first and everything else seems to fall into place.
Here's my man Tony Gentilcore demonstrating proper hip hinge patterning with a dowel.

4. Powerlifters vs. Olympic Weightlifters – Hip and Knee Moments During Squatting Tasks

Swedish researchers measured the hip and knee moments of six powerlifters and eight Olympic weightlifters during parallel and deep squats (Wretenberg et al. 1996). The results were intriguing: during deep squats powerlifters exhibited 41% higher hip extension moments and 37% less knee extension moments compared to weighlifters, and during parallel squats the powerlifters exhibited 43% higher hip extension moments and 42% less knee extension moments than weightlifters.
This study shows that during squatting tasks, powerlifters use a low-bar position, sit back more, and use their powerful hips to a greater degree than weightlifters, whereas weightlifters use a high-bar position, stay more upright, and use their powerful knee joints to a greater degree than powerlifters.
Maximum sports performance requires strong hips and knees so it's wise to rotate between different types of squats throughout the year, including low bar parallel, box, front, and high bar full squat variations.

5. Bench Press and Lateral Forces on the Bar

Wonder why the bench press elicits more triceps activity than a dumbbell bench press? A new study out of Penn State showed that the lateral forces exerted on the bar equaled roughly 25% of the vertical forces (Duffey and Challis 2011).
Ten men and eight women were tested in the bench press and the total vertical forces totaled on average 187 pounds of force whereas the lateral forces applied to the bar totaled on average 53 pounds of force. With these proportions, a 600-pound bench presser would be exerting around 150 pounds of outward pressure on the bar throughout the movement.
If you've listened to Dave Tate over the years and learned to use your triceps while benching, chances are your lateral forces are even higher than 25% of the vertical forces.
This extra work is simply a byproduct of the prime mover's maximal contractions against the barbell – which isn't possible with the dumbbell bench press as the dumbbells would split apart and result in a failed lift.

6. Elite Fitness Glute Ham Raise

I've traveled the world and performed glute ham raises with over twenty different glute ham developers. In a nutshell, 99% of glute ham developers suck. Instead of feeling smooth, the lift usually feels awkward and unproductive.
That is, unless you have an Elitefts glute ham raise. If you've never performed a glute ham raise off of an Elifefts model, then you can't possibly imagine the exercise's effectiveness, as chances are the one you're using pales in comparison.
Sometimes I wonder if equipment manufacturers even work out or understand biomechanics. Big props to Elitefts for spending the necessary time getting the design right.

7. Crunch Like This

Research out of Stanford University from 1979 showed that a sit-up exhibited 38 degrees of lumbar flexion, but a crunch where only the scapulae are lifted off the ground exhibited only 3 degrees of lumbar flexion (Halpern and Bleck 1979).
Given that the lumbar spine has between 40-73 degrees of ROM in males and 40-68 degrees of ROM in females (Troke et al. 2005), I think it's safe to say that this type of crunch remains in the neutral zone for the lumbar spine.
If you limit the lumbar ROM and use a controlled tempo, it makes the exercise much more challenging and you'll no longer be able to bust out hundreds of repetitions.
Start from a slightly hyperextended position by using a rolled up towel, ab mat, or stability ball. Raise the torso to only around 30° of trunk flexion, moving mostly in the thoracic spine. Control the tempo and accentuate the negative portion of the exercise. I discuss this further in the video below:

To prevent hyperkyphotic postural adaptations in the thoracic spine, make sure you perform thoracic mobility drills and include plenty of exercises to strengthen the erectors.
For example, some mobility drills include thoracic extensions off a foam roller and quadruped thoracic extension and rotation, while some strength training exercises include squats, deadlifts, bent over rows, and farmer's walks.

8. Four to Six Weeks to Harden Up

When I was 18 years old, I was in the gym quarter-squatting 275 pounds with a pad around the bar. A giant behemoth of a man walked up behind me and told me to back down to 135 and squat down deep to the floor like a real man and quit using the pussy pad. Thankfully I took his advice and never looked back.
I can remember using the bar pad because squatting freakin' hurt my back. The pressure was overwhelming. After ditching the bar pad, it took around four weeks to stop hurting.
When I started front squatting, the same scenario occurred – it hurt. But I stuck with it and a month later I could no longer feel any pain. Zercher squats took a bit longer to quit hurting – around six weeks – as did hook grip deadlifts. Just recently I started hip thrusting without a bar pad and it hurt like hell. I've been doing this for a month and it no longer hurts.
The take home message is, the more frequently you perform the lifts, the quicker your nervous system will become densensitized to the stimuli. So man up and fight through the discomfort. Just remember, what seems like torture today in a month will feel like a hot oil massage from a pair of busty Asian masseuses. I kid you not.

