Ultimate Sandbag Training Big 6 Part 3

I really hope the past two DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training blogs have accomplished a few big goals. One, that you know what we are trying to achieve and what we consider exercises that give the best idea of the unique attributes of DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training. The second is then how do we use the system of DVRT to help you become successful in building to these movements and then excelling at them.

We have spoken about Lateral Drags and MAX Lunges HERE and Shouldering and Arc Presses HERE. That leaves us with Shoveling and our Shoulder Sprinter Squat to the why’s and how’s gaining the full power of DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training.

Shoulder Sprinter Squat

With all the different types of squatting that DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training offers, how did we come up with the Shoulder Sprinter Squat? The Shoulder position is one of the most difficult to use well because it is forcing us to both produce and resist force at the same time. We have to resist the weight pulling us to the side and rotation at the same time. This is a great illustration of how we use DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training to build true functional fitness.

The Sprinter Squat was something that we started using about 15 years ago. Just like our discussion of the single leg deadlift (HERE), we realized getting to more single leg squat dominate exercises was tough for people. Watching how athletes stand and prepare to move, it dawned on me that this type of stance is actually more athletic of the typical squat stance we take in the gym.

The idea of the Sprinter Stance squat was something that old time lifters used to make smaller barbells feel much heavier and the value of single leg training was far greater!

As I started playing with in my training and those of my clients I was surprised how much people liked it. Going to a Sprinter Stance we build some slight instability and actually have a bit more freedom of the hips to move. The people that actually find this type of squat challenging are those that are SO use to the classic squat they can’t quite grasp the Sprinter Stance.

It is simple though, we are looking at about 60% to the front leg and 40% of the ball of foot of back foot. This helps with the fact that our knee will be going forward of the toes of the back foot but with our weight distribution this doesn’t cause issues in the knee. If there is any discomfort simply try to widen the stance and point both feet slightly outwards.

In order to help understand these DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training principles we want to use a series of progressions that might confuse some people. That would be….

-Press Out Squat

-Bear Hug Squat

-Front Load Squat

-Bear Hug Sprinter Squat

-Front Load Sprinter Squat

-Shoulder Sprinter Squat

-Bilateral Sprinter Squat

Why is the bilateral Shoulder Sprinter Squat last? When the hips are in the fixed position it can be the hardest for people to squat well even though we are unevenly loaded. In fact, it might not be possible to even do it depending upon injury history, structure, and other factors. However, Shoulder Sprinter Squat is something that gives us huge benefits, but it something we can reach with great training!

Shoveling

There are many drills that we love in our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training system, but sometimes we get hesitant to spend a lot of time showing them because we are worried that people won’t pay attention to the details of the movement. Shoveling falls under that category and it is a tremendous DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training from many aspects.

This IS one of our DVRT kettlebell swing variations that takes our training into the plane of motion most people miss which is the transverse plane (rotation). Why is it important to train power in this manner?

DVRT Master, Paige Fleischmann, shows how the MAX lunge and shoveling relate to the kettlebell swing. 

The hardest part about Shoveling is the footwork that we must own for not just Shoveling but all our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training rotational training that DVRT Master, Steve Holiner demonstrates.

Now that we are paralleling Shoveling like the kettlebell swing, we have to consider the long lever arm that this DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training exercise creates. In order to absorb the force coming back down onto the body we have do two things.

The first and most important is catching the weight with our hips. Like any of our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training power moves, we don’t want to catch the weight with our arms, but rather our hips. That means being able to get down and back quickly with the hips while quickly using our footwork too. That is why building something like Shoveling begins with foundational movements like our DVRT Rotational Press Outs, Overhead Presses, and Rotational Deadlifts.

While these DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training deadlifts set our foundation, building to more reactive power like rotational high pulls comes next! DVRT UK master, Greg Perlaki, shows how we want to not lose our spinal alignment and how we use the second concept of pulling the handles apart to keep the tension in the RIGHT parts of the body!

This allows us to finally build to Shoveling. Hopefully, most of all you are seeing how our progressions in DVRT help us learn the concepts of each movement without having to stop training. Instead of just banging our head against the wall to learn a “cool” DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training exercise, we use progression as the best teacher of all. That means we can eventually use these great drills like DVRT Master, Cory Cripe shows and of course we had to have him show Shoveling while in the snow (you get the pun we hope;).

This is what DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training is really all about. How to be thoughtful in using exercise to teach our body to function at its highest levels!