The 3 Worst Types of Conditioning

by Dr. John Rusin 

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Metabolic Conditioning

Mobility

Here's what you need to know...

• The bear crawl can be damaging to the shoulders and lower back. When programmed for maximal speed or time, it becomes an orthopedic nightmare.
• Do controlled developmental crawls instead of bear crawls. Yes, you'll still be smoked afterward.
• Stair running will turn your articular cartilage into ground beef. Do strict single-leg step ups instead.
• Burpees will definitely gas you, but speed squats reduce joint stress while leading to actual gains.

Conditioning: The Cardio of the Strong?

The average strength athlete loathes the very thought of traditional cardiovascular training. So it's no surprise that old school methods of conditioning have become a staple in many strength-training programs. While the general idea of choosing conditioning over cardio remains solid, the basic execution of these movements is lacking.

Conditioning has likewise begun to make its way into the general training population, but some of the most mainstream forms of conditioning have become pitiful excuses for physical performance.

This has resulted in non-contractile tissues like tendons, ligaments, and the rarely-forgiving joints of the body being subjected to some very stressful and unnecessary bouts of training.

Destructive Conditioning

If your primary objective of implementing conditioning to your strength program is to elevate your heart rate and anabolic hormone production, there are better methods than the following orthopedic pitfalls, listed from least damaging to most damaging.

Third Most Damaging: Standard Bear Crawls

Hitting all fours and putting your grill in the grass has become the latest conditioning craze.

Crawling is one of the most primitive and foundational movement patterns people master in order to eventually walk on two legs. As we move through the typical, and by now brutally monotonous and overstated developmental process, crawling links up our body segments to enhance both mobility and stability to create our first form of locomotion.

This all sounds great in theory. Get back to the basics with an ass-kicking workout, right? Not so fast. It only sounds amazing until people actually attempt to drop down on their hands and knees and start plodding away!

With our everyday postural demands at an all-time high and our general level of body composition and movement abilities at an all-time low, the once natural crawling pattern may as well be a 150-kilogram snatch. You're not going to be able to do it at first, and even if you are, it'll crush your body in the process.

Related:  More on damaging types of exercise

While the bear crawl involves ample hip and pelvic mobility in order to maintain a neutral spine, not many people meet these prerequisites to make the crawl a safe and effective method of conditioning. Decreased mobility translates to destructive stresses through the adjacent joints, in this case the five segments of your lumbar spine.

This is why your back hurts after bear crawling your butt around the gym. It's no mystery, as your trainer might lead you to believe, just weak movement execution!

The bear crawl is no better for your shoulders than it is for the lower back. When programmed for maximal speed or time, like most "coaches" teach, heavy compressive loads and positional malalignment becomes an orthopedic nightmare.

Do This Instead:  Controlled Developmental Crawl

The focus of crawls should be to own your mechanics while relearning an elementary movement pattern.

If you're worried about not getting your heart rate up while crawling the proper way, it's obvious you've never tried this exercise. Slow and controlled movements will smoke you just the same as your uncontrollable ass-up hand waddle, minus the post-crawl pain!

Second Most Damaging: Running Stairs

Rocky Balboa is single-handedly responsible for half of our nation's total knee replacement costs over the past three decades. You heard that right. Because of the Italian Stallion, men and women across the world gravitated towards the stairs for their primary form of exercise.

I mean, what's more badass than sprinting up stairs and looking down to admire your conquest? I'd argue joint health and the ability to walk, for one. It's a good thing Rocky is fictional or he would've been limping into the orthopede's office pleading for the knife at the age of 46.

For a majority of people, adding incline and stairs to an already painful gait is an expensive recipe for disaster. If you plan on using stairs conservatively in your training (less than once per week), you may be able to make it through this joint minefield. If not, you may be in for a long, painful ride that doesn't involve a final round knockout of a biochemically engineered Russian.

Realize that your effort to try and relive your high school football days by running stadium stairs will result in repeated trauma to the knees and lower back. After a while, your articular cartilage will resemble ground beef rather than a functional shock absorber. Time to limit that punishing damage!

Do This Instead: Strict Single-Leg Step Up

If you're capable of doing these without cheating, they can be one of the most metabolically torturous leg builders in the gym.

Do these in a non-alternating fashion and make them extra challenging. When you feel your quads start to spasm, when the sound of your heart pounding at maximal rate is muffling the sound of your breath, go up 5 pounds in each hand.

Most Damaging: Repeated High-Impact Plyometrics

The sheer impact being sustained by the knees, hips, and spine from burpees, box jumps, and the like is downright outrageous.

Sure, box jumps can be a great way to activate some fast twitch muscle fibers before heavy squats or pulls, but don't get confused – this type of intelligent, goal-oriented programming isn't the problem.

