Additionally, the intense full-body muscle contractions and significant time spent under tension lead to great gains in hypertrophy, lean muscle mass, and fat loss.

The Road to Gymnastic Success

The greatest benefit from gymnastics strength training is not directly related to either ability or physique, but rather to your mindset and approach. In the fitness industry, just as in life, it is all too common to encounter people who want instant gratification and immediate results.

“Stretching, high reps, and joint prehab. There’s no time for that,” they think. They just want to hold a handstand, climb a rope, or learn a back flip. The big problem, though, is that these people often end up injured, plateaued, or both.

Successful trainees are those who take gradual, consistent steps on the path towards long-term growth by prioritizing quality and mastery. Coach Sommer, the founder of Gymnastic Bodies, likes to compare this shift in mindset to the difference in maturity between a child and an adult.

“Successful trainees are those who take gradual, consistent steps on the path towards long-term growth by prioritizing quality and mastery.”

A child wants things right away, and if a task takes hard work, discipline, or commitment, the child is likely to give up and shift attention to something new. As a person matures into an adult, they are more likely to realize the potential benefits of focusing on one task for longer periods of time, even if it does require significant amounts of energy.

Four Basic Gymnastics Strength Training Tests

Here are four basic gymnastics strength-training tests to get you started toward long-term growth. For many of us, modern lifestyle and one-sided training have stolen our ability to complete these relatively simple bodyweight tasks, so do not be surprised if these end up being a bit more challenging than you first presume.

Hollow Body Hold

The hollow body hold is a foundational position in all of gymnastics, and as such it is one of the first positions you should master. Begin by lying down on your back, with your legs outstretched and together. Completely straighten your legs by flexing your knees, and ensure proper form by pointing your toes as far away from your body as possible. Also reach your arms overhead, completely straightening your elbows and looking up towards the ceiling.

From this outstretched position, engage your entire anterior core by lifting your arms and legs off the floor. You should focus on pressing your lower back into the ground while squeezing your entire abdominal wall. Be sure that your shoulders are slightly lifted and your ribs are tucked in rather than protruding from your chest. Ideally your body shape should be smooth and round, almost like a banana.

Hold this hollow body position for a full sixty seconds. To ensure there is no cheating, use a timer, metronome, or stopwatch to count your minute. If you cannot hold the position with integrity for the full time, then you might need to start with a scaled version such as tucking your legs in towards your chest or bringing your arms down by your side.

Arch Body Hold

This is the complete opposite position as the hollow body. Where the hollow body works the entire anterior core, the arch body position will expose any weakness along your posterior chain. Additionally, many people are chronically tight in the front of their bodies, and the arch body hold will open up tight areas such as your chest and hip flexors.

“This should serve as a wake-up call for you to strengthen your posterior chain and stretch your chest and hip flexors.”

To start, lie facedown on your belly with your arms outstretched overhead and your legs straight and together. As you can imagine, the goal here is to completely arch your entire body as much as possible, so lift both your upper and lower body as high as you can towards the ceiling. Focus on engaging your glutes and mid-back so you are not exclusively arching from your lower back.

If you are like most people who try to hold an arch body position for sixty seconds, you will begin to tremble, shake, curse, and drop to the floor before the minute has expired. This should serve as a wake-up call for you to strengthen your posterior chain and stretch your chest and hip flexors.

If necessary, break down the arch body position in a similar fashion to the hollow body hold by bringing your arms down to your side, bending your knees, or both.

Bent-Arm Chin Hang

So now that we have thoroughly tested (and trashed) your core strength, we move on to the bent-arm chin hang. The key phrase here is time under tension, as you will attempt to hold your chin over a bar for, you guessed it, sixty full seconds. Grip the bar with a supinated, underhand grip, and pull yourself as high above the bar as you can. Keep your legs together, make sure your body is not swaying excessively, and hold on tight.

“The key here is that training your strength endurance at slightly lower intensities builds more than just muscle.”

If you cannot yet do a chin up, then this bent-arm chin hang might help you get there due to the amount of time you will spend holding on above the bar. If you cannot hold this position for any significant period of time, then you might need to start on an incline by holding onto a set of rings set approximately to shoulder height.

