In my studio, I use them to assess upper body and torso strength, muscular imbalances, and the ability to move the body as a unit. Unfortunately, most of the people I see have never learned how to do a push up properly, and a large percentage can’t do one full push up.

When I ask to see one push up, people tend to laugh embarrassedly or stare at me as if I’ve just asked them to bench press my car. “Can I do ‘girl’ pushups?” they ask, looking at me hopefully.

Never fear – all is not lost. There are many ways to gain your first full pushup or to improve on the push ups you already have. The tips below should help get you well on your way.

Master the Correct Elbow Position

The biggest mistake I see in pushups is people’s elbows sticking straight out to the sides. If you do them this way, you’re definitely not alone. Michelle Obama’s famous Ellen pushups were done just like that. And I’m not gonna lie – it made me kind of sad.

Think about it this way: if you were going to push, say, a refrigerator across the floor, would you do it with your elbows flared out like an angry chicken? Chances are, you wouldn’t. The way the human body naturally pushes is with the elbows at about a 45-degree angle from your ribs If you’re an elbow flarer, this one fix will significantly change the way your pushups feel.

De-Droopify Your Torso

A droopy torso in a push up also makes me sad. So, for the sake of my happiness, clean it up. A push up is essentially a moving plank. Therefore, your abdominals should be fully involved. A good little trick to find a solid core position is this:

1. Put your thumbs right on your bottom ribs.
2. Put your middle fingers right on your hip bones.
3. Now, without bending your upper body forward, try to bring your ribs and your hips (your middle fingers and your thumbs) closer to each other. Essentially, you’ll be flattening out the curve of your lower back. You should feel your abs flex. If you can’t figure out how to make this work, try squeezing your butt. That usually forces your pelvis into this position.

Maintain a solid core position by bringing your ribs and your hip bones closer together to create a tighter plank.

Put It All Together

In addition to the elements above, a good push up needs you to keep your head neutral (don’t tilt your chin up or down – this is more important than you might think) and your legs locked and together. Your hands should be right underneath your shoulders. (There are plenty of other hand and foot positions that are perfectly legitimate, but we’re just dealing with the basics right now. We’ll get to more advanced stuff later).

“A push up is essentially a moving plank. Therefore, your abdominals should be fully involved.”

Something I like to do in my push ups is to sort of screw my hands into the floor. You’ll want your middle finger to point to twelve o’clock in your push ups every time. With your hands in this position and without moving them, rotate your arms away from your torso. This will engage your lats so they can help your push ups a bit more and will help secure your elbows into the correct position.

What If I Can’t Do a Full Push Up?

Glad you asked! There are lots of ways you can build up your strength. The first thing to do is figure out your sticking point so you can work on it.

Your sticking point is the place at which you can no longer lower yourself down (or push yourself up) with good form. Once you know that, then take one (or more) of the following approaches to power up your push up.

Do Top-Down Work

From the top plank position of your push up, lower yourself slowly and under control all the way to your sticking point. Once you’re there, try holding that position with excellent form for 3-5 seconds. As you get stronger, start to lower and raise yourself just a hair under that point, and then a hair over that point.

Do Bottom-Up Work

Lie on the floor on your stomach with your hands and feet in push up position. Try to push yourself in one solid piece up to your sticking point and practice the raising and lowering sequence. If you can’t push yourself up off the floor, then push into the floor as hard as you can as if you were going to do the push up. Hold this isometric for 3-5 seconds. You just found another sticking point.

Elevate Your Push Ups

Find a bench, sofa arm, table, or other elevated stable object you can put your hands on for push ups. Make sure it’s not too easy. It should be a height that is challenging, but at which you can do a full, chest-to-bottom push up with excellent form. 

Practice your push ups at this height. As you get stronger, use lower and lower surfaces until you reach the floor. I find this method is significantly more effective than “girl push ups” (and I hate that term, too). Your body does not behave the same way from your knees as it does from your toes. If you practice knee push ups, you’ll get very good at knee push ups. Practice full push ups instead.

Do Negatives

From the top position of your push up, lower yourself as slowly as you can all the way to the floor with excellent form. Reset and repeat. If you can’t do this with full range of motion, elevate your body until you are at an angle that works for you and progress from there.

Do Positives

From the floor, push yourself under control and with perfect form all the way to the top position. Reset and repeat. If you can’t do this with full range of motion, elevate your body until you are at an angle that works for you and progress from there.

How to Progress After Your First Push Ups

If you can already do some decent pushups and would like to increase your strength or reps, increasing your range of motion can help you. I like to use two kettlebells for this. With perfect form, lower to the absolute end range of motion you can manage – without pain, of course – and practice that way. Push ups off the floor should come a lot easier if you master these.

