Secret to Unlocking Movement with Ultimate Sandbag Training

This past weekend I had the wonderful pleasure of doing a staff training at Equinox in Toronto. Even though I have been doing these trainings for a short amount of time, they are becoming one of my favorite projects. It isn’t just explaining and sharing DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training, but really thinking much more big picture about fitness.

It was REALLY cold in Toronto!

How do I mean?

When you go into a facility like Equinox you quickly realize that these commercial gyms have many of the “cool” tools that many think a bigger gym wouldn’t go for. If you made me bet if I would see weightlifting platforms in commercial gyms 20 years ago I would have lost some serious money! Now you see it all, suspension trainers, racks of kettlebells, weightlifting, bands, medicine ball varieties, and yes, more and more DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training.

So, why do I enjoy these trainings so much? Largely because we can have the BIGGER discussions. What I mean is that they don’t have to worry about not having all the tools, so we talk about what is the RIGHT tool and how do we create better programs. The discussion is more about training, movement, and progressions than it is tools.

We discuss not what is “good” or “bad”, but trying to explain what is BETTER! When I often show a new drill (Ultimate Sandbag Training or not) people without knowing it have an interesting conversation in their heads.

When they FEEL and experience how powerful our DVRT concepts across the board are, the question they start asking themselves is, “does it make what I was doing before bad?” I like to get out in front of this and tell them of course not. Well, assuming it wasn’t a bad exercise to begin with:P

The moral of the story is that when we find something better it shouldn’t mean that something else was “bad”. Many things in life evolve or grow and we encourage it, fitness should really be no different!

A great example is a DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training drill that is simply hard to give the true power of over the internet. You can watch the videos, but until you perform it, DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training Press Out progressions are hard to envision being any better than bands, cables, kettlebells, etc. So, what IS the difference and how do we get BETTER?!

One key concept that I talk about over and over again in DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training is how important grip is to everything we do. It doesn’t matter the tool, creating an intentional grip allows us to activate the lats as well as the core. Simply being aware of our grip can change our positioning, alignment, strength, and what we feel.

Sure, you can Press Out a dumbbell, kettlebell, whatever, but I am telling you it isn’t the same. Why? Partly because of the role dimension plays in DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training. As the joke goes, size does matter because of where it positions our shoulders and therefore what we can get from the lats/core.

The other part is that the Ultimate Sandbag is pliable. That means we not only start with a good position for the shoulder, but actually being able to “pull apart” the Ultimate Sandbag gives us better tension and results.

Now, when we combine this with our Core Strap to build on the Pallof Press we have something really special. For those that may not be familiar, the Pallof Press was created by a physical therapist to teach what we REALLY want from core strength and stability.

That is learning how to brace, resist movement, and integrating the lower and upper body into our core training. Connecting the chains of the body allows us to instantly improve movement quality and strength. Many times the Pallof Press is performed with a cable or band, that isn’t a bad thing.

As anyone that has done this before will tell you, using a band or cable makes it difficult to create tension in both hands. It is the just the logistics of trying to hold onto the handle of the band/cable. That means one side of the body isn’t working well and we get a less effective result.

The solution? You guessed it, we combine elements of our DVRT tools to create Ultimate Sandbag Training exercises that take the intention of this great exercise and makes it so much better.

Once you get the foundations, we can use these variations to amplify the power of the Pallof Press in more dynamic movements. You will find these to be wonderful Ultimate Sandbag Training exercises to improve hip/shoulder mobility while really “waking up” a lot of the small core stabilizers that most people can never get going. Best fo all, you will FEEL these movements and find they are quite the workout.

It isn’t about someone being right or wrong, innovation is often about taking a good idea and making it just better! Try these Ultimate Sandbag Training progressions and see what we are really talking about!

Love training like this? Check out DVRT Master, Cory Cripe’s Movement Strength programs where he shows you how to make these some of the most effective workouts you have ever experienced. Save 30% with coupon code “holiday” HERE