When I first began delving into Strength and Conditioning literature after I got out of college, I was given a copy of a strength training documentary about Werner Gunthor called, L’heritage d’une carriere, by my friend Dan Cenidoza
At the time, I was reading a lot of the materials from the NSCA, and even though they were much more geared toward strength training than the bodybuilding magazines I read in college, even the NSCA manuals did not prepare me for the type of training I would see in this video.
To my dismay, I somehow lost my copy of the tape and had not watched it in years, but I was able to find it recently, in its entirety on YouTube. (more…)
Knee injuries are some of the most common pests among athletes and anyone who is active. The knee joint is subjected to the highest forces during physical activity because it is between the two longest levers and it is surrounded by the most powerful muscles in the body. An athlete must be able to run, jump, and cut with the utmost efficiency while minimizing the probability of injury.
Knee stability is the ability to keep the knee in proper alignment under significant stresses and forces while your body is in motion. Increasing knee stability will increase performance and decrease the likelihood of injuries not just to the knees, but above and below the knees.
Ankle Mobility
Surprisingly, knee stability starts with ankle mobility. When the ankle does not have enough range of motion to complete a movement, the knee is likely to be forced out of alignment to compensate for this deficit.
The following two exercises will improve ankle mobility during dorsal flexion to minimize compensation by the knee and increase knee stability:
Wall Touch with Knees
Coaching Cues
Stand with your feet flat and toes almost touching the wall. You need to be far enough away from the wall so you can bend both knees until they touch the wall while keeping your heels on the floor. Make sure that your big toes, knees, hips and shoulders are square facing straight towards the wall and that your heels stay on the floor. You should be able to feel the stretch in your feet, ankles and calves. Your knees may be a bit stiff, so don’t be surprised.
After successfully touching your knees against the wall while keeping your feet flat, take a small step back (about 2 inches) and repeat. Continue to work yourself away from the wall to the point where you can no longer keep your feet flat and heals heels down. You should eventually be able to touch the wall with correct foot positioning at the previous distance you were unable to and in the process loosen up your knees, ankles and feet.
Calf Stretch
Coaching Cues
Place both hands in front of you on the wall right below shoulder height and lean forward as if you were pushing the wall away from you. Take a big step back with your left foot as you continue to push against the wall. You want to feel a stretch in the left calf muscle. Keep your left foot, knee and hips pointed straight ahead towards the wall.
Try to keep your left foot flat as you stretch your left ankle, calf and all the way up into your hip. This exercise can be used as part of your dynamic warm-up or part of your post-workout stretching to decrease soreness and increase flexibility. To utilize this exercise before a workout you want to stay in motion. Once you feel the stretch along the back of your left leg, alternate feet by stepping forward with the left leg into a lunge position and back with the right leg to be straightened and stretched.
As a warm-up, the actual stretch should take approximately 5 seconds. When using this stretch at the end of a workout I would recommend holding it for a minimum of 30 seconds and repeating it at least twice on both sides.
Strengthening the Glutes
Weak glute muscles lead to a lack of leg stability and also increase the probability of knee injuries. I always tell my clients, “it is all about the glutes,” because it truly is. Glutes are the largest muscle in the human body. Our large glutes keep us walking upright, which and is one of the biggest anatomical differences between us and apes. Strong glutes protect not only the knees but the lower back. The glutes are the major player of the core and surround the body’s center of gravity.
Lateral Tube Walk
This lateral tube walking exercise will activate and strengthen the glutes.
Coaching Cues
Grab a light to medium resistance band/tubing. Stand on the center of the resistance band holding each end in opposite hands so the band crosses in front of you. Once the band is crossed in front of you, bring your hands up to shoulder height. The end of the band coming from under your right left foot should be held onto by the right hand in front of the right shoulder.
Just as in the previous two exercises you will want to keep your big toes, knees, hips, and shoulders facing straight ahead. Take a step to your side without leaning over with your upper body and without turning your foot out. Take two more steps to the side, now take three steps back to the starting position in the opposite direction. Complete 15 repetitions in each direction. You want to make sure you are stepping out to the side with the outside of your lead hip. This will ensure that you are feeling it and working the hip abductors and the gluteus medius and minimus (deep hip muscles along the back and sides).