Accessory Exercises to Help Your Push Ups

• Tricep exercises – Your triceps straighten your arm at the elbow, so getting them strong can help any sort of pressing exercise. Overhead extensions, skull-crushers, bent-over extensions, pulldowns, and dips are just some of the exercises you can use to build tricep strength.
• Planks and bananas – As I mentioned before, a push up is essentially a moving plank. Practicing hollow position and planks for time (both from your hands and from your elbows) can help strengthen a droopy torso. (For a full description of “bananas,” see my pull up article).
• Bench press – The bench press is a great way to strengthen your chest and all the muscles that assist pressing from the chest. Obviously, abdominal stabilization will not come into play as much with bench press, but it’s a great way to learn how to push a lot of weight.

Once you’ve mastered the push up, you can play with it a million different ways.

Wherever you are with your push up progressions, practice a few variations several times per week, and you’ll get stronger and better with time. Enjoy the ride, and let me know how it goes!

The post How to Progress Your Way to a Perfect Push Up appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Let me start by saying this: as a powerlifter, I have not in the last year or so been training overhead presses specifically, but rather using them as accessories to training my bench press. That having been said, I’ve picked up a lot of tips and tricks for increasing pressing strength along the way. What seems to work for everyone else never really works for me, so I’ll explain my own experience with each of these methods. If it didn’t work for me, it certainly does not invalidate the method – try it and see what it does for you.

Tool #1: Bench Press

Apparently, bench pressing helps overhead pressing. I say this because as I have been training my bench press, my overhead press has improved significantly. Without training overhead pressing strength specifically, I’ve been able to double press two 20kg bells. While I cannot say for sure my bench press should have all the credit for this, I can say it certainly has not impeded my progress. I’ve read numerous articles stating that bench press has no effect on overhead pressing. But like I said, what seems to work for everyone else does not seem to apply to me. So you might want to give it a shot, too.

Tool #2: Turkish Getups

This is one of those exercises that seem to work magic on the entire world, but doesn’t do much for me. There was a time when I TGUed like a madwoman, but I never saw gains in my press as a result. Despite that, the rest of the planet seems to glean tremendous benefit from the mighty Turkish getup. And why not? It works the shoulder from all angles and develops loaded stability and mobility. Definitely add heavy getups to your routine and see if they don’t add some poundage to your press.

Tool #3: Double Presses

Pressing heavy double bells will help your one-arm press. This method forces your body to remain vertical, therefore not allowing you to cheat your way through the press – plus it puts double the amount of force on the rest of your body. If you can double press a certain weight, there’s a good chance you’ll be able to one-arm press a fair amount more than that.

Tool #4: Total Body Tension

One of my mentors, Pavel Tsatsouline, is a big proponent of total body tension for strength, and it certainly works. When you’re pressing, squeeze the living bejeezus out of the handle of the kettlebell. Squeeze your butt and tighten your abs and quads hard. Shove your feet into the floor. Make a tight fist with your free hand and lock out the elbow. Press like you mean it.

Tool #5: Work Those Lats

Your lats should be helping you press, no matter what kind of press you’re doing. So if you’re not getting those puppies stronger, you’re doing yourself a major disservice. Pull ups, batwings, rows, scapular pull ups, and so on will help get you a strong pressing base.

Tool #6: Work Those Abs

Without a strong midsection, you’re not going to have much pressing strength (or deadlifting strength, or squatting strength, or…). Hanging leg raises, wheel rollouts, planks, heavy side bends, farmer’s carries, full sit ups (without tucked feet), and windmills all play a big role in my training.

Tool #7: Work Those Triceps

Your triceps help straighten out your arm and are integral in any kind of pressing movement. I do a ton of overhead triceps presses, skullcrushers, triceps kickbacks, and close-grip bench press and pushups to help build strength in that region.

Tool #8: Pyramids

This is one of my favorite ways of training bench, and it works great for overhead pressing, too. Pick a weight you can press fairly easily for 10 reps. Then a higher weight for 8 reps. Another for 6, for 5, for 3, and maybe one for 2 reps just for kicks. Once you get to the top of the pyramid and head back down, try to eke out at least one more good rep than you did on the way up at each weight. Do this, and you should be upping those weights in the not-so-distant future.

Tool #9: Speed Presses

High-volume speed training with excellent form can help build strength in most exercises. Use something around 60-70% of your 1RM and press it with excellent form, concentrating on exploding it up with as much speed as you can muster without sacrificing the integrity of the press. Bring the weight back to rack under control but quickly. Do 3 reps of these for 10-15 rounds, with around 30 seconds rest in between each round (more if you really need it). I do some variation of a speed workout once a week for each lift I am trying to perfect.

Tool #10: Assisted Presses, Push Presses, and Jerks

To get the feel of having a heavy weight overhead, you may need some help to get it up there. I will often assist a weight as much as needed (but as little as possible) with my opposite hand, then hold it overhead and take a walk around the room before doing a slow negative on the way down. You can also push press or jerk a weight you can’t straight press and do the same.

Tool #11: Isometrics

Find your sticking point in the press. Have a strong partner put his or her hands at the level of your sticking, or set up a fixed object at that level that you will not be able to press (you can set a barbell on pins and load it up, put a cable machine handle at that height, or put a handle on a chain attached to a plate-loaded loading pin and stand on the plate). Now push your press as hard as you can against the immovable object for about 5 seconds. Shake it off and try your press again.