The problem is flailing up and down a 24-inch box for 15 consecutive minutes while sustaining contusions to your shins and thinking you've done something productive.

Movements that involve a huge amount of external force production need to be programmed with caution, which is rarely, if ever, taken into account. Any time you're depending on your muscular system to generate high amounts of force and tension to complete a physical task, you'd better respect the damn process.

This isn't the type of movement that you just grind through. Due to the impossibility of repeatedly performing a plyometric movement without a mechanical breakdown of form and technique, the likelihood of suffering an injury becomes significant.

There's no argument that burpees can leave you with your head in the garbage can. In our ignorant fitness society, where the value of an exercise is determined by how crappy you feel afterwards, burpees have been elevated to the single best form of conditioning ever conceived!

Congratulations CrossFit, your wicked hard programming methods have crept into commercial gyms. And physical therapists thank you.

Do This Instead: Speed Squat

The speed squat eliminates ground reaction forces that can put a pounding on your joints, while recruiting muscle fibers more efficiently than its jumping counterpart.

Reducing joint stresses while increasing multiple forms of muscular stress leads to something called gains, in case you forgot what those look like!

Why Not Combine All These Destructive Movements?

If your goal is to be as self-destructive as possible without making the ultimate death jump into CrossFit, why not join a Cardio Boot Camp?

While gaining ground as one of the most popular forms of structured group training in our industry, Cardio Boot Camp has combined the top three most damaging conditioning methods with a little bit of what I like to call reckless and irresponsible exercise programming.

Unqualified coaches running around municipal parks every weekend with their band of misfits is doing little to no good elevating our industry to a more respectable state. Sure, they have some catchy chants and practice dysfunctionally fun ways of producing sweat stains in your dumpy-looking workout attire. Still, the questions remains, is that swamp ass you worked so hard for leading to anything other than a powerful form of exercise self-justification?

I guess if you make it out of the workout alive, and with all your lumbar discs intact, it's the superior alternative to slurping down a white chocolate frappuccino with extra whipped cream at 8AM on a Saturday.

Do This Instead

Quit trying to make exercise fun and comparing it to other things that supposedly produce joy like binge eating Twinkies and watching reality TV marathons. Proper training should do a few distinct things for you. Without them, you're just wasting your time, money, and energy.

1. Training should simply yield some positive results.
2. Your chosen form of exercise should be a tolerable form of physical activity that can be maintained for the long run.
3. Most importantly, it shouldn't seriously damage your body

Related:  The 4 Most Debilitating Exercises

I'm not talking about your quads burning after a set of squats, more like burning nerve pain shooting down your legs causing numbness after your horrific kettlebell session. Lesson one of being a coach is do no harm. (Maybe that wasn't covered in the online personal trainer certification course?)

And whatever you do, protect your body against the madness, which is the sadistic and debilitating fads of the industry like these three forms of conditioning. You only get one body. Better treat it right.

The 4 Most Damaging Types of Training

by John Rusin 

Here's what you need to know...

• All types of training can lead to injuries, but some are much worse than others. With a few self-myofascial release techniques, you can at least minimize these risks.
• With bodybuilders, the common use of active muscle isolation leads to increased rates of muscular adhesion and scar tissue formation.
• The bench, squat, and deadlift weren't designed for extreme volumes and frequencies, but that's exactly what powerlifters are doing with them. Luckily, there are three effective self-treatment techniques to keep you moving some serious iron.
• This year over 70% of CrossFitters will be sidelined for over a week at a time due to injury. A majority of that 70% can be attributed to shoulder injuries. There are, however, a few techniques to help.
• Running is the most popular and most debilitating form of exercise. Up to 80% of runners are in pain on any given run, no matter the distance, intensity, or course.

Which type of training causes the most physical damage? It's one of the most passionately battled debates in sports medicine. With the recent popularization of CrossFit, the fiery debate has been doused with kerosene.

There's no doubt that CrossFit has put its dysfunctional stamp on the fitness industry, but where does it compare to the traditional joint-crushing training methods like powerlifting, bodybuilding, and running in terms of orthopedic health and function?

It's time to pledge your allegiance, pick a side, and get ready to wage war. As a doctor of physical therapy and a soft tissue specialist, here's where I stand on which training methods are helping us achieve a greater overall level of fitness and health, and which methods should be banned in all 50 states.

And if, despite my warnings, you still refuse to face facts and continue to inflict damage to yourself, at least play an active roll in limiting the damage by using the sport-specific self-myofascial release techniques I prescribe at the end of each discussion.