9. Resistance Training vs. Stretching for Flexibility Gains

Many long-term lifters have noticed that they don't have to stretch much to maintain their flexibility. Fact is, many of us have noted superior flexibility gains from weight training compared to stretching.
In the past few years, several studies have emerged showing that resistance training increases flexibility (Monteiro et al. 2008; Santos et al. 2010). This isn't surprising, but some have shown resistance training protocols to be just as effective or even more effective in terms of flexibility gains when compared to stretching protocols (Aquino et al. 2010, Simao et al. 2010; Morton et al. 2011; Nelson and Bandy 2004).
I'm a fan of doing all sorts of things for improved mobility and soft tissue functioning such as foam rolling and static stretching. But know that full range of motion resistance training is one of the best things you can do to increase and maintain mobility.
Just make sure your programs are well-designed, as structural balance is critical for postural and functional adaptations. To add icing on the cake, make sure you foam roll, stretch, and perform mobility and activation drills.

10. Broz Mentality – The "Shoot Your Family" Scenario

I'm a big John Broz fan. When I met him at his Las Vegas facility he said something that really hit home. He told me to envision someone capturing my family and informing me that they were going to shoot all of them unless I put a hundred pounds on my squat in one month. Then he asked me how often I would squat if this actually happened, and followed up with this gem: "Something tells me you'd squat more than twice per week."
I like to think of this scenario for a variety of purposes in strength and conditioning. What if you had to put an inch on your arms in one month without gaining any weight? Something tells me you'd perform some curls and triceps extensions. What if you needed your abs to be the strongest they ever were? Something tells me you'd perform dynamic spinal movements and not just core stability exercises.

It's good to really hone in on one goal per month and give it your all, just don't try this strategy with multiple goals or you'll fail at all of them.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings and perhaps picked up something useful you can use in your own training.
In summary:

• Activate the glutes
• Learn to sit back and hinge properly at the hips
• Learn to use the triceps properly for maximum bench press performance
• Buy an Elitefts glute ham developer if you want a real GHD
• Limit your lumbar ROM when you crunch
• Know that there's a light at the end of the tunnel for dealing with pain from barbell pressure on new movements as they only take a month or so to get accustomed to
• Perform full ROM resistance training for maximum flexibility
• Pick a new goal each month and attack it with purpose.

See you next month!

References

Aquino CF, Fonseca ST, Goncalves GGP, Silva PLP, Ocarino JM, Mancini MC. Stretching versus strength training in lengthened position in subjects with tight hamstring muscles: A randomized controlled trial. Manual Therapy. 15(1) 26-31, 2010.

Buttifant, D, Crow, J, Kearney, S, and Hrysomallis, C. Whole-body vibration vs. gluteal muscle activation: What are the acute eff ects on explosive power? Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research 25: S14–S15, 2011.

Duffey, MJ and Challis, JH. Vertical and lateral forces applied to the bar during the bench press in novice lifters. J Strength Cond Res. 2011. 25(9): 2442–2447.

Halpern, AA and Bleck EE. Sit up exercises: an electromyography study. Clin Orthop Relat Res. 1979. 145:172-8.

Lewis CL, Sahrmann SA. Muscle activation and movement patterns during prone hip extension exercise in women. J Athl Train. 2009. 44(3): 238–248.

McGill, S.M. Low back disorders: Evidence based prevention and rehabilitation, Human Kinetics Publishers, Champaign, IL, U.S.A., 2002.

Monteiro WD, Simão R, Polito MD, Santana CA, Chaves RB, Bezerra E, Fleck SJ. Influence of strength training on adult women's flexibility. J Strength Cond Res. 2008;22(3):672-7.

Morton SK, Whitehead JR, Brinkert RH, Caine DJ. Resistance Training vs. Static Stretching: Effects on Flexibility and Strength. J Strength Cond Res. 2011 Sep 30. [Epub ahead of print]

Nelson RT, Bandy WD. Eccentric Training and Static Stretching Improve Hamstring Flexibility of High School Males. Journal of Athletic Training. 2004;39:254–258.

Santos E, Rhea MR, Simão R, Dias I, de Salles BF, Novaes J, Leite T, Blair JC, Bunker DJ. Influence of moderately intense strength training on flexibility in sedentary young women. J Strength Cond Res. 2010;24(11):3144-9.

Simão R, Lemos A, Salles B, Leite T, Oliveira É, Rhea M, Reis VM. The influence of strength, flexibility, and simultaneous training on flexibility and strength gains. J Strength Cond Res. 2011;25(5):1333-8.