And, of course, don’t forget to get excellent sleep, excellent nutrition, and adequate recovery time. Remember: you’re going to have good days and bad days in any strength routine. Don’t let the bad days discourage you. (I need to be reminded of this often.)

Hopefully some of these suggestions will help you hit some great personal records. Let me know how it goes!

Photo 1 public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Photo 2 by GiryaGirl (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

The post 11 Tools for Powering Up Your Press appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I am also a competitive powerlifter. At around 102lbs bodyweight, I’ve deadlifted 255lbs, benched 115lbs, and squatted 190lbs. I’ve done weighted pull ups with over 20kg loaded on me, bent steel rods and horseshoes by hand, overhead pressed a 24kg kettlebell, and more. Not only has my strength not suffered from my veganism, but my skin is better, my energy is better, my blood work is the best it’s ever been, and I just feel good in general.

I’m very live-and-let-live. I don’t believe in trying to push my morals on anyone else, and I certainly don’t believe veganism is the right lifestyle for everyone. But if the only thing standing between you and going vegan is the fear that your health or strength will suffer, then allow me to allay your fears. (And if I can’t allay your fears, turn to Ken Blackburn, Mike Mahler, Frank Medrano, Patrik Baboumian, and many other phenomenally strong and healthy vegans for more assurance.)

How to Eat Like a Vegan Strength Athlete

Although there is currently little well-designed research published on the subject, one of the few studies existing conceded that, “Well-planned vegetarian diets, particularly those including milk and/or eggs, can provide all essential nutrients for good health and for a high level of sports performance.”¹ So let’s get down to brass tacks. What should a vegan strength athlete eat? Here are my rules to lift by:

1. Get Enough Protein

Although getting enough protein for good health is easy on most diets (pretty much everything has protein in it, to some degree), I do believe that strength athletes need more. In addition to a diet rich in beans, sprouted grains, seitan, nuts, and seeds, I also take a protein powder every day mixed with unsweetened almond or flax milk. Some good brands are Spirutein Gold, Vega, Sunwarrior.

2. Take Creatine

I really recommend this for everyone, but in particular for vegans as the main sources of dietary creatine are meat and fish. Creatine has been proven to improve muscle mass and strength levels, as well as having significant cognitive benefits.^2-5 Several companies make vegan creatine monohydrate, including Jarrow and Now Foods.

3. Get Your Minerals

Here’s a rundown on important vitamins and minerals for vegans and how to make sure you’re getting enough of them:

• Zinc, vitamin B12, vitamin D, iron and calcium tend to be low in vegans, and therefore must be ensured in a vegan diet. Wheat germ (4.7g/31% DV zinc in one ounce), spinach (.5mg/4% DV zinc in one cup of raw spinach), pumpkin/squash seeds (2.9%/19% DV zinc in one ounce), dark baking chocolate (19% DV zinc per 29g square), other nuts, seeds, and greens, and fortified foods are very good sources of zinc.
• Vegan B12 is found in fortified foods and nutritional yeast, as well as through supplementation.
• Vitamin D requires some time in the sun without sunscreen (fifteen minutes should do it), and is also available in fortified foods and by supplementation.
• Some great sources of vegan calcium include blackstrap molasses, collard greens, tofu, soybeans, turnip greens, kale, sesame seeds or tahini, chia seeds, navy beans, almonds/almond butter, bok choy, broccoli, and fortified foods.
• Iron is a bit difficult to absorb. Heme iron, from animal sources, is more easily absorbed than non-heme iron, from vegetarian sources. For this reason, there are many little diet hacks you can utilize to make sure you get all the iron you need:
  • Make sure you include vitamin C-rich foods with your iron to help absorption, and avoid calcium-rich foods, which bind iron, for at least a half hour before eating an iron-rich meal.
  • Tea and coffee can also interfere with iron absorption, so try to keep those beverages separate from your high-iron meals.
  • Cooking with iron pots increases iron concentration significantly, particularly for acidic foods such as tomatoes, wine, vinegar, and citrus.
  • Eating small amounts of iron throughout the day will increase absorption more than consuming a lot of iron all at once. So try to spread it out.
  • Spinach, although high in iron, is also high in oxalates, which impair the absorption of non-heme iron. Spirulina, soybeans, cream of wheat, quinoa, prune juice, dried apricots and figs, beans (kidney, lima, and pinto in particular), cashews, sunflower seeds, broccoli, potatoes, blackstrap molasses, and Swiss chard are all good choices for upping your iron.

3. Eat Healthy Fats

And plenty of them. A lot of vegans end up on extremely low-fat diets that can impair absorption of fat-soluble vitamins and can actually result in poor blood lipid balance. Nuts, seeds, extra-virgin olive and coconut oils, and avocadoes provide plenty of healthy fats. It’s important to strive for higher amounts of omega-3 fatty acids to help reduce inflammation in the body, and therefore risk of disease. I recommend vegans take a vegan DHA/EPA supplement. Ovega-3, Deva andSource Naturals all make a version of this. Flaxseeds, algae, and chia seeds are also all good sources of omega-3s.