Fourth Most Debilitating: Bodybuilding

Sure, bodybuilding has continued to draw some negative attention due to the blatant and obvious use of performance enhancing drugs, even within the "natural" divisions. For those athletes that compete in the open divisions and embrace the drug culture, I say they're at least being up front and honest in their pursuit of muscle and performance. The same can't be said for any other sport in the world.

Honesty does not exclude bodybuilding from its spot on the list of the most debilitating forms of training in the fitness industry, though. Throwing slabs of muscle onto your less-than-adequate frame for purely aesthetical reasons is bound to cause some dysfunction sooner or later. If you want to continue, you better find a way to preserve the mobility you have left.

Related:  Do-It-Yourself Myofascial Release

Though bodybuilders are some of the most structured and intelligently programmed athletes in the fitness world, they're still prone to some serious forms of overuse injuries. The use of PEDs throws the body into an anabolic shit storm of muscle growth that the non-contractile tissues (tendons, ligaments and fascia) just can't adequately support. Also, the common use of active muscle isolation leads to an increased rate of muscular adhesion, thus causing an increase in intramuscular scar tissue formation.

The presence of scar tissue is a precursor to decreased movement capacity and overall dysfunction. If bodybuilders want to continue to compete on the big stage, it's imperative they get their soft tissues cleaned up. And no, the monthly trip to your Active Release Techniques (A.R.T.) guy isn't good enough. You must take your mobility and soft tissue quality into your own hands, literally.

Here are the top three sites of dysfunction specific to bodybuilders that can be self-treated. Get hands-on with your own tissues. Your body, and your performance, will thank you:

Third Most Debilitating: Powerlifting

With a combination of explosive power and technical ability, powerlifting separates the pretenders from the elite athletes in a quantitative manner.

If you didn't already know it, these are some of the baddest dudes in the business. You don't get that strong by mistake. The body is put under some excruciating muscle tearing, tendon stretching stresses in order to adapt to handling the loads that produce PRs. Even with intelligent training methods and technical proficiency, debilitating injuries are as much a part of the game as the ability to place in your weight class.

Training for the big three puts the body under extremely challenging conditions. There's a fine line between progression and injury, and it's a line that's straddled every day for those who live to not only stay competitive, but also victorious. The bench, squat, and deadlift weren't designed for extreme volumes and frequencies, but that's exactly what powerlifters are doing with them.

The body can only withstand so much torture before it retaliates. Here are the three most effective self-treatment techniques to keep you moving some serious iron off the floor while still maintaining your ability to crawl up to the podium:

Second Most Debilitating: CrossFit

If exercise is your only goal, you're most likely a CrossFitter. Like it or not, unless you're on ESPN crushing Fran with the likes of Rich Froning, you're not considered an athlete of any sort. Just as the average 60-year-old woman likes to get jiggy with Zumba every Saturday morning, you're just another wannabe sweating your way towards traumatic injury and shitty Olympic lifting mechanics.

As a sports performance physical therapist, I first have to thank CrossFit founder Greg Glassman for keeping my schedule full of CrossFit newbie train-wreck cases. Yes, he's achieved his goal of creating a culture where even he's considered in elite shape, but in the process, he and his weekend-certified coaches have put an end to many unpromising careers, largely due to preventable injuries that could be absolutely avoided with just the slightest hint of fundamental programming.

Congratulations, mission accomplished, as GWB once said. And once again, thank you for all the referrals!

Shoulder injuries have never been more prominent in the fitness industry than after the popularization of CrossFit. I'm convinced that the wildfire spread of CrossFit is due to the initial investments of orthopedic surgeons worldwide. What's better than surgically correcting an injury that you had a hand in causing? Charlie Sheen would call that winning and since this is America, you aren't truly winning unless other people are losing. Welcome to our medical system.

This year, over 70% of CrossFitters will be sidelined for over a week at a time due to injury. A majority of that 70% can be attributed to shoulder injuries. The rest of the injuries are split between programmed random acts of stupidity (also known as WODs) and spinal issues.

In my article, Do-It-Yourself Mysofascial Release, I tackled the techniques that could be used to self-treat some of the deeper structures of the shoulder complex. With the waddle rate strikingly high in boxes across the world, the lower back dysfunction created by CrossFit is an entirely different beast in itself.

Here are a few techniques to limit that shitty anteriorly tilted pelvic posture that you've developed through strategically sacrificing looking good naked and being healthy. If you insist on losing your gains through light load, high-rep Olympic lifting, make sure to limit some of the trashing your body is about to endure with self-myofascial release. Save your back and simultaneously save your ass with a just a few moves:

Most Debilitating: Running

Ah running... the most widely practiced physical activity in the world with nearly two billion people jiggling their way to a body only a mother could love. From those staggering numbers it's confirmed that we, as an industry, have failed the general gluten-free cupcake eating public.

