Here I was taking this guy who considered himself to be pretty strong (and to his credit he was – he could do a mid-300lb front squat relatively easily), and putting him on the struggle-bus with a pair of 24kg kettlebells.

If you’ve spent any time in the gym whatsoever you know this feeling, and it isn’t fun. The two-kettlebell front squat is an exercise that elicits this response in a lot of people. In fact, it’s probably the best exercise you’re not doing right now. Whether your goal is to get stronger, move better, burn fat, or be more athletic, the two-kettlebell front squat has you covered.

Benefits of the Two-Kettlebell Front Squat

The two-kettlebell front squat (2KB FS) should make its way into your program for a host of reasons, but here’s short list to get you started.

Lower Body Strength

You’ll never be able to load a 2KB FS at like you do a traditional front squat with a barbell, but that doesn’t mean it won’t help you get strong. Granted, the barbell front squat is superior if we’re talking pure lower-body strength, but the increased instability of the kettlebells makes up for the lack of load. In fact, most people feel like a rock when they return to the barbell after a cycle with the kettlebells.

Core Stability

I have yet to meet a single person who has enough core strength and stability. Or maybe I should say too much core strength and stability. By loading the kettlebells anteriorly you put your core on overdrive and force it to maintain position. Not only that, this movement will take your lats of the equation and force you to stabilize without them. A lot of people get into trouble because they lack stability from the right places, and this exercise helps correct that.

Grooving the Pattern

A squat, in its truest essence, is a straight-up-and-down movement. Sitting your butt straight down, staying in your heels, and coming straight back up. The placement of the kettlebells and the increased recruitment of your core makes this one of the best variations to work on grooving this up-and-down pattern. And for my anatomy friends out there, that means getting your outlet to open in the bottom position.

Breathing Into Your Back

Many people lack the ability to fill up their posterior mediastinum bilaterally when they breathe. By putting them in the bottom of a squat and biasing a little flexion, I can work on breathing properly and getting air into both chest walls (it’s a little more complicated than that, but you get the picture).

How to Do the Two-Kettlebell Front Squat

Clean the Kettlebells Up – Hopefully step one is fairly obvious. You have to get the kettlebells to the rack position if you hope to do this exercise.

Set the Rack Position – Now that the kettlebells are up, you need let them rest on your forearms, biceps, and shoulder with a neutral wrist position. Then interlock your fingers and you’re good to go.

Set Your Feet – This could easily be step one, but most people need a little bit of a wider base to clean the kettlebells up. Either way, I want your feet shoulder width apart, and toes straight ahead or turned out five to ten degrees.

Get “Neutral” – Go ahead and exhale, bringing your ribs down and hips underneath you. If you do it right, you should feel your abs and hamstrings turn on. If you don’t feel your hamstrings, then think about digging your heels into the ground as you exhale.

Sit Down – As opposed to sitting back, which you would do in other squat variations, you’re going to sit straight down, making sure you stay in your heels and keep your hips underneath you the whole time. It’s important to mention that doesn’t mean let your toes come up off the ground. I want those down, too. It just means to feel your heels in the ground as you squat. Also, it may help if you think about using your hamstrings to pull yourself straight down.

Breathe – Now that you’re in the bottom position, stay tight. And don’t be in a rush to leave. Take a big breath in (remember the breath into your back piece) and on your exhale you’re going to start standing up.

Press the Ground Away – On your exhale, start pressing the ground away through your heels (especially the left – more on that later) to stand up. Be sure to keep your hips underneath you and don’t let them fly out (aka the stripper squat).

Finish – Continue pressing the ground away until you reach the top of the lift and finish in the same neutral position you started in.

Possible Technique Flaws

Broken Wrist Position – This is honestly incredibly uncomfortable, and will hurt your wrist. So don’t do it.

Left: Bad; Right: Good.

Elbow Flare – Again, not comfortable and a poor position for your shoulders to be in.

Hanging Out On Your Back – We want your core doing the work here. So don’t be lazy at the top and fall into your lumbar for support.

Left: Bad; Right: Good.

Losing Your Hip Tuck – Don’t lose your hip position on the way down. We want motion coming from your hips and the opening of your pelvic floor, not from your low back.

Drifting to the Right – We’re all susceptible to like the back of our right hip more than our left, so be cautious of this while you squat. A great cue for people struggling with this is to think about finding the inside of their right foot and their left heel throughout the range of motion.

Stripper Squat – The hips should stay underneath you, so keep them under control for the time being.

