How Better “Brakes” Make You Real World Strong

Yesterday I got to share an interview (you can listen HERE) I did with one of my favorite coaches, Robert Dos Remedios (Coach Dos). Every time I speak with Coach Dos I see things a bit clearer and get more ideas. Especially when it comes to helping people understand the HUGE value in things that people make look at in DVRT that could look like they aren’t THAT big of a deal!

Probably one of the most important aspects of functional fitness that people simply ignore, don’t know about, and flat out miss is deceleration training. I get it, no one goes to the gym with the goal if building their deceleration strength, but if I asked you the following what would you say?

-Do you want to know how to build more resilient knees?

-You want to train the hamstrings as they are designed to function?

-Is developing real world power important to your results?

-Do you want to help people improve their balance and agility?

My guess is that you probably said yes to all these things. Guess what? They are all related to how well you can decelerate your body during movement.

People have tons of knee issues and we often tell them they need to strengthen their hamstrings. Well, they are right, but your hamstrings act more to decelerate the knee than they do anything we see on a hamstring curl. That is why drills like what DVRT Master, Greg Perlaki, shows are so incredibly effective as much as they are challenging!

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxhY56kHi5u/

Some of the keys of the above DVRT exercise is connecting the lats/core with the hamstrings and glutes. Yes, we flex the knee, but we do so with the extension of the hips and connection of the upper chain. However, everything really comes together as you learn to lower yourself under the amazing control you see Greg use!

This is good for building a foundation, but the REALLY good stuff happens as we start standing and learn to move in more functional positions. For years, we have been kinda the “weird ones” in fitness that believed even drills like squats and deadlifts should have movement more than up and down to them. People had a hard time understanding why, but the reason is for THESE very reasons of deceleration.

You can see above how Jessica uses specific patterns of stepping and holding our Ultimate Sandbag to not only build the muscles of the trunk and lower body, but to teach them how to function together to produce qualities like deceleration, stability, and functional strength. So many people as they move into these different patterns simply collapse in the quality of their movement and lose the patterns. That is a HUGE red flag in building real world strength.

When we begin to understand the functional training is more than a philosophy, but a methodology of strength training we start to see what we do in the gym differently. Workouts that may have seemed odd or like “circus tricks” you see the great value they provide.

DVRT Master Cory Cripe and his team show this very theme in this dynamic workout below. Is this advanced training? Heck yea it is! It shows that true functional strength training isn’t just what we can lift or doing odd movements, but putting together the science of movement with practical strength ideas.

These movements are built off strong foundations and what makes them so powerful isn’t the exercises by themselves, but the process of teaching the body how to perform such drills with great fluidity and seamless motion. If you don’t think this builds strength and so much more, you are missing out on what functional strength really means!

Find out how we combine DVRT with real world athletic based training that makes fitness so much more than what we do in the gym. Discover the much BIGGER world of brining strength to life with Coach Dos’ new Chaos 2.o program HERE