All Around Strength and Conditioning

Ok so the second installment is here after about a half hour of filming. These are not necessarily any better than those of the first, just different and useful as well. Ok so here’s the description in order of the video.

Unassisted Side Flag- not to be confused with the human flag, or the dragon flag. This one is like a lateral crunch from hell, and if done properly can nail the obliques hard. It’s unassisted because there is no partner to weigh you down, simply slide your feet under a sturdy bench and use your ankle and heel to keep you in place. After that; the farther down you go, the greater the results are.

Unassisted Hyperextensions- it’s like using a 90 degree hyper bench, except that if your gym doesn’t have one, and you have a strong set of adductors, this might be worth giving a shot. You sort of straddle the bench and hook your feet under, and hyperextend your back as much as possible.

2 Point Plank- similar to the classic 2 point bridge except that you are no longer on your hands and knees, it’s hands and feet, and it can be a challenge to core stability to keep from barrel rolling.

Plank with Weight Transfer- simply a plank, but instead of resting on both elbows and toes, you rest on only the feet and one elbow at a time, while the other is held out to the side with or without a small weight. Another great test of core stability, and a way to actually make planks interesting.

Superman Plank- this is the only one worth doing if you can do a plank for anything over 2 minutes. Total body strength from head to toe, and can help through the sticking points on the standing evil wheel roll out.

The Inch Worm-a walk out on the hands into a superman plank, hold for a few seconds, then walk your way back up.

Back Arch- not quite a back bridge, sometimes called a gymnastic arch, this helps strengthen the posterior chain and can be done for repetitions of time. Great for creating stability in the lower back, and fairy easy to execute.

Locust- a yoga move that can seriously kick your butt. While lying on the belly, you place your hands (preferably supinated) under your thighs and use those to press up and raise your legs up in the air as high as possible. A great alternative to the reverse hyper.

The Bow- this one is sort of fun to try and explain; lay on yor belly and reach back behind you and grab the tarsals of the foot. While holding them tightly you contract your lower back, and bend yourself back as far as you can. Often times trying to straighten out your knee will give you the driving force to raise yourself up in the air. I recommend going to your limit, waiting a bit and then trying to go even higher.

Kneeling Duel Evil Wheel Rollout- if you’ve ever paid attention to anything on www.rosstraining.com then I shouldn’t need to explain this one or the next two as well.

Standing Partial Evil Wheel Rollout- similar to the kneeling except that you are standing, and while keeping the wheels aligned below your chest you roll out halfway or so.

Single Arm Evil Wheel Rollout- if you’re up for the challenge (I’ve only shown the kneeling version here) then take one hand a way and start rolling.

Vacuums- absolutely amazing for strengthening the Transverse Abdominus. Sometimes these are known as “drawing in” essentially you just suck in your stomach as much as you can while pulling your belly button to your spine, and pull your abdominals upward by puffing up your chest. Two versions shown here, there’s a kneeling one, and the lying down version. I only use the lying down version because it tends to aid in really pulling that transverse tight.

So here’s the clip:

 

You heard this term over and over again; core exercises. Now what the heck is the core? Is it your abs? Not exactly, it's comprised of several muscles that span all the way around your midsection from the bottom of your hips to to your shoulder girdle. It's what transfers force from your hands to your feet, or vica verca. Think of it as a coupling between two pipes. The stronger the coupling, the more pressure that can be handled within those pipes. Your body is very similar. Now there are a few things that your core does; I'd explain what core stability is, but to some (especially on T-Nation) it's a buzzword. So let's just say that it's your ability to maintain any position throughout any plane of movement, whether it's standing up, upside down, on your sides, in a handstand, on your tip toes, etc. That's the stability portion, and All Around Strength loves a strong core. In fact all the authors have benefited greatly from direct core training. All the movements in this video fall into one or more categories; flexion and/or extension in the transverse or coronal plane, rotation, and lateral flexion and extension. So here are a few explanations of some of the exercises to go along with the video.

Dragon flag- made popular by Bruce Lee, and Stallone in Rocky IV. Real simple (not really) all you have to do is bring your legs up and maintain a straight and rigid position with all your weight on the back of your neck, and upper back. You bend your body without compromising your waist (flex your butt, this usually helps) and lower yourself to the bottom without losing form. Josh demonstrates at the end, a lateral version twisting his feet and hips, to load each side a bit more independently.