If you can already do strict chin ups, then you may be wondering why bother just holding the top position for time? The key here is that training your strength endurance at slightly lower intensities builds more than just muscle. Your connective tissue needs longer to adapt, and as such you should spend time mastering the bent-arm chin hang before moving on to more advanced (and potentially injury-inducing) pulling movements such as muscle ups and rope climbs.

Standing Pike Stretch

Finally, you get to relax and stretch. The standing pike stretch will assess flexion through the hips and spine, and those of you with tight hamstrings might struggle a bit here. Stand up tall with your legs completely straight and knees locked out, and completely fold over forward, placing your hands on the ground as fully as possible. Your goal is to reach your hands behind your feet to the point where you can press your bodyweight up onto your toes.

“The standing pike stretch will assess flexion through the hips and spine, and those of you with tight hamstrings might struggle a bit here.”

If this position is unattainable for you right now, then try doing a partner seated pike stretch. Sit up tall with your legs outstretched in front of you, knees totally straight, and have your partner gently push forward on the middle of your back. Inhale and exhale with your partner’s pushes, and reach your hands towards your feet, all while pressing the backs of your knees into the floor.

Conclusion

In any endeavor in life, you get out exactly what you put in. Impatient, shortsighted efforts will yield incomplete and poor-quality results, if not long-term injuries. On the other hand, a consistent work ethic, when paired with world-class programming and coaching knowledge, will allow trainees to continue to experience progress for months and years on end.

What else are people reading?

• Mobilize Your IT Band and Posterior Chain: Yoga for Strength Athletes
• Earn Your Muscle Up: 4-part Video Training Plan
• Guaranteed Success Through Consistent, Hard Effort
• Three Traps of Modern Day Thinking That are Killing Your Progress
• What’s New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photos courtesy of Orench Lagman and Crystal Hatch from Awaken Adult Gymnastics.

The post 4 Simple Gymnastics Drills for Strength and Mobility appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

But as you continue to progress in CrossFit, you might reach a point where you find yourself pushing harder and harder to get extra reps and rounds to the detriment of your form and technique. This is not the way to go. If the quantity of reps you perform only increases by sacrificing the quality of said reps, then your body is likely to reach a plateau, or worse, incur an injury.

Rather, you should prioritize quality over quantity so that in the future you may continue to make gains in strength, work capacity, mobility, and overall fitness. Here are some practical tips for how to do that in a CrossFit setting.

1. Breathe

What a simple thing that we all do everyday. However, mid-WOD, it suddenly becomes apparent that you have not been breathing adequately. How about this: focus on inhaling. Long, slow, controlled, and in through the nose.

If you are doing a twenty-minute AMRAP, then I want you exclusively breathing through the nose for at least the first ten minutes. Heavy mouth breathing should be reserved for sprints, short efforts, and the ends of workouts. While you initially might need to slow down in order to breathe through your nose, in the long run your body will experience positive aerobic adaptations.

2. Break Up Sets

Have you ever stopped and thought about why 21-15-9 is such an effective rep scheme? One reason is because each set can be broken up into three distinct sub-sets: 3 sets of 7, 3 sets of 5, and 3 sets of 3. Another great way to break up this rep scheme is: 11 and 10, 8 and 7, then 5 and 4. So the next time you do “Fran,” “Diane,” or “Elizabeth,” strategize a bit beforehand and see if that helps you set a new personal record.

Another way to state this is that you should not push yourself to failure every round of every workout. Rather, choose a sub-maximal number of reps that you are confident you can complete, and aim to keep yourself just shy of the danger zone for the majority of your workouts.

3. Rest Between Sets

Rest?! Are you not supposed to go all out as fast as you can? Okay, yes, I get it – the workouts are done for time. But you might end up with an overall faster time (and thus greater work capacity) if you actually plan to rest between sets from the get-go. 

For instance, next time you do “Cindy” (AMRAP in 20 minutes of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, and 15 squats), try to do one round at the top of every minute. If you succeed, you will have accumulated twenty rounds. It will feel very easy in the beginning and very not-so-easy at the end. 

If twenty rounds of Cindy is out of your reach, then try one round every ninety seconds. Or, vice-versa, if your old personal record is higher than twenty trounds, try one round every 45 seconds or so.