Troke M, Moore AP, Maillardet FJ, Cheek E. A normative database of lumbar spine range of motion. Manual Therapy. 2005. 10:198-206.

Wretenberg P, Feng Y, Arborelius UP. High and low bar squatting techniques during weight-training. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 1996. 28(2)218-24.

Wikio

Fix Your Front Squat

by Lee Boyce – 6/21/2011

When most lifters boast online about their Herculean squat numbers, I'd guess that 80 percent or more are referring to back squats.

It's the most popular squat variation in the world – and I'll be the first to give it the credit it deserves – but there are times when it might be advantageous to give your traps a break and incorporate front squats.

So why does the front squat so often get thrown under the bus? For one thing, front squats are hard work, something that many commercial gym heroes tend to avoid like egg yolks and body hair. Since moving heavy weight for the cell phone camera is priority number one for your typical egocentric meathead, most stay in their comfort zone and bang out leg presses, leg extensions, and sordid half-rep back squat perversions, complete with more mid-set grunting and groaning than a porn casting.

After all, they reason, what can you get from front squats that you can't get from back squats? Good question.

Why Should I Be Doing Front Squats?

Front squats will do three things if you do them correctly:

• Increase depth achieved
• Improve core strength
• Activate glutes

When a barbell is loaded on the front of the body, the pelvis gets to tilt backwards somewhat, which makes the hamstrings less taut. This gives them the freedom to allow a greater ROM at the bottom of the lift. This pelvic tilt also allows the lower abs to contribute to the lift more, and takes the hip flexors away from "blocking" the movement.

So, just like a goblet squat, you get a hell of a lot lower then you do in a back squat. The torso also gets to stay more upright, which requires the obliques to provide stability.

Finally, due to the tremendous knee extension involved, the front squat is rightly seen as a major quad developer. Since the thighs drop far below parallel to the floor, it's safe to say that hip flexion is greatly increased too, forcing the glutes to assist the concentric half of the lift.

With all of these kick-ass benefits, it seems like a no-brainer that front squats should make a regular appearance in a typical program.

Why You Suck At Front Squats

Other than the obvious (you aren't doing them enough), there are a few things that limit lifters from achieving a decent front squat.

Your Abs Aren't Strong Enough

Front squats require considerable core involvement. You'd do well to incorporate some exercises for anti – extension (to prevent overarch) and oblique work so they function well as stabilizers.

Ab wheel rollouts OR Blast Strap fallouts

Suitcase deadlift OR Paloff press

These are a few of what I consider to be staple movements to improve the function of the abdominals and wake them up for the real stuff.

Your Elbows Won't Stay High Enough

The goal should be to keep the elbows pointing as far upwards as possible to promote parallel lines between the upper arm and the floor at all times.

If you've noticed that every time you front squat your elbows start pointing towards the floor after only two reps, causing you to rack the weight prematurely, there's a reason for that.

In this case, the first thing to do would be to activate your rotator cuff. If these small muscles aren't playing their part in externally rotating the upper arm, your elbows will drop faster than Tiger Woods' "Just Do It" promo.

Luckily, there are a couple of things you can do to remedy that problem.

Face pulls

Seated dumbbell external rotation

Be sure to use a light weight. It won't take much!

You Can't Stand Tall

Proper thoracic extension is very important for front squats, as the Turtleback syndrome affects many when they have to bear a front load.

Take a barbell and perform a set of five front squats. Do you notice your mid-back rolling like the Andes? Have someone watch you if you have any doubts.

Either way, there are a few simple fixes.

• PNF intercostal stretch
• Foam roller extensions
• Trap – 3 raises

(See this article for examples of all three)

Something to keep in mind though – studies have shown that after the sixth rep of a typical set of front squats or front loaded work, the rhomboids begin fatiguing and can no longer hold a constant isometric. For this reason, try to keep sets of front squats towards the lower end of the repetition continuum.

Getting a Grip

Many lifters will use the "California" style or cross-armed grip on the bar to allow it to rest on the shoulders when performing a front squat. Big mistake. Since one elbow stays higher than the other on a cross-armed grip, under substantial load, it can act against proper structural alignment of the shoulders, and has the potential to refer imbalances right through to the hips and knees.

For this reason, I highly recommend using a clean grip, which also has better carryover to proper techniques involved with any Olympic lifts as well as overhead pressing. It may feel uncomfortable at first, but remember to keep a proud chest and get those elbows up!

It's okay to remove a finger or two from under the bar (I like to remove my thumb and pinky finger as it helps take stress off the wrists and allows for the elbows to stay up). Otherwise, make sure the lats, triceps, and forearms get a good stretch before beginning. (See picture below.)