Hanging Lateral Hip Swings- real simple to do, grab a bar overhead as wide as you can, and allow your hips and legs to swing while maintaining an upright torso. Going slow and holding really makes a difference, and to make things a bit easier, you can add a straddle to offset the weight a bit. To make things harder, try doing this with one hand, as Josh demonstrates with amazing total body strength and coordination.

Standing Russian Twists- throw a barbell against the wall, add a weight, and then outstretch your arms so that the barbell is infront of you, and you are leaning slightly into it. Keep your feet, hips, and face pointing forward, and allow your arms (as straight as you can get them) to slowly drift towards your hips. Then bring it up to the other side in a fluid motion.

Saxon Side Bend- made popular by Arthur Saxon, this move is lateral flexion to the nth degree. Looking for a way to nail those obliques in unfamiliar territory, grab some light dumbbells, although you really don't need weight, and bring them overhead. Remember the closer they are together, the harder things get. Bend at the waist laterally, kicking your opposite hip out as you go down. Reverse the motion and come back to the other side.

Windmills- if you don't have kettlebells, a barbell or dumbbells work great. Lets say you use your left side to get the weight overhead, turn your hips so that your right hip is facing what might have been forward, and bend laterally at the waist and pick a weight off the floor. All this time you want to maintain eye contact with the weight overhead, mainly for balance, coordination, and to keep your shoulder in check. Bring the bottom weight down, and repeat.

Two Handed Anyhow- using a barbell, you clean and jerk it overhead, or snatch if you prefer, and using a variant of the Turkish Get Up, come down so that you end up in the two handed anyhow position (similar but harder to a side plank), gain your balance, and return the weight back up and lower down again.

Hanging Pike Lateral Hip Raises- this one is straight from Josh Sodja's twisted core training. Go into a hanging pike (that's hanging leg raise for some) and pull your hips up to each side as high as possible, while maintaining a piked position.

Hanging Windshield Wipers- or Russian tick tocks as some know them. Hang from a bar overhead, make sure your back is parallel to the ground, and swing your legs on either side of you quickly or slowly. To make things challenging go circular to hit the core from a different angle. For more info on this on, check out Deconstructing the Hanging Windshield Wiper.

Josh's Spidey Push-Up- basically doing a push up off a stability ball while bringing your legs as you would in a side jackknife. Not too difficult? Try it with one leg, and if that's not enough, allow your legs to drift laterally while maintaining your balance on the ball.

Wall Walks- adapted from the gymnastic world, simple to back bend but use the wall as your guide. Want to add some spice, drop down quickly and explode off the wall. This one adds some serious tightness to the back, and is not recommended for those with injured backs. Loosen up before you try this one.

Headstands With a Twist- who would have thought that childhood trick would actually help strengthen your core. Simply come up into a headstand, with a straddle and spin your legs like a helicopter without falling over. This one represents what core stability is.

Plank With Single Leg Rotation- basically do a plank in push up fashion and bear all the weight into your hands. No piking of the hips, and no cobra stretches either, straight back. Allow one leg to come up and drift over as far to the opposite side as possible. This one can be as easy or as difficult as you want it, depending on how straight the leg is, or how far out you extend your leg. For internal hip rotation emphasis, swing it under the body first.

Stability Ball Reverse Hyper- basically a modified reverse hyper using a ball instead of the real deal. I would recommend experimenting with both the close legged version, and the straddle legged version, as they hit the posterior chain at different angles. Point your toes as you would in the tip toes position, straighten your legs, and raise them as high up without throwing your face down as you can, and then lower to the floor.

To tie things up, here's the video, pardon the occasional F- Bomb and the poor quality, but you get the jist.

You can do crunches, and leg raises until you're blue in the face, have a great six pack, and terrible strength in your core. Isn't it time you tried something a little different.

So you've mastered the first 29 things to do with a barbell in the corner, why not add a bit more spice to your gym out of the box repertoire and give these a try.