Let's be honest, in 2014, it's pretty damn hard to make CrossFit look like the less shitty alternative to an unsafe and ineffective form of training. Though CrossFit is gaining ground, the overall numbers don't lie. For every one bandwagoning CrossFitter flopping around on the pull-up bar, there are 800 people consciously working their way towards metabolic syndrome accompanied by a total knee replacement, one painful step at a time.

I don't know about your country, but the American infrastructure wasn't designed to withstand this kind of punishment. The streets deserve better.

In an attempt to save our roadways and orthopedic health, let's take a deeper look into how running has continued to do absolutely nothing to eradicate the American obesity epidemic while adding to the ever-rising orthopedic dysfunction and injury rates plaguing our questionable medical system.

Running has single-handedly made the presence of pain the norm in an American society that's struggling to be active. Up to 80% of runners are in pain on any given run, no matter the distance, intensity, or course. If you accept this statistic as "part of the game," you're just as much to blame as Phil Knight and the injury rainmakers over at Nike. Time to question your own beliefs and help evolve our poorly educated society, one runner at a time.

An ideal running stride is as rare as the thousand-pound squat. Just because you can run doesn't mean you should. Without the ability to achieve proper biomechanics, your running is a ticking time bomb waiting to explode. Would you squat if you couldn't keep from drawing attention from you atrocious form? I think not.

With every gait being as uniquely awful as the next, there are some common dysfunctions that show up no matter if you're running the four minute mile or run-walking your way to another oversized T-shirt. If you're truly passionate about running, fine, that's your prerogative; here are some self-myofascial release techniques that will limit your ever-impending doom:

Reference

Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: CF Injury.

5 Drills That Are Better Than the Prowler

by Nick Tumminello – 8/02/2011
These days the Prowler is everyone's choice for conditioning. Yet as much as I'm a Prowler fan, there are other effective conditioning options out there.
Note: in no way is the intent of this article to "bash" the Prowler. Instead, it's to give you perspective on how to choose the best conditioning tool to fit your specific needs and goals.

Prowler Pros and Cons

In the fitness world it seems "you're either with us or you're against us." In other words, something is either "good" or it's "bad." If it's bad, we never use it. And if it's good, we use the shit out of it.
The fact is that there's really no good or bad exercises, just poor applications. In the case of the Prowler, I consider it to be a great tool that's being way over-applied.
To use a tool effectively you have to understand its pros and cons and above all else, be objective. Here's my list of pros and cons for the Prowler.

Pros

• It's simple to use and most anyone can do it with little to no learning curve.
• It's self-regulated. When you get tired, you stop and rest before starting again.
• There's little danger of hurting yourself.
• It's great for folks with knee, hip, or back injuries that prevent them from effectively performing lower body exercises like squats, deadlifts, and lunges.
• It's just plain tough and a great way to push people to work hard in a controlled manner.
• The load is easily adjusted.
• It emulates many of the motions used in many sports like football, grappling/MMA, rugby, etc.

Cons

• It's a slower movement than most sports, which are played at a fast, explosive speed while forcing the body to deal with momentum. As legendary strength coach Al Vermeil said, "Too much heavy weight sled or Prowler type work will make athletes great grinders. But it does little or nothing to make them more explosive."
• It puts the body in an awkward, bent over position that, although similar to sports like football, is unlike any actual position seen in many other sports.
• It forces the arms not to remain stationary while holding onto the handles, which is nothing like running or sprinting where arm swing is critical. With the arms fixed in place, the shoulders can't rotate as they would during normal walking or running, and anchoring the shoulders forces more rotation upon the hips and lumbar spine, which may not be safe over the long term.
• It forces athletes of all sizes (short, tall, etc.) to hold on in the same manner without accommodating their specific body needs and mechanics.
• It requires no eccentric action. While great for a deload day/week, in sports you must have great brakes (eccentric ability) to be able to stop the power your high-performance engine (the muscles) can produce.
• Many push the Prowler with a rounded lumbar spine for prolonged periods, especially as fatigue sets in. While more of a coaching flaw more than anything, the position needed to push the Prowler makes it difficult not to begin rounding the back as you fatigue. Furthermore, taller athletes may have to round their backs right away.
• It fails to create the full hip extension needed to express max power/speed in sports. That's why most after Prowler pushing get fatigued in their quads and calves versus sprinting where they get glute fatigue and occasionally gluteal spasms, known in the track and field world as "butt lock." This is why I always follow Prowler workouts with a few sets of a hip thrust variation.
• It can be costly to buy for folks on a budget.
• It takes up storage space, which in many small gyms or private training studios is often limited.