The Cues

Here are some basic tips to look out for when doing front squats.

• Keep the toes pointed slightly outwards, and make sure knees track in the direction the toes point
• Keep the chest up proud
• Elbows high at all times
• Hinge from the hips, and let the glutes fire to come back up
• Press through the full foot, keeping the heel on the ground
• Breathe deep on the eccentric, and hold full of air at the bottom to increase intra-abdominal pressure
• Don't panic – the legs have loads of fight – or – flight in them. You'll get out of the hole!

Lifters Who Should Be All Over Front Squats

Tall Lifters. It's asking a lot of someone who's over six feet to get far below parallel during a back squat. Front loading allows the center of gravity to shift backwards slightly, and unloads the low back and hips enough for them to achieve this depth. Your chicken legs may be due to lack of back squatting depth.

Lifters With Tight Hamstrings. As noted, a front load will make the hamstrings less taut, and therefore promote more range of motion during the negative phase of the squat.

Getting Out of The "Embarrassing" Category

If these pointers alone don't substantially improve your front squat, I've put together a cool quasi-workout that serves as a good tool to bring up your fronts.

Think of this as a "front squat conditioning" workout. The goal is to get the abs firing correctly, get the upper back tight, and start practicing the movement properly and under decent load.

Begin by foam rolling and static stretching hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes, and lats.

Perform the following workout as a sequence. Rest 90 seconds between each exercise.

Front squat workout

	Exercise	Reps	% 1RM
A	Front squat	6	70%
B	Ab wheel rollout	12
–	Foam roller extensions	*
C	Front squat	5	80%
D	Stomach-up pull-ups†	6-8‡
E	Front squat	4	80%
F	Trap-3 raises	12 per arm
–	PNF intercostal stretch
G	Front squat	4	80%
H	DB external rotations	12 per arm
I	Front squat	4	80%

* as many as needed
† see video below – be sure not to allow the feet to do anything but hang straight down to get full stimulation of the abdominals. It should look like you're trying to pull yourself to horizontal.
‡ at a 3010 tempo

This mini-workout will take 20 minutes to get through. You'll notice reps are kept low, as are intensities. The reason for this is the abdominals and upper back muscles are being hit with direct exercises to mildly fatigue them between each set of front squats. Loading aggressively could be inviting injury. An elevated heart rate – thanks to the 90-second rest interval – will allow practicing keeping the elbows high and chest up while slightly fatigued.

There's nothing fancy-shmancy about this workout, and it doesn't even need to replace a real leg workout. Chances are you won't be too sore the next day, either. This workout can find its home on a supplementary day for a few weeks.

Squatting to Oblivion!

Adding load to the body effectively trains muscle, of course. Contrary to popular belief, though, the answer isn't always throwing on heavier and heavier weight. You'd be surprised how added ROM, improved technique, or a bit of both can be game-changers for tapping into sleepy motor units or just plain increasing difficulty.

Moreover, they just may be the missing link to make you the guy whose chicken legs flew the coop.

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The Texas Method

by Mark Rippetoe
There are many advantages to being a young man. The problem is that you're young and you don't know it, and probably won't know it until it's too late to do anything about it.
If I could go back and do it over again, there are several things I'd do differently. I'd spend more time on my calculus homework. I'd drink better beer. I'd spend less time trying to date more women and spend more time trying to get other things accomplished. And I'd apply a few simple things I've since learned about training to my own program.
It's obvious to me now, 35 years removed, that I didn't take advantage of the simple ability a young man has to physically stress himself hard, recover from it relatively easily, and then stress himself again — and thus rapidly accumulate the effects of training and recovery in a somewhat linear fashion.
If I had this wisdom back then, I'd have just done a simple program of squats, benches, overhead presses, deadlifts, and cleans, going up a little bit every time I trained, three days per week, until I was much bigger and stronger — or until this simple program quit working.
In other words, I would've used the program outlined in my book, Starting Strength, for as long as it delivered consistent, significant results. Please keep in mind that I'm not going to describe a program for beginners in this article; quite the contrary, it's for intermediate to advanced lifters.
However, I need to make some points from Starting Strength.

The Novice Effect

Let's first review why the simple linear progression described in Starting Strength is the ideal choice for novices.
Young men adapt quickly if they're stressed, fed, and rested enough. I learned this simple programming fact from running a gym for decades, showing everybody how to use the barbell exercises and watching what happened to them.
It's called the novice effect: guys who've started out with a simple program, approached it diligently and intelligently, and have gained 30-40 pounds of useful bodyweight in just a few months while more than doubling their strength and power.