The Barbell Get up Sit up- inspired after watching Steve Cotter knock out some serious weight on the kettlebells. I imagine it would help greatly if there were something to weigh your feet down, but come on, isn't that like being a wimp? Ok so grip the barbell on the end, and essentially keep your arm straightened out as you would for a floor press, now sit up and as you rise raise the barbell to the overhead position. Theses are absolutely awesome for training one side at a time and building core stability, as well as being a bit more complex than your standard sit up.

If you want to add more weight, then why not go double?

Barbell Overhead Lunge- A great way to mix up your lunges and make them total body, you can really lean into these ones and stand up as if tipping an object over. Essentially press it up until lock out, and then drop down into a reverse lunge.

If one isn't enough, why not double the trouble?

Aggressive Barbell Hammer Jammer's- this one is an awesome trick for conditioning and core stability, just get those things up to your shoulders and as aggressively as you can alternate your presses going for speed, you can mix up the stances going with an athletic stance, both feet forward, etc. You can also go both arms at a time to work on overall pressing explosive strength.

Aggressive Double Barbell Row- Similar set up to the hammer jammer just turn around and get in between the barbells. Like the hammer jammer you can alternate or go two at a time, but the goal here is to be extremely explosive.

Barbell Concentration Curls- this one is for all the geeks who still spend a whole training session dedicated to their biceps, go ahead and keep pounding those biceps, then give me a ring when you want to get strong.

Modified Barbell Turkish Get up- Essentially a TGU modified because of the barbell in the corner. Basically lie down as you would in the floor press, and then find an efficient way to get to a stand with the barbell overhead.

Towel Deadlifts- A modified Jefferson lift using towels, great for the grip, and add a slightly different feel to a classic.

Buhlers- Basically a full contact twist with a split squat in the end position, a great combo for core and legs. These are great going heavy for for power, and great going moderate for combat conditioning.

Steering Wheel Full Contact Twists- A full contact twist where instead of holding the ends of the barbell grip the plate as one would a steering wheel.

Towel Full Contact Twists- this one is way more challenging then any of the other variations. Loop a towel around the end of the barbell, and swing the barbell as you normally would, the catch is that you have to exert a lot more core and shoulder strength to hold the barbell in place and not sliding over to the ends of the towel smashing your hands.

Towel T-Bar Rows- who doesn't like T-Bar rows, instead of a v- bar handle why not try a towel, great for grip strength, and it allows a much deeper R.O.M.

You've seen a select few doing these in the gyms, but you may wonder to yourself whats the point of learning how to do this exercise. Truthfully what's the point of learning any new exercise, won't crunches and leg raises get you stronger? They might, but the windshield wiper exercise does something a bit more unique. It adds several components to a core exercise that crunches and leg raises fail to do. They incorporate static contractions, with a component of rotation and some lateral flexion. Couple that with the role of gravity and an angle that can be unfamiliar to some, and a sense of balance and kinesthetic spatial awareness, and you have a whole new animal. So let's briefly discuss what this exercise can do for you. It can add core strength, it can add rotational power, it is impressive to some to watch, it's a whole new challenge, it helps with kicking, and scissor takedowns, and last but not least it can help strengthen the back stabilizers for other more difficult exercises like the back and front levers.

At this point if you're still interested, then continue reading, if not, maybe this will be some food for thought. The hanging wind shield wiper is basically a hanging L-sit in which your lower back is parallel to the ground, and your legs swing together from side to side. Those who have very strong cores in terms of pound for pound strength may find this exercise a bit easier. Those who play sports with rotation being the bread and butter of movement may find this exercise beneficial to their training, but also not quite as difficult.

So let's start from the ground and work our way up. The most closest relative to the hanging wind shield wiper is known as a lying hip swing. To do this you like on your back and pike your legs so that they create a 90 degree angle between your torso and your toes. You may want to have your arms spread out fairly wide with palms down because as you rotate your hips and allow your legs to swing towards the ground you will find that you may have to push very hard with then hands in order to keep from rolling over. It's always a great idea to train at mixed tempos. I won't recommend slow and controlled movements all the time, because different speeds do different things, and a fast hip swing is very beneficial, just like a slow one can be.