There is a tendency to turn the lead foot out which will activate the wrong muscle, the Tensor Fascia Latte (TFL) and psoas (hip flexors). Watch the video below and you will see how the athlete, Badger, turns his feet out. Try to avoid this while doing this exercise.
Single Leg Glute Bridge
A single leg stability ball glute bridge works the deep stabilizer muscles of the hip, gluteus medius and minimus. Master this exercise with both feet on the floor first before advancing to the single leg bridge. You should be able to hold your shoulders, hips, and knees in a straight line and parallel to the floor for a minimum of 1 minute and 30 seconds before advancing to the single leg bridge:
Coaching Cues
Sit on an exercise/stability ball that is the correct size for your height. One way to quickly assess this is by getting into the correct starting position for this exercise. If your head is not level with your knees, then you need to find one that will place your head at the same height as your knees when lying down with the back of your head and shoulders supported on the ball and feet flat on the floor. The butt/hips should be raised to the same height as your head and knees.
Finally I leave you with a fully integrated exercise that challenges not only knee stability, but total body stability, coordination, and balance. A single leg dead lift with a wood chop is a must in anyone’s program.
Straight Leg Deadlift (SLDL) with Wood Chopper
Coaching Cues
Hold a 5 lb medicine ball or dumbbell with both hands. While balancing on one foot slightly bend the balancing leg’s knee and keep the knee bent throughout the exercise. Next bend forward from the hip as is if you were gently placing the item on the floor to the outside of the balancing leg’s foot. The opposite foot and leg will raise up behind you at the same rate the upper body is descending towards the floor, maintaining a straight line with your spine. Stop your descent using the large muscles in the back of your balancing leg right before you’re able to set the dumbbell or ball on the ground. Return to a standing position and twist the ball over the shoulder opposite your balancing leg.
You want to feel the large muscles in the back of the leg (glutes and hamstrings) doing the movement. The stability foot will want to curl up, which is likely to cause fatiguing in the foot, ankle and calf before the larger muscle groups. Focus on keeping your weight back on your heel, keeping your foot from trying to grab the floor, curling up, and using the glute to lift you up by driving through your heel.
We need a strong foundation upon which to build our strength. Mobility and stability precede strength and should be prioritized in programming accordingly to build and maintain your foundation. To squat, first you must be able to squat to parallel (mobility and range of motion) without losing your balance (stability) and with correct form. Only then can you safely lift anything beyond your own body weight.
Nick Outlaw blogs at www.outlawfit.com. Nick is nationally certified through American College of Sports Medicine as a personal trainer and has helped hundreds of clients change their lives in the 8 years he has been training. His experience includes, but is not limited to college and pro athletes, sports specific, strength and conditioning, functional training, post rehabilitation patients, a physical therapy clinical setting, and general fitness, toning and weight loss. Nick has a BS from the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. While attending college he competed in the Power Lifting and endurance competitions where he placed in the top three every time. His Senior Research project was an in depth study of ideal body images in American culture.
When I go to the water park, I like to hit a full body contraction before I go down the water slides as well.
I’m the kind of guy that when I hear about something new or different, I just have to give it a try.
When I started hearing more and more about this Vince Gironda guy and his 8 X 8 Keep-You-Honest Workout, I thought it was a bunch of hype and probably nothing to be impressed by.
However, before I make any judgements, like I said, I like to give it a try, so I did.
I scanned down through it to see what it entailed and how I could fit it or part of it into my routine this week.
Since Tuesday was Upper Body Workout day for me, I chose the first combination in the report, which was targeting Upper Body, specifically Chest, Shoulders, Back and Triceps. There is also a workout for legs and a workout for arms, but I have not tried them.
Here is the exercise layout for the 8 X 8 Upper Body Day:
Section I: Bench and Dips
Gironda calls for Wide Grip Bench Press to the Neck (with the feet up) and Bodyweight Dips on V-shaped Dip Bars. I did not do these exactly, for a few reasons.