4. Prioritize Mobility

You know you are supposed to do it, but somehow you only manage to hit the foam roller or grab that stretch band once or twice a week. How about this: you are not allowed to do a WOD unless you have first done your mobility work for the day. 

Have you ever set a timer for five minutes and then rolled out your thoracic spine? Or what about grabbing a lacrosse ball and hitting your entire shoulder girdle? Check out Kelly Starrett’s awesome MobilityWOD for more ideas.

5. Scale Movements and Weights Efectively

If you only take one principle away from this post, please pay attention here. You want to make optimal choices in your life, correct? If you could take two routes to your destination, but one of them was longer and riskier, what would you decide? You would take the optimal route. Duh!

Similarly, learning to scale movements and weights effectively is how you optimize CrossFit workouts to fit your individual fitness level and needs. Refer to Prilepin’s Chart (a guideline for what percentage of your 1RM to lift for each given rep range) when choosing what weights to do for WODs. Hint: it might be lighter than you think!

Click To Tweet: How to determine the ideal weight to use in a CrossFit WOD

6. Take Individual Accountability

How can you reach your own goals when someone else is planning the workouts for you? This is when you need to take individual accountability for your own CrossFit practice. If the WOD has back squats for strength, but your goal is a double-bodyweight deadlift, then explain to your trainer that you are focusing on the deadlift that cycle.

Similarly, if you want to get your first strict chin up, then reduce the reps of banded chin ups, kipping pull ups, or ring rows in the WOD and do a few super-slow negatives each round instead. It might be different than what is written on the whiteboard, but I am willing to bet that you (and your goals) might be a little different than everyone else in the class around you, as well.

If you have any additional practical tips for how to prioritize quality over quantity in a CrossFit setting, please post to the comments below.

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post 6 Practical Tips for Prioritizing Quality in CrossFit appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Why Do You Push Yourself Daily?

However, if like the majority of gym-goers, you do not have any particular event on your calendar for which you are training, then why do you push yourself on a daily basis? Let us go through some common answers:

• “I am trying to lose some weight.” – Here is a super secret fitness tip from an insider: the guaranteed way to lose weight instantly is easy – just cut off a limb! Voila, weight lost! Oh, that is not what you meant?
• “I am trying to lose some body fat.” – The good news: you have great intentions. The bad news: studies show that exercise alone is not all that effective at losing body fat. Ouch, sorry.
• “I am trying to build some muscle.” – Okay good, this is something I can support, and you do not have to be a bodybuilder to want to build muscle. Simply put, increasing your lean muscle mass helps prevent aging, not to mention getting that much closer to being both jacked and tan.

Okay, so all kidding aside, what are we missing here? How about the simple fact that humans are meant to move. If you have not yet watched Daniel Wolpert’s TED Talk The Real Reason for Brains, then please do so immediately. If you engage in a structured physical activity or fitness program, then please acknowledge the fact that movement needs to be a higher priority in your life.

CrossFit: GPP or SPP?

Let us work through a specific example. CrossFit, in its humble roots, is a general physical preparedness (GPP) program. Taken from the CrossFit website:

Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.

Towards this end, CrossFitters often talk about “work capacity,” i.e., the ability to do a given amount of work in a given amount of time. It is precisely this theoretical underpinning that justifies the emphasis on quantity over quality that is present at so many CrossFit gyms. Who cares if those push-ups did not “look good” (whatever that might mean)? You did one more round of “Cindy” than last time, so you are by definition more fit.

But excuse me – how exactly do you demonstrate work capacity in the absence of performing specific movements?

For instance, if your “Fran” time improves, then you very well may have just gotten better at the specific skills of barbell thrusters and kipping pull ups. Or maybe you knock a minute off of your “Diane” record, in which case you possibly just improved your technique at barbell deadlifts and kipping handstand push ups.

What is my point? These are all specific skilled movements. There is no such thing as pure unskilled work capacity. CrossFit’s version of GPP is actually more like SPP – specific physical preparedness. Why do so many CrossFitters choose dumbbell snatches and shy away from kettlebell snatches? Because snatching a kettlebell requires practice. Why work on your static handstand hold when you could be doing something sexy like handstand walks? Because static holds are harder and require more skill.