Head Flying Back – Keep a neutral head position the entire time, so don’t go gazing off into the stars.

Not Finishing – Don’t be that guy or girl. Finish your squats and lockout at the top.

Modifications

There’s a good chance you may experience the following: about half way to three-quarters of the way down, you feel like you run into a wall. Believe me, you’ll know what I’m talking about. At this point in time you have a few options:

• New Cues: Having someone check out your lift and cue you differently can make a big difference.
• Elevate Your Heels: A small heel lift often does wonders for people struggling to get depth in the squat. Granted, over time I’d like to see the heel lift go away, but in the short run it’s 100% an option.
• Pick a Different Squat Variation: You just may not be ready to take on this squat yet. It’s okay. You need to regress to a better option until you give yourself the capacity to be successful.

Programming

We’ve covered just about everything you’d want to know about the 2KB FS. The only thing left to do is to talk programming.

I’m a huge fan of this exercise for beginners, experienced lifters looking for a deload or movement cycle, athletes in the early off-season, and very extended people who need some movement retraining. Like I said earlier, this squat isn’t going to get you as strong as a traditional barbell squat. It’s more about solidifying good movement quality and developing a rock solid core.

When it comes to sets and reps, anything in the 3-5 set range with 8-12 reps is a safe bet. I also like doing these at the beginning of a workout and super-setting them with some form of a corrective. For example, maybe you have poor ankle dorsiflexion and would benefit from doing some knee breaks in-between sets. Or maybe you struggle finding the back of your left hip, so I’d attack that in your downtime.

Either way, the whole idea is to grant you access to a range of motion you aren’t that familiar with, so you can solidify it during the strength movement. Once this squat looks rock solid, I feel great about the option of putting a barbell in someone’s hands and having them crush a front squat.

Closing Thoughts

There are few things in this industry that are inherently good or bad. It always depends on the person, their goals, and how they move. The two-kettlebell front squat is just another tool to throw in your toolbox. But it’s a tool that helps solidify good movement, builds lower-body strength, and locks up an unstable core.

If you have any questions I’d love to hear from you, so drop me a line in the comments below and then go get after it.

Photo 1 courtesy of Read Performance Training.

Final photo courtesy ofShutterstock.

The post The 2-Kettlebell Front Squat: The Best Exercise You’re Not Doing appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Walk around, walk around, walk around…

Dammit…

Walk around, walk around, walk around…

Dammit…

You can see where this is going. A whole lot of dammit and a whole lot of walking around.

Enter the world of the aspiring muscle-up-getter. You try and try and try and try, but just can’t seem to get over the hump and nail your first ever ring muscle up. You’ve even spent hours doing technique work, playing with bands, and watching Carl Paolitalk about muscle up progressions.

So what gives?

Here’s what gives: I’m willing to bet you’re just not strong enough.

The Question

Whenever someone contacts me about not being able to do a muscle up, my first question (after doing an assessment of course) is always: How are your strict pull-ups?

And here’s why: In my opinion, the strict pull up has the greatest transfer of training to the muscle up. (If you’re interested in reading more about transfer of training then checkout Dr. Anatoly Bondarchuck’s books Transfer of Training In Sports Volume 1 and Volume 2)

I have yet to meet a single individual who has good pulling strength that cannot do a ring muscle up. Rather, I routinely meet people who spend way too much time worrying about technique when the real issue is they just lack the strength necessary to perform the movement.

Don’t get me wrong, technique is always important, and I’m not telling you to go look like a baboon humping a tree when you do a muscle up. I’m just saying that you’re wasting time on technique work when you haven’t hit the strength threshold to perform it. That’s like trying to practice having good technique with a 300lb snatch when you can only snatch 135. It just doesn’t work.

In other words, every skill can be looked at in terms of motor potential and technical mastery:

Motor potential: “The power output of competition exercise is always determined by the muscular capacity to produce the greatest quantity of mechanical energy per unit of time. This capacity is called the functional power of the motor system or motor potential.”¹

Technical mastery: “The athletes skill to effectively express his motor potential in competition is called technical mastery.”¹

From the above definitions it’s easy to see that motor potential must come before technical mastery because all technical mastery does is enhance your ability to express your motor potential. To summarize: If the motor potential is there then spend more time on technique work. If the motor potential isn’t there, then spend time getting it.

The Key to Conquering the Elusive Muscle Up

Hopefully I’ve convinced you of the need to get stronger, and here’s how you’re going to do it…

The Pull

This is where the vast majority of people get stuck. They simply aren’t strong enough to pull themselves over the rings and get to the dip. Thus, we need to increase your pulling strength and power and help you fly up the rings like a monkey.