If this is not a problem and you can bang out 20 to 30 reps, then it's time you graduate a step further up the ladder. Some ankle weights can be useful to further create a challenge especially if they're 5 lbs or greater per each weight. Or even a medicine ball between your ankles which helps you bring the adductors into play. Once that becomes simple let's make things a bit spicier by adding a plate to the mix. This next exercise really helps you hone in on the feeling you might get from the hanging windshield wipers because it adds rotation in two separate directions. You start as you would the lying hip swings except that you now hold a plate (10-25 lbs. is a great start). You allow your arms to drift in the opposite direction as your legs, and it activates the obliques to a very high tension to keep your spine supported.

Alright now that some of the strength aspects have been covered, lets work our way even further up that ladder and begin to get the body in a more realistic position and add some more changes in order to get this skill. The next version of the exercise is called a stability ball supine hip swing. The main difference between this and the hanging windshield wiper is that your weight is supported by the stability ball. However the hand position starts out wide, and as you get stronger you work your way in towards shoulder width. This presents a whole slew of unique challenges because the balls are not as quite of a stable surface as one might, but when you're hanging your core strength and overall ability to stay tight will be even more difficult than work on the ball. Once you get the hang of this, allow the ball to roll in the opposite direction that your legs go in; for instance if your legs swing to your left, the ball rolls a bit to the right.

Now that the technique is hopefully smoothing out, and your neuromuscular facilitation is where it should be, you want to make sure that you have the requisite strength to hold yourself up in these particular positions. Here's some exercise that we feel may help you attain this goal, seeing as if you've made it this far you're 75% give or take towards completion of the exercise. The hanging pike, or hanging leg raises as they're also known, help you maintain a tight position that is very similar to how you'll be, except parallel to the ground. You want to be able to hold this position for at least 5-10 seconds without swinging or arching your back in order to hold the windshield wiper. From there you want to make sure you can hold yourself parallel to the ground without falling, and this can become taxing to the the shoulder girdle, as well as the middle back, arms, and forearms. Basically you can hold on to some bars, and roll yourself up into a ball, until your back becomes parallel to the ground. If you can hold this for 10-15 seconds it's time to move on. This can be thought of as a position similar to that of a front lever, except that your legs are bent. Logically we would want to extend the legs, so extend your legs so that you form a 90 degree angle between your feet, and hips, and work on holding that for the same amount of time.

Now that you're somewhere between 3rd base and home plate it's a good idea to try out your skills and see if you can do it. If you can, then congratulations you've accomplished a new technique that is not as easy as it looks, and one that will help bring your core strength and rotational power to a whole new level. Here's what it looks like;

If for some reason things didn't work here's a couple of rotational core exercises that you can use to help you build some more strength before you re-attempt this exercise. The first is a ground based rotational exercise known as the Standing Russian Twist. You place a barbell against a wall, or in a corner, interlock your fingers at the very top of the barbell and while keeping your feet planted, hips straight, and head facing forward; allow the weight to drift towards your hips while keeping your arms as straight as possible. Another variation of this is to allow your feet to pivot, tack on some heavier weight and work at swinging the weight in an arc like movement from above the head to each hip.

 

The very last exercise to help supplement your strength is an Incline Russian Twist where you lock your feet under a decline bench, and then twist the weight in front of you as low as you can to each side while keeping the core engaged and very tight.

Ever walked in the gym with a game plan, knowing exactly what area you want to work on, but day in and day out the routine gets stagnant and boring. Well look no further, here's a few ideas that can help you get back on track, and a way to definitely bring some stares in the weight room. This article will be short and sweet, no fancy writings, just here's the picture, here's what it does, and leave the rest up to you.

The first exercise on the platter was the barbell sit-up. It's basically replacing the kettlebell, or dumbbell, or weight plate with a barbell. Lie down so that the barbell is over your chest, and as you rise up, the barbell is overhead.

The next one that we like is the barbell roll out; not every gym has ab-wheels, (evil wheels) and not every musclehead is secure enough with themselves to be caught using one of these. So get creative, add a plate on each side of the bar, and presto! A big boy, big girl ab wheel. Keep your back rounded, and extend as far out as you can comfortably.