A New Mindset and Purpose

So what am I getting at? I propose that we, as fitness generalists with no specific attachment to any one competitive discipline or sport, adopt a new mindset and purpose for why we train:

Train to learn new skills, gradually and progressively, so as to become capable of and masterful in more complex movements.

I must credit three great thinkers in the world of movement for planting the seeds behind these ideas. First, Ido Portal has been a source of continued inspiration for me ever since I discovered his blog in 2009. Check out his video here:

And second I must also give credit to Erwan Le Corre and his MovNat system. I recommend you read The MovNat Principles and study the following Venn diagram:

Lastly, Coach Christopher Sommer of Gymnastic Bodies has built an online community around gymnastics strength training that, in my humble experience, best fits the training purpose stated above. The Foundation and Handstand Series are full of progressions and regressions for a wide array of movements, and every strength element is paired with an integrated mobility drill that specifically relates to the task at hand. Trainees of virtually any level would greatly benefit from getting stronger, becoming more mobile, and learning new movement skills.

So what do you think? Should non-competitive athletes focus on skilled movements, even if a lesser skilled movement could potentially build more work capacity? Or is there merit to be had from learning novel and increasingly complex movement patterns for the average trainee? Post your thoughts to the comments below.

Photo 1 courtesy of Shutterstock.

Photo 2 courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

Photo 3 courtesy of MovNat.

The post Why Do We Train? Finding Purpose in Movement appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

With this in mind, I invite you to reconsider the use of elastic bands for pulling movements such as pull ups or chin ups. Instead, I would like to discuss the use of these bands for pushing movements such as push ups, dips, and headstand pushups.

The Impact of the Strength Curve

Anyone who has ever tried a push up or pull up intuitively knows there is a strength curve inherent to each exercise. In both of these movements, your muscles contract concentrically and eccentrically in order to move your joints through flexion and extension. It is precisely at the point when your joints are in flexion where the most challenging portion of the range of motion typically occurs.

Which can you hold longer, the top of a pull up or the bottom? The bottom of a push up or the top? Push ups start at the top of the movement with your arms are extended, and then begin an eccentric contraction down towards the floor, reaching the bottom of the movement when your arms are flexed. The most challenging portion of the range of motion in a push up is typically the bottom.

On the other hand, pull ups start at the bottom of the movement with your arms extended, and then begin a concentric contraction up toward the bar. When you reach the top of a pull up, your arms are fully flexed. This means the most challenging portion of the range of motion for pull ups is the top, and not the bottom like with the push-up.

(EDIT: Rather than say pull ups are “easiest” at the bottom, it would be more accurate for me to say pull ups are most challenging both at the very bottom and at the very top of the range of motion. Thus, a more nuanced perspective would be that using elastic bands for assistance on pull ups is appropriate IF the athlete struggles most with the bottom of the movement, but can otherwise reach the top position without assistance.)

What Is Accommodating Resistance?

At this point I encourage you to do some research on accommodating resistance. Look up Louie Simmons and Westside Barbell, and do a training cycle of four to six weeks where you experiment with chains and bands for your squats and deadlifts.

You will notice an immediate change in the feeling of the movement, precisely because using accommodating resistance for squats and deadlifts increases the load at the strongest point of the lift and decreases the load at the weakest point. Similar to push ups and pull ups, the weakest point in your lifts is when the joints are in flexion (coming out of the bottom of your squat and lifting the bar off the floor in a deadlift) and the strongest point is when the joints are extended (when you stand up with the weight).

Applying These Principles to Bodyweight Exercises

With this deeper understanding of why you might want to use elastic bands in the gym, let us now discuss how to apply the principle of accommodating resistance (or really, accommodating assistance) to bodyweight exercises.

As stated, in pulling movements like chin ups or pull ups, the strength curve is such that the movement is easiest at the bottom and most difficult at the top. If an athlete cannot complete a full-range-of-motion pull up, whether due to weakness or fatigue, standard operating procedure in many gyms (particularly CrossFit gyms) is to give the person a band in order to finish the workout. By allowing an athlete to use a band for pull ups, he or she will usually be able to complete the full movement and build confidence and experience in the movement pattern.

However, there are a few significant drawbacks. The band, due to its elastic nature, will provide the most assistance when stretched the most, which in the case of a pull up is actually the bottom of the movement. (Reminder: pull-ups are easiest at the bottom!) When you get to the top and need the most help, the band is stretched the least and thus provides the least help.