The Novice Effect In Action

The driving force behind the power of the novice effect is simplicity. Trainees added 10 pounds at first, and then 5 pounds to their squat and deadlift every time they trained the exercise. Similarly, they added 5 pounds at first, and then 1, 2, or 3 pounds to their bench press, overhead press, and power clean every time they trained the exercise.
They didn't do much else in the beginning; no other exercises except chin-ups and maybe some curls. They didn't run, they didn't waste time in front of the dumbbell rack, and they didn't do a bunch of sit-ups or planks or anything with a cable, wobble board, or Bosu ball.
But the ability to adapt to this quickly and this thoroughly doesn't last long and begins to slow down the moment you start to get stronger, imperceptibly at first, and then more rapidly as you approach the limits of your capacity to recover from each increasingly difficult workout.
The rotten, irritating, sorry-ass fact is that as you approach your genetically predetermined physical limitations, it becomes harder to make progress. This is the principle of diminishing returns and we observe this throughout nature and throughout our lives.
The first improvements are easy and cheap, and the more improvement you want, the longer it takes and the more it costs. But if you don't take advantage of the opportunity while you have it, you leave things undone, and perhaps undoable later.
Let's say that you were wise enough to take advantage of your youth and put in five good months of simple linear progression. You ignored the fools who told you that undulating periodization was "The Way To Go," and you made the best, most rapid, and most important progress you'll ever make in the weight room — and now you're committed enough to the potential of barbell training that you're willing to do the hard work that comes next.

What's Next?

Next comes more progress, of course, but at a slower pace. You're now strong enough that each workout represents a stress that takes longer to recover from. You're lifting weights that are heavy enough that your increases in load take place every week instead of every workout, three times per week.
This means that progress is one-third the pace it was previously; it also means that it has the potential to occur for a longer period of time, if you're diligent.
Balancing the higher stress of the increasing loads is the fact that not only has your strength improved, but your ability to recover has improved with it so that you can use more tonnage at a higher intensity.
The fact is, it's necessary to subject the body to increasing amounts of stress at a level that challenges recovery ability so that the adaptations continue to occur. But since these are now higher-intensity efforts that more fully tax the system, they require longer periods of time to recover from.
If we design the program correctly, we can plan workouts that place optimum stress in the optimum pattern to continue the adaptive drive of the program for a long time: A high level of tonnage-stress early in the week, a lighter workout in the middle to aid in recovery — "active rest" it's sometimes called — and then a higher-intensity lower-volume workout at the end of the week.
Stresses of different types and adequate recovery from the stress are in balance if the program is to work for an extended period of time. We call the program The Texas Method, because we are in Texas and it's a Method — a very good one that has proven itself for years.

Enter The Texas Method

In its basic form, the workout consists of a volume day for the major lifts on Monday, a lighter recovery/variety day on Wednesday, and a high-intensity day on Friday for the major lifts. The days can obviously vary based on your schedule, but the pattern of rest days and work days is important.

Monday — Volume Day

A) Squats, 5 x 5 @ 90% of 5RM

B) Bench press or overhead press, 5 x 5 @ 90% 5RM

C) Deadlifts, 1 x 5 @ 90% 5RM

Volume 5: Sets of 5 reps across (the same weight repeated for the work sets) has proven to be the optimum combination of volume and intensity.
Higher reps require a weight that's simply too light, while lower reps with a heavier weight don't have optimum volume and cause too much structural stress. Many people have tweaked the sets and reps, and time after time they come back to 5 sets of 5 across as the best driver of long-term progress.
Load: The weight should be such that all five sets of all five reps can be finished without more than 8-10 minutes rest between sets. For most people, this works out to about 90% of 5RM.
For example, if your 5-rep max squat is 345, then 315 x 5 x 5 would be Monday's squat workout. The bench press and the overhead press respond this way also; alternate between one exercise and the other each Monday for 5 x 5 with about 90% of 5RM.
However, deadlifts are another story. There is no volume day for deadlifts, because deadlifts are too hard — you can't recover from them if you do more than one heavy set. (This is especially true if you're doing 5 x 5 squats, too.)
Experience with this has shown that it's best to do just one heavy set of five deadlifts on Monday, after squats and benches or overhead presses are finished. It won't be a "true" 5RM, since it follows all the squat work, but it should increase every week.
For those of you keeping score, this makes Monday a real bastard of a workout, and that's the point: it sets up the rest of the week for recovery and a focus on intensity in Friday's workout.
Assistance Work: If it were up to me, I'd limit any assistance exercises to some briefarm work on Monday. I'd also limit any excessive weekend frivolity that might affect the workout, like staying up all night Saturday chasing pussy with your wingman, Jim Beam.
Recovery: It should start right after the last set of the workout. At this level of training intensity, it's imperative that you eat and sleep with both sufficient quality and quantity — The Texas Method will overtrain your ass very quickly if you don't pay attention to recovery.
Remember: You don't get big and strong from lifting weights — you get big and strong from recovering from lifting weights. Don't fail to pay attention to this, or Monday's workout will murder the rest of the week and you'll get stuck.

