When Your Fitness Goes Sideways

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When it goes sideways

You just need to do it more!

That was pretty much the take home lesson from listening to renown strength coach, Robert Dos Remedios, talking about improving athletic performance.

What was “it”?

Coach Dos, as he is affectionately known as, was referring to working more frontal plane exercises. What are frontal plane exercises?

In DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training we have them in two categories. The first being those movements where we move to the side. The other is resisting lateral movement.

Moving laterally is one option in DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training

Um, what muscles does that work?

Believe it or not, moving in different directions doesn’t use completely the same muscles. Most importantly some of the smaller muscles of the hip and trunk get hit differently.

This is a big reason Coach Dos believes that using frontal plane exercises are so important to both fitness and performance goals. When the smaller hip and trunk muscles get worked, your body becomes stronger and more injury resistant.

Resisting lateral motion like Arc Presses is another great example

Why doesn’t this just happen when you perform the standard up and down lifts like squats, deadlifts, rows, and presses? Our bodies are lazy! They don’t care we want to be leaner, look better, or great at sports!

When we are really stable like we see in the traditional lifts, the smaller muscles don’t feel like they have to work. This is the same reason we don’t use machines, because the more supported our bodies, the less muscles we actually use.

I like using frontal plane DVRT Ultimate Sandbag exercises due to the fact they are able to achieve several goals at once….

-We can make an exercise like a squat, press, row, clean, etc. all more challenging by moving more frontal plane without actually ever changing the weight.

-You activate more muscles making exercises more efficient.

-Frontal plane exercises help you build flexibility in ways the other movements can not!

Have you ever done something like a lateral lunge? Most people if they have never done such an exercise get sore, REALLY sore. Even though they have lunged, squatted, etc., just by moving a different direction the body sees it as something completely different.

Your DVRT Ultimate Sandbag workouts don’t have to go all frontal plane, but I thought today I would show you how you COULD do such a thing. This DVRT Ultimate Sandbag workout combines both elements of moving in the frontal plane and resisting the frontal plane.