4. Don’t Fill Your Diet With Carbs

The biggest mistake I see vegans make is that they overdose on breads, crackers, cakes, cookies, and other carbohydrates in replacement of what they’ve cut out. These foods tend to be nutrient poor and unsatisfying. This habit is one of the main reasons a lot of vegans end up sick. I highly recommend making the majority of your diet rich in brightly colored vegetables (especially greens, reds, and oranges), with good helpings of beans, fruits, and nuts. Sprouted, whole, and sourdough grains should be included (if you want them there), but should not make up the bulk of what you consume.

This is a pretty good basic, but by no means comprehensive, guideline for vegan athletes (or wannabes). I welcome questions, though, should you have them. In the meantime, enjoy your food and lift heavy, my friends.

References:

1. Sportscience. “Effect of Vegetarian Diets on Performance in Strength Sports,” Sportscience 6. Accessed 10/12/2013

2. Volek JS, Ratamess NA, Rubin MR, Gómez AL, French DN, McGuigan MM, Scheett TP, Sharman MJ, Häkkinen K, Kraemer WJ., “The effects of creatine supplementation on muscular performance and body composition responses to short-term resistance training overreaching,” Eur J Appl Physiol. 2004 May;91(5-6):628-37 /span>

3. Rawson ES, Volek JS., “Effects of creatine supplementation and resistance training on muscle strength and weightlifting performance,” J Strength Cond Res. 2003 Nov;17(4):822-31

4. McMorris T, Mielcarz G, Harris RC, Swain JP, Howard A., “Creatine supplementation and cognitive performance in elderly individuals,” Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn. 2007 Sep;14(5):517-28.

5. Benton D, Donohoe R., “The influence of creatine supplementation on the cognitive functioning of vegetarians and omnivores, “ Br J Nutr. 2011 Apr;105(7):1100-5. doi: 10.1017/S0007114510004733.

Photo 1 courtesy of Melody Schoenfeld.

Photos 2 & 3 courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Strong, Healthy, and Vegan? (Yes, It Can Be Done) appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I am a big believer in keeping the body strong, even under adverse conditions. I am also of the mindset that if you have an injury the very best thing you can do for it is move whatever you can move, as much as possible, within pain-free range of motion. So, for instance, if you break your arm but you can move your fingers without pain, then wiggle your fingers in all the directions that you can, in the largest range of motion possible without pain.

If you train a particular body part, you will generally gain 10% strength in the rest of your muscles just due to activation. So if you hurt your left leg, work your right one. If you hurt both legs, work your upper body. If you hurt your back, do what you can without causing further injury to your back (this will depend completely on the nature of the injury), even if it’s just wiggling your toes around. But do something. This technique has gotten my clients back to doing activities they’d been told they’d never be able to do again. It really does work when it’s done right.

That having been said, I managed to chop a good portion of the tips of the index and middle fingers of my left hand off in an epic food processor accident. (Moral of that story: do not jerry-rig your food processor if the safety brake pops off.) And the icing on that cake is that I’m left-handed. Due to the accident, I dropped out of Powerlifting Nationals, which was a big bummer for me. But I was determined not to lose the progress I’d made up until then.

The ER surgeon told me I would need a skin graft, that I would likely not get the nail back on my middle finger, and that I would not be able to lift with that hand for three months. To which I responded, “Can I lift using the rest of my hand if I keep my fingers out of the way?” He said, “I don’t know how you’re going to do that without your fingers,” and left it at that.

Well, here’s what I figured out I could do without using my fingers:

1. Bench Press Training

Pressing a bar bothered my hand, so I didn’t do that for a while. But I could hold a kettlebell open-handed, no problem. So I worked my bench press by doing one-arm kettlebell benching (I needed to do it one-handed because I could not get the bell into rack without using my fingers, and therefore needed help with the other hand). I did one-arm overhead presses with the bells, too. Another thing I added was triceps push up and regular push up isometrics using pushup stands to keep my fingers out of the mix. I would do holds for time in various positions along the push up groove.

2. Upper Back Training

I was concerned that I would not be able to pull, since I couldn’t close my hand well around anything. I found an ankle strap that fits to a cable machine and wrapped it around my wrist. In this manner, I used it for cable rows, back flyes, and even pull ups (I rigged it to a pull up bar and hung down a strap for my other hand so that my hands would be at the same height). It exfoliated the crap out of my wrist, but it worked for what I needed it for.

3. Deadlift Substitutions

Clearly, deadlifting was pretty much out of the question. Instead, I did good mornings like they were going out of style. I also did hyperextensions holding a heavy kettlebell instead of a weight plate like I usually do, so that I could put the bulk of the weight in my good hand. I also hitched a harness to a Dodge Caravan and pulled that down my street, which was kind of awesome. Fortunately, my ability to squat was not affected at all, so I did a ton of squatting. Another thing I got in the habit of doing was holding kettlebells for time in my three good fingers on my left hand to build up strength there. I couldn’t go too heavy without feeling it in my other fingers, but I did what I could.