5 Conditioning Drills I Like Better Than The Prowler

At Performance U I use the Prowler mostly with general fitness clients and physique competitors as a "finisher" and with injured performance athletes who are unable to do the drills listed below.
But if you're a healthy, uninjured performance athlete looking to enhance your sports performance by training in a manner that will have functional carryover to your sport, the following would be my go-to conditioning drills over the Prowler any day.

Hill Sprints

This is one of the absolute BEST ways to improve cardio conditioning, stride length, leg drive/power, and build a great looking, athletic physique. In addition, the impact on the joints is much lower than running on a flat surface since you're always stepping up to something.
Hill sprints are also a more natural exercise, allowing the arms to swing while keeping the torso in a natural, upright position. It also forces you to move fast with the momentum of your legs swinging into the strides.
Find a fairly steep hill that's at least 25 yards long. If you're lucky, you'll find one about 50 yards long. Run up the hill and walk down it as many times as you can in 8-15 minutes. Each consecutive workout, try to either perform more reps (trips up the hill) or simply lengthen the time. You can also wear a weighted vest (as long as it's snug) and keep adding weight to the vest each workout.
With the vest, you can also undulate every other week.
Week 1 – use the weighted vest.
Week 2 – no vest and go for faster speeds.
Repeat

Note: I recommend walking back down the hill and NOT running down it.

Run Stairs

Find a stadium or local high-rise building and hit the steps. If you've never done this, it's a very humbling experience. You'll find that your legs get even more smoked from going back down the stairs to start your next climb than they do sprinting up them.
One side "benefit" from stairs running is having to think and use your balance and athleticism to not trip and fall on your face. You certainly don't get that from the Prowler.
There are three primary ways I've used stairs as a conditioning tool.

• Skip every other step. (Take two steps at a time with every stride. Two strides covers four steps.)
• Same as above but also use your arms to pull yourself up on the side railings. This only works if you have a railing on both sides of stairs that aren't too wide for you to hold onto.
• Touch every step and pick a specific leg to lead with every step. Then, change lead legs with each new flight of stairs. If it's one long set of steps, change lead legs every 20-50 steps.

I like to progress the stairs workouts the same as I do the hill sprint workouts, discussed earlier. I'll also include weighted vests here as well.

Shuttle Runs (aka - Suicide Sprints)

If your high school experience was anything like mine, the term "suicides" brings back gym class and wrestling practice flashbacks. I say keep the memory alive and add some old-school shuttle sprint work to your conditioning workouts.
Considering most readers aren't concerned with improving their 40-yard dash times, I'm referring to 200-300 yard shuttle runs. That said, these shuttle runs would likely have a more positive effect on your 40 time than Prowler work since they're more similar to the 40-yard dash.
I've already described how to perform 300 yard shuttle runs and an alternative using the treadmill in this article. Bring some of these shuttle runs into your life and you won't just want to take a rest afterward; you'll want to go home and take a nap!

Tire Drags

Dragging a tire by using a harness allows the arms to move in a natural action, increasing shoulder involvement while activating the core to work harder.
The harness also forces you to keep a straight, stiff spine throughout the exercise, regardless of how tired you get. Rounding the back at anytime will immediately look and feel very awkward, giving instant feedback to straighten out or stop and rest.
Also, unlike the Prowler, in which you can kind of Ôhang' off the handles, you have to drive into the sled harness. If you try to just hang on it you won't move much at all.
Here are my favorite ways to use the tire to build insane conditioning.

• With a heavy tire: Go 20-25 yards per set. Perform a total of 100-150 yards. Rest as needed between sets.
• With a medium weight tire: Go 40-50 yards per set. Perform a total of 200-300 yards. Rest as needed between sets.
• You can also undulate heavy to medium load tires each consecutive workout.

Here's Oxygen magazine fitness model Alli Mckee doing some harness tire drags.

Tire Prowler Drags

This is Prowler pushes, version 2.0. I like using the tire for the following reasons.

• You control your torso position and can stand in a manner that best fits your size.
• You have two unstable handles to control, which forces the upper body and core muscles to work harder than with the stable handles of the Prowler.
• It's more sports specific to grapplers and football players who have to control their opponent when blocking, pushing, or grappling.
• You can't hang onto the handles. You must stay tight and strong, otherwise you don't move.
• The tire Prowler push requires more balance and muscular control to keep the body from swaying side to side, which happens to most beginners when first trying this exercise. It also forces you to control the rotary forces by keeping the arms out and the rope the same length on each side throughout the exercise. None of this happens with the Prowler due to its stable and very wide base of support.

Use the same workout protocols as described with the tire drags.