Wednesday — Recovery Day

A) Squats, 2 x 5 @ 80% of Monday's work weight

B) Overhead press (if you bench pressed Monday), 3 x 5 at slightly lighter load than previous 5 x 5 OHP weight, or bench press (if OHP on Monday), 3 x 5 @ 90% previous 5 x 5 weight.

C) Chin ups, 3 x Bodyweight

D) Back extensions or glute-ham raise, 5 x 10

Recovery continues with Wednesday's workout. Squats are 80% of Monday's work weight for 2 sets of 5. Benches and overhead presses alternate: if you did overhead presses on Monday for 5 x 5, benches are done Wednesday with 3 sets of a little lighter weight than the last 5 x 5 bench press so that you can feel the load but not so much that it taps into recovery.
Recovery day overhead presses done on Wednesday are a little heavier, relative to 5RM, than the recovery-day benches, since their absolute load is lighter anyway. Finish the workout with chin-ups and back extensions; I like 3 sets to failure for chins, with five minutes between sets, and 5 sets of 10 back extensions or glute/ham raises.

Friday — Intensity Day

A) Squats, warm-up, then work up in singles or doubles to one single, new 5RM

B) Bench press, (if you bench pressed Monday) or overhead press (if OHP on Monday), warm-up, then work up in singles or doubles to one single, new 5RM

* C) Power clean, 5 x 3 reps or power snatch, 6 x 2 reps

Friday is intensity day. It focuses the tonnage from Monday into a new 5RM, or within 2% of it to allow for training-quality technique. Do most of your warm-up work light, first with the empty bar and then 135, and then take doubles or singles up to your one work set, the one that should give you a new 5RM.
Make sure that the load is higher than Monday but not so much that form breaks down on the last reps. If it does, you picked the wrong weight.

Friday Options

* Since deadlifts were done on Monday, Friday is power clean/power snatch day. The Olympic lifts are the best way to train explosiveness and athleticism under the bar, while allowing you to increase your power in a way that's incrementally programmable.
Dynamic Effort work has become popular as another way to do this, and using explosive deadlifts on Friday would be a way to incorporate DE into the Texas Method, but the Olympic weightlifting-derived power clean and power snatch represents a different level of neuromuscular activity.
Keep in mind that deadlifts are pulled fast because you want to pull them fast; power cleans are pulled fast because you have to pull them fast or they won't rack on the shoulders.
The explosive aspect of a clean is actually minimal since the explosion is inherent in the top of the movement. Cleans and snatches are both lighter and more powerful than deadlifts, and thus are perfect for the Friday workout.
If you want to call yourself a lifter, you need to know how to clean and snatch, even if you don't intend to compete in Olympic weightlifting. After your warm up, do power cleans for 5 sets of 3 reps across, or power snatches for 6 doubles.

Some Notes

• The Texas Method is still very simple in terms of the number of exercises. Actual progress in the weight room is based on an increase in the loading of the basic structural exercises, not in the number of different ways you can perform a triceps pressdown. Very few successful lifters or bodybuilders confuse complexity with effectiveness.
• The size and strength gains you'll see on the Texas Method will not be as dramatic as those seen in the novice progression outlined in the introduction because of the fact that the easy gains have already happened. We're further along on the curve here, or we wouldn't be using an intermediate-level program.
If five months of novice progression took you from a 95-pound squat at a bodyweight of 140 to a 315 x 5 squat at a bodyweight of 200, the Texas Method will take you to 405 x 5 squat at a bodyweight of 225 in a year. Not as dramatic by any stretch, but this is fine because you're older now and committed to the project.

A Rap Upside the Head

Your time spent in the gym can be either productive or wasted, and a few seconds spent thinking about this will yield the conclusion that any real progress is a quantifiable improvement in strength.
Strength gains are the basis of an increase in size; in effect, size is a side effect of strength, and an intelligently designed and applied program can drive strength. At any point in your training career, quantifiable progress must be your objective.
It's easy at first when you're a novice to the barbell. The Texas Method is a good way to carry you through the next step: maintaining the trend of handling increasingly heavy weight.
The Texas Method doesn't work forever — nothing does. But it does work well as your introduction to the more complicated programming necessary to continue strength and size gains into the more advanced stages of strength training.