Step 1. Start implementing any of the following pulling variations two times a week, with preference being given to the strict neutral grip pull up and strict ring pull up because they are the most specific options:

1. Strict pull up
2. Strict chin up
3. Strict neutral grip pull up
4. Strict ring pull up

Step 2. Watch this video for a primer on good technique:

Step 3. Adhere to the following set and rep scheme:

For the next four weeks I want you to not attempt a single muscle up, but perform the following twice a week preferably separated by two days of rest. Also, the reps are low so that you can load these up. Thus, go as heavy as you can on each set while maintaining good form.

• Week 1: 6×3
• Week 2: 8×3
• Week 3: 10x
• Week 4: 4×3

Furthermore, you’ll do a different pulling variation (see point one for options) on each of the two days.

Here’s an example of what four weeks might look like:

The Dip

In my experiences thus far, most people can do a ring dip. They may not be able to do a lot of them, but they can do at least one.In other words, this usually isn’t the sticking point for most people. With that being said, you still need to be confident and strong when it comes to the dip.Step 1. Ask yourself the following question: Can I do a strict ring dip?

Step 2. If you answered yes, then you’ll be doing the following set and rep scheme with ring dips. If you answered no, then you’ll be doing them on stationary pipes of some kind and progressing to the ring dips at another time. If you are a special case and can crush strict dips on stationary pipes, but flail around like a helpless child once you touch the rings, then you’ll be doing ring dips as well.

Step 3. Adhere to the following set and rep scheme for four weeks, and do so twice a week. Feel free to play around with using one day to do dips on stationary pipes and another day to go on the rings. Stick with whatever you choose to do for all four weeks though. Don’t go switching it up every week. Also, please add weight as necessary because these are meant to be loaded sets.

• Week 1: 4×6
• Week 2: 5×6
• Week 3: 5×6
• Week 4: 3×10 (attempt to use same weight from 5×6)

Here’s an example of what four weeks might look like:

Retest

You’ve busted your butt for four weeks and now it’s time to shine. Go ahead and retest your muscle up. You should notice a significant increase in your pulling power, if you didn’t add in more pulling variations on the side. And you should feel very strong on the dip portion of the movement.

If the muscle up still didn’t happen, then reevaluate where you are at, repeat the preceding cycle using two different pulling variations, and retest again after four weeks. Also, don’t forget the important role your core plays in this movement. If you cannot do a solid hollow rock hold then start practicing those as well.

Don’t bother testing your muscle up until you can get through all the sets with at least your body weight. Ideally, you’ll be able to do all the sets with at least ten to twenty pounds hanging on you.

Closing Thoughts

Although you may be skeptical, I promise the above method works. Just four weeks ago I had an individual contact me about his muscle up woes, and I prescribed him the above program. After following it, he hopped on the rings and crushed a muscle up without even blinking. Here’s a screen shot of the Facebook message he sent me:

At the end of the day, the ring muscle up is an awesome goal to shoot for and an adrenaline rush when you first do it. I hope this article helps you get over the hump, so you can cross it off your to do list.

If you have any questions feel free to post them below, and I’d love for you to tweet at me (@JamesCerbie) when you nail your first muscle up.

References:

1. Verkhoshansky, Y., and Verkhoshansky, N., “Determining Factors in Increasing the Power Output of Competition Exercise.”Special Strength Training Manual For Coaches. S.l.: Verkhoshansky Sstm, 2011. 31.

Photos courtesy ofCrossFit LA.

The post The Key to Conquering the Elusive Muscle Up appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Luckily, you can have your cake and eat it too. What I’m about to suggest doesn’t throw the six-pack out the window, but rather, makes it a byproduct of training for functionality and performance. In short, if your diet is in line and you train the core for maximum performance, then the aesthetics will take care of themselves.

The Core and Its Function

I keep throwing around this core word, so let’s make sure we’re on the same page. When I reference the core, I’m talking primarily about the following muscles:

• Rectus abdominis
• External oblique
• Internal oblique
• Transversus abdominis

With that in mind, let me ask you a quick question: what is the purpose of your core? Better yet, what are the two main functions of your core?

Go ahead and think on it for a minute, and then I’ll give you the answers.

Ready? Okay, here we go. The two primary functions of your core are to stabilize and transmit force. That’s it. The core needs to stabilize hip and lumbar positioning to allow you to transmit force in an efficient manner.