As a result, athletes often cheat the top range-of-motion of banded chin ups and pull ups, or they end up using a band thick enough to help them at the top, but so thick that it does not adequately challenge their strength at the bottom. Truth be told, I shed a tear every time I witness a thick band, short range-of-motion pull up or chin up.

Please, ditch the bands for pull up work. Prioritize horizontal rows, isometric holds, and slow negatives. If an athlete does not have the requisite strength to perform a clean, crisp, full range-of-motion chin up, then do not ask him or her to do chin ups.

There Is a Better Way

Now, do not fret, as you can still find a good use for those overpriced elastic bands that you bought online. In fact, they work well for pushing movements such as push ups, dips, and headstand push ups.

In these pushing movements, the strength curve is such that the movement is easiest at the top and most difficult at the bottom. Voila! This means when you anchor an elastic band above your body, it will be stretched the most at the bottom and will provide the most assistance when you need it the most. Furthermore, at the top of the movement, when it is easiest to perform, the band will be stretched the least, thus providing the least assistance.

Now the bands are starting to look a lot better! For pushing movements, the bands match the strength curve. They also allow for gradual, incremental progression, and they, too, build confidence and experience in the movement pattern.

Suggestions for Using Elastic Bands in the Gym

Here are a few suggestions for using bands for pushing movements:

• When anchoring the band above your body, be aware that the precise height of the anchor point greatly matters. If you use a thinner band at a higher anchor point, it might actually end up providing the same amount of assistance as a thicker band just at a lower anchor point. Thus, I recommend you always use the exact same level for each movement.

• In order to progress towards thinner (and eventually no) bands, I recommend accumulating volume on the thicker bands. An athlete should be able to perform 5 sets of 5 reps with a given band before attempting the movement with less assistance. Coach Sommer of Gymnastic Bodies has his athletes start with 3 sets of 1 rep and progress up to 5 sets of 5 reps over the course of 12 weeks, for instance.

• There are many paths on this journey we call fitness, and many of them lead towards the same destination. Using bands can certainly work for some people for pull ups, but in my experience that path takes a bit longer and is fraught with poor movement quality. I recommend using elastic bands as an assistance aid only for movements where the sticking point is at the bottom (pistols, anyone?).

In closing, I would like to give credit and thanks to Carl Paoli, Christopher Sommer, Jim Bathurst, Ido Portal, and many other trainers and coaches out there for inspiring the ideas behind this article. Please feel free to reach out with any questions or comments. If you have other movements you are struggling with, please let me know about those, as well.

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post Bands Are for Pushing, Not Pulling appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

This article is an attempt at simplifying the murky matrix that is health and fitness by developing your sense of intuition. 

Movement as Nutrition

There is merit to be had from conceptualizing movement and nutrition in similar ways. First, we will talk about frequency, or as Ido Portal would say, we as human movers can get a lot more out of our bodies than simply 45 minutes of exercise three days per week. Second, we will discuss quality, as certain movements are more wholesome and nourishing for our bodies just like certain foods are. We will then wrap things up by discussing some strategies that might help develop your sense of intuition about diet and exercise.

Frequency

How often do you eat? Three meals per day most likely, maybe a snack or two in there, as well. But here is a better question: how often do you move? For some of you, it might be as infrequent as 45 minutes of exercise three days per week!

Have you heard of the Warrior Diet? In essence, you only eat one huge meal each day (typically dinner) and fast throughout the morning and afternoon. While many of you probably think that sounds ridiculous, I challenge you to think about your exercise habits. Chances are, you are on a “movement fast” each day before splurging on a huge “movement meal” each night.

So what if we tried having “movement snacks” throughout the day? For example, do some basic dynamic mobility work before breakfast, then go for a fifteen-minute walk after lunch, and lastly practice a few sets of weightlifting and gymnastics movements at the gym before dinner. Scientifically speaking, this has multiple benefits. Fasted training in the morning burns fat, walking after lunch minimizes the insulin spike from eating, and eating carbs at dinner after training heavy helps to replenish depleted glycogen stores.

