2015-06-7
It is probably the two biggest mistakes people make in developing functional fitness programs. After all, functional training is supposed to be an integrated approach to fitness and movement, but unfortunately far too many fitness pros still make it isolated. What do I mean?
Look at how most of us talk about what drills you should perform, we talk in individual movement patterns. Such as…
– Squat
– Hinge
– Horizontal Pull
etc.
The reality is that real life movement involves us performing multiple movements at one time. The goal of functional training SHOULD be to teach people how to integrate and perform multiple movement patterns in sequence. That is why we wanted to show how easy and purposeful it can be in this month’s Metabolic Stability.
The deadlift and row are pretty much peanut butter and jelly. Both involve a hip hinge, both utilize a plank, and combining both helps us use the upper back as both a stabilizer and a prime mover. Pretty cool, pretty simple. One of the most unspoken benefits of using this combination is the benefit it can have to one another.
In the case of the row, most people do not possess the core endurance to maintain the right position to perform a good bent row. You see them creeping up in their posture and get out of position. Using the deadlift in between repetitions allows the client to “rest” and accumulate volume of good core work over time.
With the deadlift, people often are in such a rush to just get through the movement they really miss the power of the “end points”. Both the top and bottom of the deadlift have HUGE value, adding a bent-row impacts specifically the bottom position where people tend to get out of position really easily especially as you move them through some of the progressions in this month’s Metabolic Stability.
Kettlebell Deadlift and Row Progressions
Kettlebells and Ultimate Sandbags offer actually pretty different and unique benefits to using either through these progressions. When we use the kettlebell for Sprinter and Rear Step Deadlift and Row combinations the main difference is we have the opportunity to the load on either side of the body. This allows us to build strong frontal plane stability, anti-rotational forces, and pulling strength.
The more we change the body alignment, the greater the demand on the entire body to both create a more stable foundation and still produce force to lift appreciable loads. As we move through our body positions in this kettlebell series you will see it is not only more difficult to lift the same weight of kettlebell, but also maintain alignment. This means that a beginner and advanced individual can use the same load in different ways, although performing the same movements!
Ultimate Sandbag Deadlift Training and Row Progressions
Ultimate Sandbags serve some great advantages in teaching the deadlift, especially in different planes of motion. The Ultimate Sandbag itself gives valuable feedback upon squatting versus hip hinging. Almost more importantly, it allows us to move in many different directions. After all, we want to see not just how you move up and down, but how you are able to replicate these functional patterns
Moving in different frontal and transverse plane motions gives us a lot of feedback upon on compensations in movement. People will often be able to perform the deadlift and row in the sagittal plane, but begin to add more movement and they tend to lack the ability to reproduce the quality of the drill. This shows us actually a lack of real functional strength. We want to progress in not just load, but in movement to help build movement capability in all planes and angles.
Check out how we you can maximize your training with these 4 kettlebell and Ultimate Sandbag Training progressions and how you can have an elite gym with minimal equipment!
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