To better understand this, think about your favorite slingshot from when you were a kid. (If you didn’t have a slingshot when you were a kid, then just use your imagination and play along.) If the slingshot had flimsy handles, you struggled to generate length, tension, and force. The same goes with your core. If your core fails to adequately stabilize hip and lumbar positioning (think of people who easily slip into extension dominant patterns), then you’ll struggle to generate force and leave yourself susceptible to injury, especially lumbar injuries.

This is why I shake my head when I see people doing nothing but crunches. They’re merely training to pull their ribcage down and never learning to properly stabilize or transmit force. Instead of relying on crunches and other popular core routines, I’d like to introduce a few exercises that’ll not only get you ripped, but also increase performance and functionality.

1. The Reverse Crunch – No Counterweight

Purpose: The reverse crunch is one of the best exercises around because it teaches people to posteriorly tilt their pelvis.

Common Flaws: One of the biggest flaws people make when performing this exercise is that they bring their knees to their chest without moving their hips. Another common flaw is for people to plop back down to the ground when unrolling from the top position.

Good Cues: When performing this exercise think about trying to curl your belly button to the top of your rib cage. Also, when unrolling from the top position, think about doing so one vertebra at a time. This should help you control the eccentric portion of the exercise better and avoid slipping into extension.

In this video I do this move without a counterweight, but feel free to grab a kettlebell or some other object to hold onto in the beginning.

2. Dragon Flag

Purpose: Once the reverse crunch becomes too easy, this is a great place to go. It teaches you to not only posteriorly tilt your pelvis, but also hold that position statically throughout a range of motion. In other words, it’s a great anti-extension challenge.

Common Flaws: As this is primarily an anti-extension exercise, the main flaw is losing neutral positioning and arching through your lumbar.

Good Cues: For starters, you’ll need to get as tight as possible. This means squeeze your butt hard, squeeze your core hard, and then think about trying to maintain a straight line from your ankles through your hips to your shoulders. It also helps to think about moving through your belly button.

If you’re a Rocky fan you’ll love these. Sylvester Stallone crushes them in a barn before going to fight that crazy Russian.

3. Split Stance Cable Chop

Purpose: This exercise hits a lot of rocks. Two of the biggest are that it trains your body to avoid rotation (lateral core stability), and reinforces good breathing patterns.

Common Flaws:

• Letting your front knee slip into valgus positioning
• Compensating for the counterbalance by shifting your hips to the side
• Not exhaling fully at the bottom (notice the exhale in the video)
• Slipping into forward head posture
• Going into lumbar extension
• Standing too far away from the machine (set up so the cable is directly next to and in front of your front foot)

Good Cues: I think this exercise does a great job of illustrating the slingshot concept from earlier. You need to provide a rock solid base (your body) for your arms and shoulders to work around.

4. Wide Stance Anti-Rotation Chop

Purpose: The name pretty much gives this one away, but the whole point is to avoid rotation.

Common Flaws:

• Forward head posture
• Letting both knees slip into valgus
• Locking out your knees
• Shifting your hips
• Holding your breath (please breathe)
• Going too wide (a little wider than shoulder width works just fine)

Good Cues: Not too many cues to worry about for this one. Just get tight and don’t let anything slide out of place.

Programming Considerations and Closing Thoughts

Giving you these exercises is great and all, but it would probably help if I gave you some tips on how to program them, right? In the beginning, I’d recommend starting off with 3 sets of 10-12 reps (for the dragon flag you may want to drop the reps to 6-8). Then as you get better at the movements, work your way up to as many as 5 sets of 10-15 reps.

Furthermore, pick one exercise per training session (unless you’re lifting two days a week). With everything else you should be doing (squats, deadlifts, lunges, etc.) one of these movements will be plenty. Just focus on increasing the volume as opposed to adding in more exercises. Also, be sure to get a solid mix of both anterior core (reverse crunch and dragon flag) and lateral core (both chop variations). Don’t just hammer one and neglect the other.

For the split stance cable chop and wide stance anti-rotation chop, don’t worry about loading them up like crazy. These aren’t movements where you need to be testing a one-rep max. (If you do, I hope someone laughs at you.) You’re better off staying on the lighter side of things and focusing on good movement. I really like pairing these movements with a single-leg exercise. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much better your lunge pattern gets after activating your lateral core.

That’s all I’ve got for you today. I hope you found it interesting and go away with some new exercises you can start playing with tomorrow. If you have any questions or comments, please post them below. I’d love to help you in anyway I can.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Training the Core: 4 Exercises That Take It To The Next Level appeared first on Breaking Muscle.