First off, I think my shoulders would hate me the next day if I benched to my neck with a wide grip. Younger dudes that are more limber than me might be able to do that without pain, but baseball wreaked too much havoc on my shoulders all those years, so I do not try stuff like that anymore, so instead I did Close Grip Bench and although I don’t normally bench with my feet up, I gave it a try (made it much more chest/tricep specific, for sure).
Section II: Sternum Pull-ups with Pull-downs to the Sternum
Gironda’s instruction calls for maximized range of motion, and suggested performing both the Pull-ups and Pull-downs so that the chinning bar and pull-down bar touched the chest. I want as far as I could here. I like the idea of pulling that far, unfortunately, tightness throughout my upper body kept me from doing this very well. I did however really focus on pulling the bar down solely with my lats, as Gironda suggested. This created an awesome pump.
Section III: Side Lateral Raises with “Dumbbell Swings”
I put Dumbbell Swings in quotes, because the movement he describes is most likely not what most of you think of when you think of Dumbbell Swings, which somewhat resembles a Snatch with a straight arm. However, in watching the video, I see what he is talking about, as the motion kind of resembles the Pirate Ship Ride at the amusement park and how the ride swings back and forth.
Here is video of my Gironda Upper Body 8 X 8 Workout:
I enjoyed this workout. Like I said, I welcome a challenge and enjoy trying new things.
Because of the short rest periods (only about 30 seconds between sets – “Keeping You Honest”) I had to employ rest pause in many of my sets. I just did not have the endurance and recuperative abilities to finish off all of the sets any other way.
I started out too heavy in the bench press. If I had longer rest periods and was not pairing the Bench work with Dip work, I could have gotten all four sets of the Bench at 225, but I busted it down to just 185 during the third set in order to get better reps in.
I had to cut most of the last set of Chin-ups short because I just couldn’t do any more reps. I was literally so fatigued I could not do any more reps.
I really liked the Lateral Raise + Drawn Bow combination. I would like to try Military Press followed by the Drawn Bow sometime to see how that feels.
Conclusion:
I liked this workout. In a way it is nice to have some workouts already set up for you so that you can just go in and take a challenge. Couple that with the fact that supposedly Gironda used this training program with his bodybuilding clients and celebrities who all had fantastic results, and it seems to be a pretty good workout.
Incidentally, I was thinking during the workout that I would be viciously sore, so I wanted to wait a day before posting this, and to my surprise the soreness is not that bad at all. I feel pretty confident that I could train today without it affecting my session too much, except if I were going to train Grippers. I think my chest and shoulders would be too fatigued to get a good set on a high level Gripper. You know what that means – Pinch and Thick Bar day!
Download the report and check out this workout through this link: Gironda’s 8 X 8 Workout / Report. Give it a try and post back here, I’d be interested in hearing how you did.
I hope you are kicking ass so hard in the gym that the PR’s are paying you to take it easy on them.
First off, I am sorry for starting the earthquake earlier this week. I was working Two Hands Pinch using some black-hat, ninja-style, Outlaw-Diesel methods of training and it accidentally slipped out of my grasp.
The weight was so tremendous that it set off a tectonic plate collision in the Richmond, Virginia area. Jay DeMayo tried to take the credit, but he is not the one to blame.
Sorry, Washington Monument
My bad about the damage to the Washington Monument. I’ve heard they’ve been looking for a reason to shut that thing down anyway, so I guess I did them a favor.
(In all seriousness, I hope everyone is safe and that damages can be taken care of soon.)
Anyway, I wanted to share a video with you guys that I took last Saturday in Scranton PA at the USA Powerlifting Nationals.
I went down to watch my buddies, Paul Tompkins and Mike Turpin compete. Paul and Mike have submitted a lot of videos to my Weekly Grip Challenge, so i wanted to go down and give them some support!
According to Paul, he lifted 451 in the Bench, 644 in the Squat and 655 in the Deadlift, totaling 1750.