Final Thoughts

Now, don't get all bent out of shape simply because you're emotionally attached to the Prowler. I'm NOT saying the Prowler is no good; on the contrary, I love it! But it's just a tool, and a tool can be used or downright abused and overused.
You need to understand both the pros and cons of everything you do in the gym – even what's immensely popular – and while the Prowler is a great tool, it's also a slower, more grinding exercise that's not as athletic or natural as the other drills I've provided.
The keys to training are variety, intensity, and specificity. I've given you some effective tools to incorporate these three keys into! Now get busy!
Wikio

Strong in the Stretch:5 Exercises for Size, Strength, and Mobility

by Jeremy Frisch – 2/22/2011Step into a commercial gym around 5 PM any day of the week. Sure you'll come across some "strong" people who can lift heavy weights, but if you take a closer look, it'll become painfully obvious that most meatheads have simply lost the ability to move with any semblance of fluidity.
Poor daily posture leads to tight, inhibited muscles, which leads to poor movement, which then compounds the issue, which killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built...and eventually we're left with serious inefficiencies and often injuries.
As avid T NATIONers, we know training to be anything but thoughtless and poorly contrived. We train hard week in and week out, and as readers we're privy to a constant flow of solid information and training advice, but no matter what our focus in the gym consists of, we come to T NATION to separate ourselves from the "regular folk" who are simply sheep in the flock.
Touching back on my original thought, however, many of us don't realize that the focus on mobility can elude us and when it does, it's something that can be very difficult to recapture.
This article isn't intended for you to change your approach to training, or to take away from your main lifts. However, many of these exercises can replace current techniques you use now, and with a little hard work and effort they can help take you to higher levels of strength and movement.
This short list is something you can incorporate in your current program that will help you lengthen your range of motion, build size and strength, and oh yeah, hurt like hell.

1. The Long Duration Sumo Squat Hold

This is a great foundational exercise but can double as much more. In our young athletes, it teaches proper squat technique in regards to the pelvis and spine, and the kids find out how much mental toughness they have, fast. It's pure hell, and it's the last thing our athletes do on Fridays before they go home. In fact, they often crawl out of here!
The holds are between 45 and 60 seconds and we do them for 3-4 sets.
The better you become at this movement, the more gravity just keeps assisting you into a deeper hold. You'll soon see some dramatic changes in hip mobility.
For anyone looking for size, loads and long times under tension can provide a great breeding ground for some new muscle.

Focus: Spread the floor apart with the feet. Drive the knees out while constantly PULLING yourself down using your hip flexors and abs.

2. The Dumbbell Iso-Dynamic Elevated Split Squat

This exercise is based on the standard split squat, just adding a couple of boxes to elevate both feet. By standing on boxes you'll allow for greater range of motion and that's precisely the goal of the exercise.
The athlete pulls himself deeper into the hole with each rep (3-5 second holds). This not only hammers away at those pesky tight hip flexors, it also develops a great amount of starting strength by working the athlete in his greatest (and weakest) joint angles.
If you're looking for some serious upper leg development, then try a few heavy sets of these and feel sore in some places you didn't even know existed!

Focus: Pull yourself into a deep position by pulling with the front hamstring. Flex and extend the rear leg glute as hard as possible. Always pull deeper on subsequent repetitions.

3. Elevated Barbell Reverse Lunge

This is without a doubt one of my favorite exercises for developing the glutes, hams, and adductors.
If you're new to these be careful on your volume initially as you may find it hard to walk for a few days. Not only do they provide a tremendous strengthening effect on the front leg, but the dynamic flexibility component they provide to the rear leg hip flexor and rectus is incredible.
In some cases when we're focusing on the range of motion in the rear leg, we have the athlete bring the rear leg all the way through and up to waist height (you'll end in a position similar to a step up, with one leg on the box and the other knee driven up).

Focus: Stay tall with your torso. Carry much of the weight on the front leg when lowering into the lunge. Pull yourself back up to the box.

4. Iso-Dynamic Band Resisted Push-up

This exercise can be very humbling when you're not used to full ranges of motion.
The video below will show a 320 + lbs. bencher struggling on the sixth rep of a push up. The reason for the difficulty is the combination of the extreme joint angle (weakest point) and the accommodating resistance of the bands.
In my opinion, the deep isometric push up is one of the best scapular retraction exercises out there. By lengthening the anterior shoulder and pecs, you place the muscles that move the scapulae in the best leverage position to contract maximally.
For people who have naturally poor posture or jobs that require them to sit in poor posture all day, this exercise can be just the thing to help even out their overworked anterior body.
Besides postural benefits, this exercise can be great at developing strength and size in the upper back and will allow the anterior portion of the shoulder to get a solid stretch that could also translate into better recovery and muscle production.