4. Assistance Exercises

Cables and push up stands really came in handy here. I did lots of one-arm cable triceps press-downs with an open palm. I did a ton of hamstring curls. I worked on my one-arm hanging leg raises and one-arm dragon flags, used the Evil Wheel a lot, and practiced my Stupid Human Tricks (I love being upside-down) on pushup stands. I did a ton of right-handed kettlebell swings.

The results of all this was that, even in bandages, I added 35lbs to my squat and almost 20lbs to my bench press in less than a month and a half. Once I got my fingers out of bandages and back in use (in less than half the time predicted, without the skin graft, and with the nails 100% there), I hit my previous deadlift numbers within two weeks.

My point is, just because you’ve got a setback doesn’t mean it’s all over for you. I was fortunate in that in my case, it was only a couple of fingers. For many people, injuries are far more severe than that. The biggest rule of thumb is move, but do not moveinto pain. Pain is your body trying to stop you from doing something. Listen to it.

Do what you can without making your injuries worse. You will likely find that you heal much more quickly and that you are stronger upon recovery than you ever thought you would be. Chances are, you’ll recruit new strength doing your “here’s what I can do” exercises that will only make you better in the long run.

The post How to Train When Your ____ Hurts (Or When You Cut Your Fingertips Off) appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Well, times have changed, and at some point in my twenties, I figured out how to get my body to do what I wanted it to do, and I got my first pull up. Now I do them with 20kg hanging from my waist, and they are one of my all time favorite exercises.

People have been asking me a lot lately about how to get their first pull up, or how to improve the number of pull ups they can do. This seemed as good a time as any, then, to put together a little article on some things that helped me get my pull ups honed in.

First of all, let me tell you what did NOT work for me. That’s not to say that these might not be useful exercises for other people. I find that what tends to work for the majority tends not to work for me, so I could be an anomaly.

1. Lat Pulldowns. I believe these did not work for a few reasons. First of all, there is only so much you can pull without the barrier on your legs – at some point you’ll fly up with the bar. The barrier recruits your hip flexors, which should not be pulling to that degree (or at that angle) in a proper pull up. Second of all, the lat pulldown does not mimic the mechanics of the pull up, making it a poor assistance exercise for this movement.
2. Assisted pull up machines. I never approached a bodyweight pull up using these things. The standing variety of this machine seems to be a little bit better for mimicking pull up mechanics than the kneeling kind. However, in both cases, although my ability to do a machine pull up improved, my ability to do a bodyweight pull up did not. Elastic band assistance had the same effect for me.

I know these methods did not work for me because at the time, they were all the training I did to try to achieve a pull up. Fortunately, I wised up and tried some new methods. And what I realized is that if you want to be able to do pull ups, you need to start doing pull ups and all their elements. Period.

RELATED:How Bands Are Actually Holding You Back

Here Are the Ten Tools I Used to Get Better at Pull Ups:

1. Hanging

If you’re going to pull yourself up from a hanging position, you’d best learn how to hang first. Many people find just holding on to the bar is the most challenging part of the pull up. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – a strong grip leads to a strong upper body. So get your hang on.

Try to hang from a bar for as long as your hands will let you. If your grip is already pretty strong, you can try things like thick bar hangs (use thick grips, or wrap a towel or other similar material around the bar to make the bar as thick as you like), two-finger hangs, one-finger hangs, one-arm hangs, and so on. To make things more challenging, try weighting yourself or changing your leg position. I like to do hanging leg raises from my one-arm hang position.

RELATED:Why Unpacking the Shoulder in Pull Ups Is Helpful

Pictured here are a two-finger hang and a one-arm hang:

2. Scapular Pull Ups

Scap pull ups are really good for people who have trouble activating their lats (which should be the first move you make in a pull up). The ability to hang with straight arms, and then pull your shoulder blades down your back, is an excellent way to learn how to initiate a pull up with your lats and make your back stronger for pulling.

LEARN MORE: Developing Your Serratus Anterior

3. Batwings

I learned about batwings from the ever-amazing Dan John. Essentially, you lie facedown on a bench with a relatively heavy kettlebell or dumbbell in each hand. Pull the weights all the way up with the intention of touching your thumbs to your armpits, and squeeze your shoulder blades together for 5+ seconds. This is a fantastic way to help increase your pulling strength.

MORE HERE:Strength Routines for Developing a Strong and Healthy Upper Back

4. Bottoms-Up Holds and Presses

Bottoms-up kettlebell work increases your crush grip strength, your core strength, and your shoulder stability, which might just give you the edge you need to increase your pull up strength.

Pictured here is the bottoms-up clean, bottoms-up press, and double bottoms-up clean:

FURTHER INSTRUCTION:4 Drills That Will Improve Your Kettlebell Press

5. Bananas

If you are going to do a really good pull up, you are going to need to learn how to create a gymnastic-type “hollow” position with your body. Bananas create this kind of position from the ground, and give you some excellent abdominal strength, too.