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The last core exercise to be mentioned is the hanging lateral hip swings. This one is fun and you can clearly mix tempos to see what's right for you. Hang from a bar, (wider is better) and then swing your hips like a pendulum, this gives you lateral flexion using the legs as the weight. To make things hard, swing quick, and hold out as long as you can.

Now we shift our emphasis to the lower body. Twisting squats and circular squats are next on the agenda. I would strongly avoiding the temptation to load the weight up. Go for higher reps, especially on the twisting squats as this can improperly load the spine and cause injuries. The twisting squats is a bit difficult to explain, and a picture and video just does the job better. A circular squat is a wide stance squat in which you lower more towards one side, weave through to the other, and come up on the other side.

Twisting Squats-

Circular Squats-

Partner Leg Press- if you have a stability ball, and a willing partner this can bring some interesting stares. It's fun, and if the leg press is all tied up, hey you can still keep going. One person lays down with their feet on the ball, the other acts as the weight bearing down on them as much as they choose to.

Now we head over the medicine ball, this is just a couple of complexes I have my clients do to shake up the routine. You can be as creative as you want with reps, tempos, and leg position (straddled, or closed). The more balls you have access to, the better.

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To top things off we can finish with a barbell two handed anyhow. You can get in this as you would for a Turkish Get Up, or get into the anyhow position and have someone hand you the weight. Remember to squeeze tightly, or this thing will move a bit.

After some pondering, and questioning what else we could do with a barbell, the authors of All Around Strength decided to try and become flying squirrels using 2 Olympic bars, and 2 45 lb. plates. The set up is very simple, put a plate on each end of both bars, and all of a sudden you've got a nice set of parallettes.

But unlike solid parallettes these ones move sideways and offer a new plane of unstable training. Obviously if we had all day we could come up with all sorts of interesting exercises, but here's a few ideas. The main concept we were able to train well was abduction, and adduction.

So here are some of the exercises we came up with, and hopefully these can help spark some interest or give a new idea or two. I will say that if you do these, it's at your own risk, they're not very stable and it is very easy to fall or get injured.

Here's the barbell fly, and flying squirrel combined. Basically you get on the barbells however you can and fly your arms out, and straddle your legs so that you're spread out like a flying squirrel, and then bring them back together.

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The double barbell jackknife; essentially getting on two barbells and allowing your arms and legs to drift apart, and then closing them back up, as you would in a jackknife.

The angry cat, or semi dive bomber abduction and adduction; not sure how to describe it, just watch and see.

The double barbell bridge and curl; doing just a simple bridge on the barbells, and then allowing the legs to drift out, and curling them back.

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The amazing flying squirrel; essentially doing a fly and leg abduction simultaneously and then closing them back together. For some added variety you can go one leg at a time, or only go on one side a at a time.

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Nothing beats finishing with an L-Sit.

The handstand shrug is one of the best pound for pound exercises that develops the shoulder girdle, upper back, and overall shoulder stability. The secret to this rather low tech high effect exercises is that the only real equipment necessary is some sort of wall, if you're really good at handstand balance then you need nothing but a surface. To explain this exercise I'd like to say that this is a great exercise to practice and train when you are beginning the progressions to handstand push ups of HSPU. It helps with overall kinesthetic spatial awareness when inverted, and also helps to train your balance and core stability. This exercise can be done for high repetitions or can ROM can be exaggerated and you can shoot for lower quality reps. Either way you can be assured that your strength level for overhead or handstand movements will increase.

Ok so the mechanics work along the lines of this;

Choose a sturdy surface to do this on, and a sturdy one (if you need it) to rest your legs against. I recommend about a foot away from the wall, and then a kick up so that you're feet gently hit the wall.

You want to make sure you don't put holes in it, especially if it's indoors. From there you want to make sure that your arms are stable and locked, there should be no pain at this moment, if there is re-evaluate what you are doing, something may not be right.

Allow yourself to lower down with some bending in your elbows, you will feel your trapezius engage, and your serratus as well for frontal shoulder stability. Once you reach the end of your ROM, shrug your shoulders upwards, and this will move your body up 1-3 inches, maybe more depending on flexibility and genetics.