Focus: Don't think about lowering with gravity. Pull yourself into the hold using your scapular retractors. Remember to squeeze those muscles of the upper back as hard as you can.

5. Band Resisted Iso-Dynamic Chin-Up

This may be the most difficult one in terms of perceived difficulty because it's the only exercise that's RESISTED by gravity instead of assisted. To make it worse, gravity won't be the only thing pulling you back down to earth.
Place a band around your waist and have a partner stand on the band. Alternately, you can hook the band under a rack or dumbbell.
While in the hanging position, squeeze/contract the muscles of your chest and triceps as hard as possible, which will protect the shoulders and allow the major muscles of the back to lengthen.
After a short hold (3-5 seconds), pull up with as much speed and power as possible. The band will kick in near the top and slow you down to a snail's pace. The answer to overcoming the added resistance? Pull HARDER. It's just you against the band, and of course Sir Isaac Newton's old buddy, gravity.

Focus: Start in the hang by squeezing the "push" muscles so the "pull" muscles can lengthen. Drive your chest towards the bar, and drive your elbows away from the bar as fast as possible. Most importantly, don't give up.

To reiterate, again I'm not trying to tell you what you're doing is wrong or that you need to replace all of your trusty go-to lifts with these options. I'm merely offering alternatives, ones that I think are of great importance and value to any serious lifter.
If you want to continue to train hard and heavy, there will someday come a time when quality of movement must be prioritized. Why not start now?

Sources:

1. Buchenholz, Dietrich. The Best Sports Training Book Ever. Inno-Sport Group, 2003. Print.

2. Shroeder, Jay. "Iso-Extreme Lecture Notes." Be Athletic Seminar. College of the Holy Cross, Worcester. Lecture.

3. Uram, Paul, and Dave McKinnis. Refining Human Movement. Butler, PA: Paul Uram, 1971. Print.

4. Verkhoshansky, Yuri Vitalievitch., and Mel Cunningham. Siff. Supertraining. Rome, Italy: Verkhoshansky, 2009. Print.

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The Essential Eight - Eight Mobility Drills Everyone Should Do.