Now I am not asking you to quit your job and train three times per day like some elite athletes do. This “movement snacks” idea has plenty of variations, even if you do not have that much time. How about five minutes of yoga sun salutations in the morning, a twenty-minute bodyweight workout at the park in the afternoon, and five minutes of deep static stretching at night before bed? Bam! More frequent movement sessions means more physical energy, mental clarity, fat loss, muscle gain, skill acquisition, and work capacity.

Quality

Who here eats a Zone diet? Anyone? Yeah, I did not think so. If you are reading this blog, then you probably gravitate towards the paleo and primal eating crowd. That is because many people have found better results through less effort by focusing on quality food rather than strict quantity.

Yet, why do we go into the gym and do exactly three sets of exactly eight reps with exactly one minute and thirty seconds rest between them? How does whoever wrote that exercise program know your body, your background, your experience, and your fitness level? Unless you have a coach or trainer who gave you an assessment and then wrote you an individualized program, the chances are that the focus on precise exercise quantity is slightly unnecessary. Rather, let us discuss movement quality.

Everyone knows about the macronutrients found in food: protein, carbohydrates, and fat. Let us also now talk about the macronutrients of movement: push, pull, squat, hinge, and gait (props to Dan John). Just like you should be aiming to eat protein, carbs, and fat each day, you should also try to include some sort of pushing, pulling, squatting, hinging, and gaiting each day. 

What does this look like in application? Warm up with bodyweight squats, push ups, chin ups, kettlebell swings, and kettlebell walks. Go heavy with barbell squats, handstand push ups, muscle ups, barbell deadlifts, and sprints. For more ideas, refer to this movement chart.

What about supplements? Personally, I take a fish oil, vitamin D, whey protein, magnesium, zinc, multi-vitamin, and probiotic daily. These supplement my diet of mostly meat, fish, vegetables, fruits, and nuts. In movement terms, the accessory exercises you do are the supplements to your regular training. For instance, do some external rotation isolation work to help strengthen your shoulders, or try some unilateral split squats to strength your VMO. These are micronutrients, or supplements, that help shore up deficiencies that might exist from your main movement “diet.”

Lastly, just as fasting intermittently from food has benefits, so does “fasting” from movement, i.e. “rest.” Fasting gives your body a chance to catch up, whether that means muscle recovery, glycogen replenishment, or digestion. Fatigue masks fitness, so in order to reap the benefits of your hard work, you need to “fast” from movement every so often.

Strategies

Here is where things get interesting. It is one thing to conceptualize about movement and nutrition, but it is another thing entirely to develop some practical strategies, especially when our goal is to adopt an intuitive approach to diet and exercise.

First, consider Dan John’s idea of Tough or Reasonable. Simply put, you cannot always train at the highest intensity and volume, and you cannot always eat a strict or restrictive diet. Rather, it might be beneficial to try tough workouts or diets a couple times each year, and the rest of the year stick to a more reasonable approach.

So how do we determine what a “reasonable” or intuitive approach looks like? For nutrition, I think that weighing and measuring your food is a great practice to try at least once a year in order to learn how to estimate portion size and macronutrient quantity. Then after having learned what, for instance, 30g of protein looks like on your plate, you can go back to estimating based off visual cues such as your fist or physical cues such as your hunger level.

Similarly, in the gym try following a coach’s programming every so often in order to learn more about training and how you individually adapt to certain stimuli. I recently finished a few months of online coaching with Wil Fleming, and I gained a ton of perspective on Olympic weightlifting (plus I set a personal record on my clean and jerk). Nowadays, I am not following a strict lifting program, but rather I am using the skills learned while on Wil’s programming in order to intuitively estimate how much volume to do at what intensity and with what recovery.

You can also look into biofeedback tests such as range of motion, tap tests, grip strength, or vertical jump height in order to determine your training for the day. David Dellanave has a great explanation of the Gym Movement Protocol on his website.

Conclusion

Armed with this article, hopefully you can know walk into either a grocery store or a gym and confidently listen to your intuition in order to get the best out of your diet and exercise. It will, of course, take some trial and error, but through enough tinkering you can take ownership over your health and fitness. Whether you are a Paleo CrossFitter, a vegan yogi, or somewhere in between, use some of these principles and strategies in order to eat and train optimally.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post What If We Thought About Movement Like Nutrition? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Consider this article to be a user’s manual of sorts for the pistol, complete with a step-by-step progression as well as a troubleshooting guide.

