Ultimate Sandbag Training Perfect Upper Body Exercise

If you couldn’t tell by our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training posts, we think kinda differently over here. I love the idea that sports journalist, Dan Le Batard says, “I’m not telling you what to think, I’m asking you if you want to think.” Ultimately, believe it or not, whatever you choose to do for your fitness is totally up to you. What I hope to do with DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training is not even get people using sandbags, but having them become more thoughtful about how they spend their time training.

It is kinda funny. People, even fitness pros, say that time is always an issue for them to train. Well, it makes sense then that you would want to be as efficient with your training as possible. That is why when people ask me if this or that exercise is good a lot of it comes down to context. Your goal, your history, your reality. We want you to use DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training to solve goals, not just train with “sandbags”

A great example is really understanding what makes one exercise better than another. Such as when people ask me if bench pressing is good for them? Well, depends really on your goals. If you just want muscle mass, then why not. However, if you are training the body to be strong in the real world as well as the gym you may want to think a bit differently.

Pushing in the real world is rarely just based upon how big, strong, and developed the chest, shoulders, and triceps appear. They are part of a bigger picture of how the body actually works. For example, spine specialist, Dr. Stuart McGill, talks about what happens when you look at how pushing is done in a more real world environment.

“in training, our recent work demonstrated how an individual can only bench press half of their body weight when standing—otherwise they would push themselves over. While laying, bench press performance was primarily governed by the chest and shoulder musculature, whereas standing press performance was governed by core strength, particularly one-arm presses. Thus, the limiting factor in standing press ability was core strength.”

Interesting right?! It makes you wonder what we are REALLY training for when we give different exercises out. This is a BIG reason that I like push-up variations instead of bench pressing for people. Learning how to integrate their whole body into a pushing action is SO much more beneficial than just focusing on a few muscles. Oh, and if you don’t think you can get buff doing bodyweight, talk to this guy!

Now the problem with push-ups tends to be that they fall on either end of the spectrum. Some people just can’t get them and they end up with painful wrists and shoulders. While others can knock out 100’s of them and simply get bored.

Let’s talk about both sides and how DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training. The most important in my mind is showing people they CAN do push-ups, it just depends where they start!!! It may shock many, but going to your knees and doing push-ups isn’t really the answer. That is because the way most people perform kneeling push-ups loses a lot of the integration of the lower body and core. They think it is just an upper body exercise when it is a total body movement.

So, where do you REALLY need to start? DVRT Master, Ara Keshishian, breaks down important progressions to learning how to get your body right for proper push-ups. Plus, you will be shocked how these DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training progressions change how you see building a stronger upper body!

Great, you know where to start, but where can you go? I see lots of people put weight on their body as they do push-ups and that is fine, but NOT as good as what I am going to suggest. If you understand what Dr. McGill was saying about our pushing strength, we want to continue to challenge how our core, legs, AND arms work together to create STRONGER movement. One of the best ways of doing so is going to more and more single arm movements.

Let’s face it though, single arm push-ups are pretty brutal and even Rocky was cheating a bit on them (I know, I gasped too!) The key with the one-arm push-up is to limit your rotation and leverage. You see, a lot of people really change their body position and change so much about their one-arm push-up it loses the essence of the movement. What we CAN do to teach a better one-arm push-up is teach how to still subtly use the other side to create deliberate tension and stability. That is why I think one of the VERY best and MOST overlooked upper body movements in our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training Lateral Drag with supported push-up. It might be the namesake, or the fact people REALLY don’t know what they are trying to achieve.

UFC Champion, Tyrone Woodly, knows the value of a powerful upper body, but knows you don’t throw a punch with your arm!

By holding onto the outside handle and creating deliberate tension we are still using that side of the body to create strength and stability. It is one of the PERFECT ways to bridge that true single-arm push-up. Want to see how and check out where we can go from there? DVRT Master, Ian Vaughn, does a great job of building and progressing this powerful Ultimate Sandbag Training movement.

We are busier than ever, we are stretched in our lives more than ever, we have to be smarter about our fitness…more than ever! So, if you are interested in how to make your training better and more efficient I hope you will check out our DVRT workouts HERE. Oh, did I mention they are ALL 25% off with coupon code “holiday”? Now you REALLY have no reason not to make 2017 your strongest and healthiest year yet!