The Power Clean

The Deadlift — One set of five is plenty

The Squat

Although it makes for an arresting photo, partner-assisted concentration curls should not be among your favorite mass building exercises.

Progress in the weight room is not determined by the number of ways you can perform triceps pressdowns.

© 1998 — 2010 Testosterone, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Wikio

A 12-Step Guide to a Flawless Power Clean

The Olympic lifting body — not a bad thing to have.

The evidence that most coaches aren't teaching the Olympic lifts.

The Rack Position.

The Receiving Position.

The Finish Position.

The Hang Position.

The Start Position.

by Greg Everett

The power clean often spreads like a game of Telephone around gyms and garages—the further it moves from the original source, the less it resembles a worthwhile movement and instead becomes a way to get thoroughly jacked up through crappy instruction and even crappier execution.

With the sport of weightlifting being so obscure in the US, it can be extremely difficult for guys to find a qualified coach, which is why many use it as an excuse to replace them with less-than-optimal alternatives.

The power clean, if performed correctly, will provide a unique stimulus for improving hip and knee explosiveness, which will translate to more strength and more muscle. And in my opinion, it can absolutely be learned without a coach.

But like any skilled movement, the power clean will not be mastered quickly. No matter how well you learn, you will never be completely finished. That's why your goal shouldn't be immediate mastery, but relatively quick development of safe and effective technique so you can put it to work in your training program.

Meet The Power Clean

A clean brings a barbell from the floor to the lifter's shoulders. The power qualifier describes the height at which the bar is received and arrested: with the upper legs above horizontal. That is, in a clean, the athlete receives the barbell on the shoulders at some height between standing and squatting, continues into the bottom of a squat position, and finishes the lift by standing again.

In a power clean, the athlete pulls the barbell identically, but must receive it on the shoulders and stop moving downward before sinking past a parallel squat. In other words, the power clean means the athlete must pull the bar higher, get under it quicker, and stop moving immediately.

Check Your Ego, Son

No matter how strong you are, you must start with an unloaded barbell for the initial learning stages. Some of you may even need to use a lighter technique barbell.

Don't concern yourself with weight at this point—be patient, learn the movement well, and very quickly you'll be capable of lifting far more than you will if you insist on loading up immediately. Go hide in the corner of the gym if you're embarrassed. When you re-emerge, you'll be proud of your power cleaning ability.

The following steps should each be performed until you become comfortable with them and can do them consistently. Keep the number of consecutive repetitions to a maximum of five.

From the Top Down

While it may seem odd to learn the power clean backward, I want to point out that you can't go to a place that doesn't exist. Without a receiving position, we can't pull under the bar. Without a pull under the bar, we can do a power clean. So let's start there.

Receiving Position

The receiving position for the power clean is the same as the clean, which is (or should be) the same as the front squat—meaning, the bar is on your shoulders. Receiving power cleans in the hands and arms is a great way to set yourself up for hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder injuries.

Also, we want to "receive" the bar rather than catch it. To catch something requires that you're not contact with it immediately prior. In contrast, we want to maintain a tight connection to the bar throughout the movement until the last possible moment when the bar is finally supported on our shoulders.

Step 1 — Grip the bar with your hands about a fist-width outside your shoulders—your hands should not be in contact with your shoulders at all in the top position. From here, relax your grip, lift your elbows, push your shoulders forward and slightly up, and let the bar roll onto your fingers and into the space between your deltoids and your throat. (If this space doesn't exist, you're either not pushing your shoulders forward and up, or you need to work on your scapular mobility.)

If the bar is placing too much pressure on your throat, pull your head straight back—do not tilt it back. If the bar is in contact with your clavicles, you need to shrug your shoulders up a bit more.

To be sure the bar is supported by your shoulders and not your hands, remove your hands from under the bar and extend your arms in front of you. The bar shouldn't move.

This is the position in which you will be trying to receive the bar.

Pulling Under

One of the most common mistakes is not actively pulling under the bar after accelerating it upward. With lighter weights, you'll be able to simply drop under the bar in time. As weights get heavier, you will not be able to accelerate the bar as much, and the lower resulting momentum means less time before the bar changes direction, which in turn means you have less time to change direction and position yourself under the bar. In these cases, an active and aggressive pull against the bar is necessary for you to beat the bar.

Step 2 — Standing tall with the bar at arms' length in front of you, pull your elbows as high as possible, directing them to the sides as they rise. This will bring the bar to about lower chest level. Don't lean forward over the bar, and don't try to lift it—lift your elbows instead.

Step 3 — From this scarecrow position, pull your elbows back and whip them around the bar into the receiving position you practiced earlier. Imagine the barbell as the pivot point for your elbows and make sure it stays right up against your body. As your elbows come around, the bar will rise to your shoulders, and you can relax your grip and let it settle into the proper receiving position.