Before we get started, it is worth noting there are many possible methods for practicing pistols. I have attempted to synthesize information from a variety of sources, including Carl Paoli, Al Kavadlo, Ido Portal, and others, in an effort to take what is useful and discard the rest. I recommend you do the same with the content below.

Pistol Progressions

1. Bodyweight Squat, Feet Shoulder Width, Full Range-of-Motion

You should be able to easily knock out at least twenty clean, controlled bodyweight squatsbefore even considering pistols. Start with a shoulder-width stance, and progress towards a slightly narrower hip-width stance over time.

2. Bodyweight Squat, Feet Together, Full Range-of-Motion

Before beginning work on pistols, it is recommended that you can squat all the way down on two feet with a very narrow stance.

3. Pistol Squat, Bottom Position Hold, Grab Onto Pole

Grab onto something sturdy and squat all the way down. At the bottom, stick out one leg and hold it. Switch sides and repeat.

4. Pistol Squat, Eccentric on One Leg, Concentric on Two Legs, Grab Onto Pole

While holding onto a pole, perform a slow, controlled pistol negative. Bring the other leg in at the bottom, and stand up on two legs.

5. Pistol Squat, to a Box

Moving away from the pole, now you will pistol down to a box. Start with a tall box and gradually progress lower.

6. Pistol Squat, Assist with a Band (Around Hips)

Hook a band around your hips so that you can work the full movement with slightly less bodyweight at the bottom. Work towards being able to use a thinner band or a lower attachment point.

7. Pistol Squat, Counterbalance With a Weight

Use a 10-20lb weight (dumbbell, kettlebell, or weight plate) to counterbalance your hips as you perform a full pistol. Gradually progress to a lighter weight.

8. Pistol Squat, Stand on Box, Free Leg Vertical

Stand on a box tall enough so that your free leg can remain vertical. Progress towards a lower box, thus increasing the amount of hip flexion in the free leg.

9. Pistol Squat, Elevate Heels

At any stage in this entire progression you can wear Olympic weightlifting shoes or put a tiny weight plate under your heels. This decreases the amount of ankle dorsiflexion needed to squat all the way down.

10. Pistol Squat

If you spend the time and committo the progressions listed above, you will be able to perform full pistol squats.

(Purposely absent from this list are candlestick rolls, or the rolling pistol, because in my experience it is more difficult for trainees to learn the more dynamic version before the standing version.)

Troubleshooting Guide

Problem #1: You fall on your butt at the bottom of the pistol.

Quick fix: Hold a small amount of weight (10-20lbs) out in front of you for a counterbalance.

Long-term solution: Spend more time pistol squatting while holding onto a vertical pole, gradually decreasing the amount of assistance the pole provides.

Problem #2: Your foot comes up onto your toes and your heel comes up into the air.

Quick fix: Wear Olympic lifting shoes, or put a plate under your heel.

Long-term solution: You need more ankle dorsiflexion. Stretch your calves and Achilles tendon, and try some self-myofascial release on the bottom of your foot.

Problem #3: Your hip flexor of the straight leg cramps.

Quick fix: Stand on a box and pistol squat with the straight leg vertical instead of horizontal.

Long-term solution: Practice L-sit progressions and other hip flexor strength endurance work, like knees-to-elbows and toes-to-bar.

Problem #4: You collapse into the bottom position of the pistol.

Quick fix: Squat down onto a box, gradually decreasing the height of the box.

Long-term solution: Build more time spent holding the active bottom position of the pistol, and try some slow negatives where you control all the way to the bottom.

Problem #5: You have trouble balancing side-to-side.

Quick fix: Look at a fixed point several feet in front of you during the entire rep.

Long-term solution: Practice more pistols barefoot, thus learning how to grip the ground with your toes and use your entire foot for balance. You also might have weak VMO muscles, thus necessitating specific work such as step-ups and split squats.

Conclusion

There you have it: a step-by-step progression to building your pistol squat, along with a troubleshooting guide to help you with any issues along the way.

Practice pistols every single day if you are still chasing the skill, and seek out the advice of other trainers and athletes.

Related: The Best Leg Workouts

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