Basically, shove your lower spine into the ground from a lying-down position. Try to remove all the air between your lumbar curve and the floor. Stick your legs together and lock your knees. Lift your shoulders and your legs a bit off the floor, and put your arms straight behind you in line with or behind your ears. Hang out there as long as you can stand it. For more of a challenge, try to maintain your position and rock back and forth.

INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO: Hollow Hold (Bananas)

6. Reverse Bananas

From your pushup position, keep your tailbone tucked and walk your hands out in front of you as far as you can. Hold for time.

7. Ground pull ups

Assume your banana hollow position on the ground. Now grab a bar at pull up height (either with a partner holding it, or with some sort of creative maneuvering like I did in the video). Pull your shoulder blades down your spine and maintain your banana position. Pull your body up until your throat is level with the bar. Lather, rinse, repeat.

READ MORE:Women and Pull Ups: 3 Secrets You’ve Probably Never Tried

8. Isometrics

You may know by now that I am a huge fan of isometrics for building strength. For pull ups, I like to do weighted holds in my weakest areas for 5-10 seconds (for me, it’s the top of the pull). I also do a lot of bodyweight and weighted pull up isometrics at various levels of the movement. I found this to be extremely useful for building strength for heavier pulls.

PRACTICE IT:Working at a Stand Still: How to Do Isometric Training

9. Negatives

This is the only kind of negativity I allow in the gym. Use a step or a boost or a jump to get your body to the top of the bar so that your chin is over the bar. Ideally, start with your throat level to the bar. Hold that top position for a few seconds, and lower yourself very slowly until your arms are straight. These days, I have been doing my negatives with 24kg and above to help meet my goal of a 24kg weighted pull up.

LEARN MORE:6 Powerful Benefits of Eccentric Training

10. Partner-Assisted pull ups

If you can’t quite get your pull up, recruit a partner to help you. Instead of grabbing your feet or lower legs like many people do (which gets you out of form and allows you to recruit your legs to push you up), have them support you behind your ribs. Make sure you maintain proper pull up form throughout the movement, and only allow your friend to help as much as is needed.

RELATED:Having a Workout Partner Can Double Performance

Common Mistakes I Have Seen With the Pull Up:

1. Pulling up with bent hips and knees, or “pumping” your way up. A really good, strict pull up should not recruit your hip flexors or use momentum to achieve the end result. Keep your body in banana hollow position!
2. Shrugging the shoulders and dropping the chin to the chest while pulling. Trust me – this makes you weaker, recruits the wrong muscles for the movement, and might give you a nasty headache. And it ain’t pretty to look at, either.
3. Not extending the arms all the way at the bottom of the movement. If you start or finish your pull ups with a bent arm, you didn’t complete the pull up. And you’re a big ole cheater.

Hopefully some of this will get you well on your way to your pull up goals. Use what works for you and throw out what doesn’t. Everyone’s body is different, so you may find that you do better with some of these than with others.

Make sure you train your weaknesses hardest, even though that’s not as much fun. When it comes down to it, the weak links are what will make or break your results. Let me know how you do!

The post The Proof Is in the Pull-Up: 10 Tools for Getting Better at Pull-Ups appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Okay, stop laughing. I’m being serious. I’m talking about a relatively new technique called occlusion training, or, as it was originally called, KAATSU training. KAATSU training is the brainchild of Yoshiaki Sato, MD, Ph.D, of Japan. Essentially, it’s the act of using a blood pressure cuff or similar light tourniquet to restrict blood flow to an exercising muscle. 

There is a decent amount of research on the efficacy of blood flow-restricted training. Unfortunately, Professor Sato and his KAATSU training university did much of it. Although those studies may be legitimate, in researching the technique I wanted to exclude any obvious possibility of bias, so I discounted any of Sato’s research right off the bat.

With that done, several studies seem to show that low-load vascular occlusion training bears comparable results to conventional high-load training. Madarame et. al. showed that while occlusion training improved muscle strength and size, it did not improve jump performance in previously untrained young men.¹ Kim et. al. demonstrated that while muscle size increased significantly for individuals who trained with and without blood flow restriction, the traditional trainers had a greater increase in muscle size.²

Traditional training also proved to be much more effective for bone turnover than blood flow-restricted training in this study.³ Moore et. al. conducted a study that showed vascular occlusion training increased muscle strength and changed some aspects of neuromuscular function that conventional training did not.⁴ Yamanaka et. al. found that occlusion training increased both hypertrophy and strength of the muscles of Division IA football players.⁵ One Japanese study performed in 1999 even showed a 290-times increase of growth hormone levels in occlusion-users, and those levels remained slightly higher than the control level after 24 hours.⁶

Occlusion training is thought to work through the process of “metabolic accumulation.”  Basically, instead of letting your body flush all the metabolic products of exertion through the system, the tourniquet keeps it all in the area. This stimulates a big release of anabolic growth factors, recruits more fast-twitch fibers, and induces more production of protein.⁷

Occlusion training also seems to stimulate the production of heat shock proteins, which monitor cell proteins and help transport other proteins across cell membranes, aiding in cell repair. Occlusion training appears to affect Nitric oxide synthase-1 (which helps control blood pressure, insulin secretion, blood vessel growth, and peristalsis, and helps catalyze nitric oxide from L-arginine) and reduces myostatin as well (animals lacking myostatin have larger muscles than other animals). More research is needed on the exact mechanisms of occlusion training, but it seems to have many avenues through which it works its magic.