That's the major idea of this exercise, there are however different ways to practice this, such as hand placement being close together, shoulder width, or wide. I recommend shoulder width directly overhead with your shoulders against the side of your head. You can keep a slight arch in your back, and for balance sake I prefer to watch the ground to make sure I'm not shifting in any particular direction.

Some other variations to keep in mind are adding ankle weights for progression, doing this on a stability disk, or wobble board, one handed, and one handed holding a weight in the other hand. You can also use bands creatively by looping the band around the back of your neck and the opposite end on the arch of your foot, although this can be dangerous if there is much sudden movement. You can also add a weighted vest, or more preferably a weighted belt. Now get out there and shrug away.

This was a spur of the moment thing I wanted to try out, and get some pictures for. Basically I took my car out in the driveway, pointed it straight, and pushed it towards one end of the neighborhood, and when it got near the end, ran to the front, stopped it, and pushed it back in the opposite direction.

So what did I learn? To be honest, I think I found the solution to a weak forward pressing movement, and an effective low cost alternative to the hack squat. Especially if the car is being pushed uphill. I suppose had I lashed some webbing around the tow rings, I would have been able to incorporate pulling as well, but we'll save that for another occasion. All in all this is just a heavier version of the sled, with pushing capabilities. One method I heard of to really save space is to drive to an empty parking lot, have a partner get in the car, and allign it for you, then throw the car in neutral and let you push it from one end to another. Then they turn the car around, or you merely switch from the back to the front and push it towards the opposite end of the lot. Anyway you look at it, if you have a car, why not give it a break?

If you are like me, and can do a pistol, but need to barely grasp something to keep from falling over, then this technique might help you fix it. First of all, I have some genetic disadvantage with pistols, that is that I have a short torso, and long limbs, in fact I have very long femurs, and things like squatting or lunging can be a bit more difficult. Nonetheless, I find that when I squat and have my butt resting on the back of my heels, my tibialis anterior gets very tense, and over time gets sore. So I figure that the best way to tackle my balance problem would be to work in a progression based format. First off I spend 5 minutes standing on my cheap Gold's Gym wobble board to get my proprio-receptors ready for the task at hand. Then I do some dynamic squatting to loosen up the movement. Then I'll begin sitting in a deep squat for a couple of minutes and move my upper body around with my feet planted to prepare me for the next progression. The next one is a bit tricky for lanky folks who have longer legs. Sit down in the deep squat as before, and then shift your body either to the left or right. If you shift to the left, then you should point your right leg forward mimicking the correct posture of the pistol at the bottom portion. Hold for 5 to 10 seconds. Then alternate to the right side and point your left leg forward. I like to do this 3 or 4 times on each side, before the next progression. Next I will stand on my wobble board and squat down in a deep squat while maintaining balance for about a minute. Then I will get into that deep squat again and shift my weight from side to side, as was mentioned before with the opposite leg pointing forward. This is very difficult if you are not good at repping out pistols. Then I like to stand up and perform bench or box pistols. Basically perform a pistol with a box or bench to sit on, and after you feel comfortable and stable, then go ahead and give the real pistol a shot.

I thought I would update this article, and make it a continous one so that as I learn new things, I can share them with anyone. So if the aforementioned balanced training, helped but you're still having a bit of a problem, then why not try adding a counter balance to the equation. The homemade medicine ball I use, is just the perfect size, shape and weight to be an effective counter balance. Holding it out in front of you adds just enough counter balance (in most cases) to allow you to squat down without falling over. Here's some pictures.

The first one illustrates that I bring the squatting leg closer in to my midline in order to maintain an even balance.

Here's the starting position with the ball

Here's the bottom portion of the movement.

Lastly here is the ascent

One last thing, my legs are very long in proportion to my torso, and so getting the technique down was very difficult, but I found one of the best ways to ease into this exercise without trashing my knees, was to get inside of a squat rack or smith machine, and bring my arms behind my back and hold onto the sides. So as I lowered myself, I used my arms for assistance, and guidance to keep from falling over. It may be very helpful to work on getting the technique down well, before attempting it free style, by this I mean getting used to maintaining a straight movement, so that when you do this without assistance you won't fall over as much.