Michael Boyle Mobility seems to be "the" hot topic. Everyone has their own opinion. If you've read any of my articles on mobility - A Joint by Joint Approach to Training you know that mobility should be done only for those joints that need it. If you haven't read Joint by Joint, go back and read it before you read this. If you have read A Joint by Joint Approach to Training this is a straight-forward piece on the "essential eight". Eight simple things that everyone can do to warm-up. The nice thing about these exercises is that anyone can do them. Everyone may not be able to do them well but, they can do them. The people who can't do them well need them the most. Number 1- Thoracic Spine Mobility. The mobility of the thoracic spine is one of the least understood areas of the body and was previously the realm of physical therapists. Sue Falsone, Director of Performance Therapy at Athletes Performance ( www.athletesperformance.com, www.coreperformance.com) may be single-handedly responsible for introducing the athletic world to the need for thoracic mobility and more importantly for showing many of us in the world of strength and conditioning a simple way to develop it. The nice thing about t-spine mobility is that almost no one has enough and it's hard to get too much. We encourage our athletes to do thoracic mobility work every day. To perform our number one thoracic mobility drill all you need is two tennis balls so, there really is no excuse. Simply tape the two balls together and go to work. What you basically do is a series of crunches beginning with the balls at the thoraco-lumbar junction. The balls sit over the erectors and effectively provide an anterior-posterior mobilization of the vertebrae with every little mini-crunch. It is important that the head return to the floor after every crunch and that the hands come forward at a 45 degree angle. We do five reps at each level and simply slide down about a half roll of the ball. Work from the thoraco-lumbar junction up to the beginning of the cervical spine. Stay out of the cervical and lumbar areas these are not areas that need mobility work. Video 1- T-spine mobility This drill is done first ( usually after we foam roll, but that's another article) as we are already on the floor. The rest of our mobility work is done standing. Number 2- Ankle mobility. Just as with thoracic mobility, it is rare to find a person that doesn't need some ankle mobility work. Whether you are an athlete who experienced an ankle sprain years ago ( and who hasn't), or a woman who wears heels every day ankle mobility is step two in our warm-up. Credit for this drill goes to Omi Iwasaki, another Athletes Performance PT. The first key to ankle mobility work is to understand that it is a mobility drill, not a flexibility/ stretching drill. You want to rock the ankle back and forth, not hold the stretch. The second key is to watch the heel. It is essential that the heel stay in contact with the floor. Most people who have ankle mobility restrictions will immediately lift the heel. I will often hold the heel down for beginners to get the feel. The third key is to make it multiplanar. I like 15 reps, 5 to the outside (small toe), five straight, and five driving the knee in past the big toe. Videos 2a and 2b Ankle Mobility Number 3- Leg Swings. Leg swings are an interesting exercise. I used to think of leg swings as a hip mobility exercise and a dynamic adductor stretch. I guess this is a day for the PT's to take a bow. Physical Therapist Gary Gray made me realize that leg swings are actually a great transverse plane mobility exercise for the ankle. Yes, I said ankle. Watch an athlete with poor ankle mobility do leg swings and you will see the foot move into external rotation ( turn out) as they swing. The key to leg swings is to keep the foot in contact with the floor and to drive rotary motion into the foot and ankle. The action of the leg swinging creates mobility at the ankle in the transverse plane. Video 3- Leg swings Numbers 4-6- Split squats, lateral squats and rotational squats. This is a precursor to what many would call a lunge matrix. The lunge matrix is another Gary Gray concept but, one that has flaws in my mind. Athletes must have proper mobility to perform a lunge matrix and must gradually familiarize themselves with the movements to avoid often extreme soreness. To avoid soreness and develop mobility we perform an in place matrix for three weeks prior to moving to a lunge matrix. Another great thing about an in-place lunge matrix is also a Dan John idea. Dan is fond of saying "if something is important, do it every day". This means we can do single leg work every day. Some for mobility development, some for strength. Split squats are in-place precursor to a lunge and develop sagittal plane mobility. Video 4- split squat Lateral squats are in in-place precursor to a lateral lunge and develop frontal plane mobility. This is an area where many are restricted. The key here is to watch the feet. In the lateral squat, the feet must remain straight ahead. External rotation is compensation. Lateral squats are a bit counter-intuitive. A wider stance makes them easier, not harder but most people will try to begin narrower. Try to get the feet 3.5-4 feet apart. I use the lines on roll flooring ( usually 4 foot rolls) or the width of the wood on the platform ( also usually 4 ft) as a gauge. Video 5- Lateral Squat Rotational Squats- these may be misnamed. They are not really rotational but, are the proper precursor to rotational lunges. The key here is again foot position. The feet are at right angles to each other as opposed to being parallel as in the lateral squat. I have often noticed that most people lunge matrix is actually a series of forward lunges done in different directions. The key to a properly performed lunge matrix is in foot position. My standard joke is that many who think they are doing multi-planar lunges are actually doing panoramic lunges. They do the same lunge, they simply face in another direction. Either way, the rotational squat prepares the trainee for rotational lunges and continues to open up the frontal/transverse motion of the hips. Many may recognize lateral and rotational squats as "groin stretches". In fact, they are nothing more than dynamic version of the popular groin stretches. The big limiting factor in hip mobility is often flexibility in the muscles versus the motion of the joints. Hip capsular mobility is best left to trained therapists. Video 6 Rotational squat Number 7- Wall Slides- I have to tell you, I love wall slides. Talk about bang for the buck. • Activate low trap, rhomboid, and external rotators. • Stretch the pecs and internal rotators. • Decrease the contributions of the upper traps. Try them you will be amazed. One thing that might amaze you is that you can't even get into the position. This is not unusual. Another thing that will surprise you is the asymmetry of your shoulders. A third surprise might occur when you try to slide overhead. Many people will immediately shrug. This is the dominance of the upper trap. The keys to the wall slide • Scapula are retracted and depressed • Hands and wrists flat against the wall ( the back of both hands must touch the wall) • As you slide up think about pressing gently into the wall with the forearms • Only go to the point of discomfort. You will notice that the anterior shoulder will release and ROM will increase. Don't force it. Video 7- Wall Slide Number 8 Big X Band- Christian Thibadeau is going to love this one. Christian has written about my X-Band idea in a few articles. The Big X Band is an improvement on the original idea. The original idea was to add an upper body component to mini-band walks. The only problem was that many people did not retract the scapula, instead they shrugged so we activated the wrong stuff. Physical therapist Alex McEchnie , who has become the sports hernia rehab expert, uses Theraband to create the fascial slinging effect of the body. I borrowed and simplified the by cutting a ¾" Superband ( you can also use Theratube) and creating a big X. Now I get a great simple total body activation. The Big X-Band activates the glute med, as well as the entire posterior chain. It does it in an anatomically correct manner by using the diagonal relationship of opposite to shoulder. Again, great bang for the buck. Video 8a- Old X Band Video 8b- Big X-band OK, I did it. I answered the often-asked question "What do I do to warmup?" I hope you're happy. Give these a try. It will take 5-10 minutes and not only will you look better, you'll feel better. Michael Boyle is one of the leaders in the field of performance enhancement and has recently launched www.strengthcoach.com a website developed specifically for athletes and coaches.

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