In light of this and other available research on the effectiveness of occlusion training, it would appear there is some benefit to it for both strength and hypertrophy gains for lifters of all kinds. It’s important to note, though, that occlusion training is not meant to replace heavy lifting. It should be seen as an assistance exercise or used as therapy for those who cannot lift heavy weights. It’s great for deloading periods or on lighter training days.

That having been said, let’s talk about how to work occlusion training into your routine. I use TheraBands as my makeshift tourniquets, although you could really use any elastic band you like (including actual tourniquets), or even a blood pressure cuff. You want to tie it at the joint above the muscle group you plan to train. So, for instance, you would tie it off right at the shoulder joint to affect the bicep, or right around the uppermost thigh to affect the quads. Tie it tightly enough that you feel a rather uncomfortable obstruction of blood without cutting off the supply altogether.

I like to combine occlusion training with bodyweight isometric training. For instance, for a set of pushups, I’ll occlude at the shoulders and hold my pushups for five or so seconds at several angles along the movement. For squats or lunges, I do the same with the occlusion at my hips. For weight training with occlusion, go lighter than usual – 50% or less of your max. Perform as many good reps as you are able at that weight with the occlusion point that relates to your targeted muscle group.

Note: Occlusion training is not fun. Like, at all. Occlusion training is extremely difficult and uncomfortable. But it’s quick and dirty, and you should see some impressive enhancements to your muscle size and strength as a result. Let me know how it goes!

The post Do You Occlude? What Is Occlusion Training? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Some of the strongest dudes out there (Steve Justa, Dennis Rogers, and Bud Jeffries, to name just a few) use isometrics to help increase strength gains, which should be a clue that isometric training works pretty well. From a personal standpoint, I can definitely say adding in isometrics to my training helped me push through some strength plateaus I’d been struggling with. But just to be sure we’re on the right track, let’s look at the science.

In 1978, Komi, et al. showed that isometric training increased recruitment of muscle units, improved submaximal load efficiency, and improved oxidative metabolism in the muscle.¹ R.H. Parker discovered isometric training was more effective than dynamic training for muscle function improvement.² Folland, et al. noted that isometric training and dynamic training both had similar results in isokinetic strength gains, while isometric strength gains were significantly larger for isometrically-trained muscles than for dynamically-trained muscles.³

In light of all this sciencey stuff, I think it’s likely safe to say that adding a little isometric training to your life might not be a horrible idea. So let’s talk about a few ways to help make isometric training work for you. I’m going to cover some fun stuff you can try for each of the basic movements (push, pull, hip hinge, squat/lunge). Feel free to run with it from there!

Push Movements:

One way I use isometric training for “push” type movements is by using weighted (or un-weighted, depending on what’s available and how I’m feeling) pushups. I will hold the pushup at several angles for 5-10 seconds per angle.

Below, I demonstrate two kinds of pushups: a regular pushup (un-weighted) and an uneven pushup (un-weighted). You can try all kinds of hand positions (hands rotated in, for instance, or one hand in and one hand out, etc.) and all kinds of arm positions (wide, narrow, one arm straight out in front, one arm 45-degrees to the back, etc.).

Regular pushup pictured on the left. Uneven pushup pictured on the right:

I also do handstands with the arms bent at different degrees, overhead press isometrics at different heights (I’ll use an anchored chain with a handle attached), and recently, I’ve been working hard on overhead squats, so I’m using isometrics to try to build stability at my sticking point, as pictured to the right. I have the cable weights maxed out so I can’t press/stand up with the bar, and I’m pushing as hard as possible up against the bar. To work different angles, I just move the cables up or down.

Pull Movements:

I love pull ups. LOVE THEM. And because I love them so, I’m always trying to gain strength there. So pull ups are a must for my isometric training. I will do them weighted or not weighted (weighted with 14kg pictured here) and do them much the same way that the pushups were done – I hold various angles for 5-10 seconds each. 

These are easily done with any kind of pull at any angle you like – cables or chains are great for this. Also like to shift my weight to one arm when doing pull ups so most of the effort goes to that arm, then switch arms for the next round.

Hip Hinge Movements:

Deadlifting is another one of my favorite things ever, and I’m working hard on some very big lifts right now. Isometric work is key in this for me. I will often use my anchored chain with a straight bar handle attached to it for deadlifting movements, and other times I just load a bar with much more weight than I can lift and just pull against it. 