Mike got 358 in the Bench, 391 in the Squat and 557 in the Deadlift, totaling 1306. Awesome job guys.
I also wanted to mention that Mike Turpin is developing some of the nastiest forearms I’ve ever seen. He showed me his freaky Brachioradialis and I had nightmares for two straight nights. According to Mike, he has done no direct forearm work from this. It has all come from Grip Training, like Gripper work, Pinching, and lifting Hex Head Dumbbells by the Head.
So there’s yet another reason to start Grip Training if you haven’t already done so. The time under tension packs serious muscles on your lower arms!
Also, Mike told me that several months ago, Paul attempted a near-600-lb Deadlift and could get it nowhere near lockout. Judging by the fact that I watched him pull 659 with EEEEEASE, the Grip Training must be paying off.
Mind you, these guys are doing a variety of stuff. They are trying the challenges I put out each week and they are doing some other stuff on their own. Hitting the hands from multiple angles like this has improved their General Grip Strength tremendously.
Mike says he used to not be able to close a #1 Gripper, and now he is mashing the #2 each workout. Also, between his lifts and Paul’s there was about a two-hour break in the action, so Turpin, another buddy of mine, Mike Puchalski, and I went out to my car and did some work with the Vulcan-2 that I had for Puchalski. If memory serves, Mike toyed with the Level 10 like he was reading a newspaper on the toilet, and that is with the new Silver Black-Dipped Spring. AWESOME. I can’t wait to see what he can do at World’s Strongest Hands on September 10th. If you are in the neighborhood, you should come by. It is going to be a good time.
Who Wants a Vulcan 2 Gripper?
Speaking of Vulcans, I am completely sold out right now, but I am looking to get another order around. If you are interested, please post in the comments section below. The Vulcan V-2′s cost $99.
I am also looking to bring in some extra Orange Springs that are quite a bit lighter than the standard Silver Black-Dipped Springs. Also, I want to get some Thumb Screws thrown in as well.
All I am looking for is for you to post below that you are interested and I will add you to the list. Please do so as soon as possible so I can get with David Horne. This time, I am keeping one of the sets of Thumb Screws.
OK, DIESELS, that’s it for now. My new Grip Training Freak, Eric Loyd is coming over soon and we are going to work on the Vulcan, Two Hands Pinch, and maybe even try bending a horseshoe.
I wanted to share a note that I got from a member of the Diesel Universe this week about the Intro to Strongman DVD. This comes in from Carlos Rodriguez…
“Thank You Jedd for the Strongman DVD!!! It was freaking Great!!! You and Steve put together a rock solid production that is extremely helpful & fun to watch, both of you kick ass man!!! I will definitely use that info on the warm up section, a lot of stuff I was not aware of!” – Carlos Rodriguez
Thanks Carlos for the awesome report on the Strongman DVD that Steve Slater and I recently put out. It’s great to hear from all of you guys when you pick up a product I put out. I always try to over-deliver on any ebook or DVD I produce. It’s just engrained in me, I guess.
If you haven’t seen out DVD, you can check it out here: Introductory Strongman DVD
As you can see from Carlos’ statement, Steve and I didn’t just cover Strongman Training Technique in this DVD, although that portion of the DVD is, of course, killer and loaded with golden nuggets.
We also wanted to cover the maintenance and recovery side of Strongman Training in this DVD.
In short, we wanted to show you how to do everything safely as well as prepare for awesome workouts and recover from them as well.
With that in mind, the night before we shot the DVD we sat down and mapped out all of the things we had ever heard about that had caused injury to us, our friends, training partners, competitors and others who had reported bumps, bruises, sprains, and strains. We then tried to identify possible causes of the injuries and how to prevent them.
What we found is that a lot of it came from either lack of warm-up or improper technique.
So, we then made sure that we incorporated each item into our outline and instruction.
This brought about our Warm-up Section, Support Gear Section and Recovery Section, which as you can see, has been pretty helpful for people who have bought the DVD, especially my boy Carlos, above.