Step 4 — When you can rack the bar smoothly on your shoulders with some consistency from this scarecrow position, begin the drill from arms' length and perform the entire movement smoothly. Make sure the elbows come up and out, not back. This is the arm movement of the pull under the bar.

Step 5 — When you're comfortable with this, you can put it to use and move on to actually pulling under the bar. Starting again from the scarecrow position with your feet about hip-width apart, pick up and move your feet quickly to your squat stance as you perform the pull under the bar, pulling yourself into a quarter-depth squat. When you can do this smoothly, begin the drill with the bar at arms' length.

Accelerating the Bar

Step 6 — With the bar at arms' length and your feet hip-width and turned out slightly, tighten your glutes to extend your hips through the bar slightly and shift back to your heels as much as possible. This will place you with your legs approximately vertical and the hips slightly hyperextended. This approximates the position you should be in at the top of your pull (although your ankles will be somewhat extended during the real pull).

Step 7 — From this extended position, push the hips back, bend the knees slightly, and let the bar slide down your legs until it reaches your lower thighs. In this position your back should be extended securely, your shins vertical, the bar in light contact with your legs, and your shoulders slightly in front of the bar and your knees. Keep your head up and your eyes forward.

Step 8 — Re-extend slowly into the simulated finish position, making sure to actively pull the bar against yourself with your lats and shoulders, keeping your weight over your heels. Gradually increase the speed at which you go from this thigh position to the extended position, making sure to continue pushing against the floor with your legs as you extend your hips. You will naturally begin rising onto the balls of your feet at the top—just be careful to keep your weight back so you stay balanced in the same position.

Step 9 — When you've increased the speed enough, you will feel the bar popping up, and possibly slightly forward. Let it rise, but guide it up close to your body by keeping your elbows traveling up and out like you did when practicing the pull under.

Step 10 — Once you're comfortable with this controlled pull, it's time to put the pieces together and perform a power clean from the hang position. Set your thigh position carefully and ensure proper balance before initiating the lift.

Drive your legs against the floor and finish the hip extension completely with the glutes. The moment you've reached this finish position with the legs and hips, pick up and move your feet to your squat stance and perform the pull under into a quarter squat—do not try to pull the bar higher by shrugging it up.

Congratulations, you've just done a hang power clean.

As you continue practicing, keep in mind that the actual depth at which you receive the bar will increase with the weight because of your decreasing ability to accelerate and elevate the bar. If you perform your pull under correctly, you will always be in the right place to receive the bar because of the connection you're maintaining.

From the Floor

While the hang power clean itself is an excellent exercise for hip and leg explosiveness, I still like pulling from the floor.

The goal for the pull from the floor is to put you right into the same hang position you've been lifting from. We want a photo of you taken at the moment the bar hits the lower thighs during a power clean to look identical to a photo of you in your hang starting position. To do this, your position off the floor may have to deviate a bit from your normal deadlifting position.

Step 11 — With your feet about hip-width apart and turned out slightly, place the bar over the balls of your feet. Get your clean grip, set your back in a complete arch, push your knees out slightly, and drop your hips until your shoulders are directly above the bar. From the side, your arms should be approximately vertical.

Your knees or thighs may be in light contact with the insides of your arms. If you can't keep your back extended in this position, you need to work on your flexibility and back strength. Keep your head up and your eyes straight ahead. The bar does not need to be touching your shins.

Step 12 — Break the bar from the floor without jerking and shift to your heels immediately. As the bar passes your knees, make sure to actively pull it back toward your legs. It should remain in immediate proximity to your thighs, and it should come into contact by mid to upper thigh. As you reach the thigh position from which you lifted previously, accelerate aggressively to the top of the pull.

Initially, the pull from the floor to the hang position can be done very slowly to ensure proper positioning. You can even perform partial lifts from the floor to the thighs with a pause in the hang position. As you get more comfortable and consistent, the speed of this pull can be increased. At any speed, there should never be a point at which the bar slows or pauses.

Like Your Momma Always Told Ya: Practice Makes Perfect

As you continue performing power cleans, don't hesitate to return to any of these drills to practice elements of the lift that are giving you trouble. In fact, it's not a bad idea to run through several reps of each drill as part of your warm-up.

If you decide to include power cleans in your training program (and why wouldn't you after learning all the steps?) make the commitment to continue improving your execution.

Because the better your power clean, the better your body will look and perform.

Greg Everett is the author of "the best book available on Olympic weightlifting," Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches. He owns Catalyst Athletics in Sunnyvale, CA and is the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Performance Menu journal.

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