Sometimes I use the actual rack (as pictured here). It has a very wide grip space, so I get a great grip workout while I do this, and at the same time, there’s no setup needed, since there’s no way I can lift the loaded rack (…yet). I do these at various heights and angles. Pictured here are a wide-stance pull and a Jefferson-type pull. I hold each pull for 5-10 seconds (see a pattern here?). The idea is to pull at max effort against the load.

I will try to do these through any position I can think of – standing next to the bar, standing in front of the bar, etc. – to build strength through as many muscle angles as possible.

Squat/Lunge Movements:

Much in the same way as the pushup and the pull up were performed, I’m going to hold my squat or lunge at any angle I like for – guess what – 5-10 seconds. (By the way, this 5-10 second number isn’t a rule – it’s just arbitrary, but I find it works well for me. And for moves like the overhead press or the deadlift, 10 seconds is asking a whole lot of a max effort.) I like to weight my lunges unilaterally (20kg shown here), but that’s a personal preference. 

Like the pushup, you can change the angles of your feet and legs to try different kinds of lunges, like a side lunge.

Another movement I love of this ilk is the good ole wall sit. I like to compete with myself on these, trying to hold them for longer and longer periods of time, weighted or not. I do them one-legged at times, as well. They are super fun!

How to Implement

I usually integrate isometrics into my workouts by doing a set of isometrics at different angles, concentrating particularly on my sticking point angles, for a particular move (say, an overhead press), resting about 2 minutes, and then busting out

a true set of that move. I sometimes, on my off days, do a few rounds of bodyweight isometrics as a sort of “grease the groove” type of movement. I have been known to include some occlusion training when I do this, but that is fodder for another article.

Give isometrics a try for a few weeks and see how it affects your performance. I’d love to hear how it goes!

The post Working at a Stand Still: How to Do Isometric Training appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Although very few studies have been done on the subject of grip strength in relation to upper body strength and endurance, those that exist seem to indicate what I have suspected for a long time from my own training – having a strong grip means having a strong and resilient upper body.1,2 Let’s face it – having a double-bodyweight deadlift is a whole different animal when you can do it using a snatch grip without wraps. In addition, a huge host of muscles are involved in the act of gripping: four flexors (digitorum profundus, digitorum superficialis, digiti minimi brevis, pollicis longus), one extensor (digitorum), and three intrinsic muscles (lumbricals, interossei, adductor pollicis).

Strengthening these can help prevent many common injuries to the hand and forearm (those of you in contact sports of any kind know how much this can affect your game), and can help any injuries that do occur to heal much faster.

Types of Grip Training and When to Use Them

Grip training goes well beyond squeezing grippers or stress balls. After all, there’s more than one kind of grip strength:

• The Crush Grip is the grip between your fingers and your palm—the one you use for shaking hands and crumpling beer cans.
• The Pinch Grip is the grip between your fingers and your thumb. This can be further subcategorized into individual fingers + thumb grip.
• The Support Grip is the ability to maintain a hold on something for a while—think pull ups or long and productive shopping trips.

The type of grip training you do depends completely on its applicability to what you want to accomplish. Martial artists may find support grip training to be more useful for things like wrist grabs and such. Climbers may find pinch grip and support grip strength to be most useful. If you’re training to close Iron Mind grippers, well, you’d best do some crush grip training. I personally use elements of all three in my training—I find this keeps me from overtraining one style and gives me well-rounded strength.

How To Train Your Grip

There are many ways to effectively train the grip. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

Hanging:

Grab a pull up bar. Get your feet off the floor. Hold on for dear life. Many people find the limiting factor in their pull ups (or even in just doing a hanging stretch) is the simple ability to hang on to the bar. Hanging for time can be an excellent way to overcome this issue. Try holding the bar in different positions—chin up style (palms facing you), pull up style (palms facing away from you), neutral (palms facing each other), mixed (one palm in, one out), hook (fingers gripping the bar, palm, and thumbs off the bar), individual finger hooks, one arm hangs, and so on.

To make these more difficult, widen the bar you are using. You can do this cheaply by wrapping a towel or sweatshirt around the bar to the width of your liking, or by cutting two short lengths of PVC pipe (width of your choice) and cutting a slit down the side of each so that you can pop them over the bar. You can do this more expensively by purchasing a pair of thick grip tools from a sporting goods supply store. Another option for a pull up bar is to hang a rope or towel from it so that the middle is over the bar. Grab the ends and try to do pullups or hangs that way. If you are a climber or do Brazilian jiu jitsu, you will absolutely want to do some of these!

Farmer Carries:

My personal implement of choice for farmer carries is the kettlebell, but you can also use dumbbells, hex bars, straight bars, large water bottles, suitcases—anything you can carry that hangs from your hands. Pick up one or two and walk as far as you can with it. Make it challenging. This not only trains support grip strength effectively, but also is a heck of a full body workout!

Plate Pinches:

Get two weight plates, preferably with smooth backs. Stack them together so the smooth side on each faces out. Try to pick them up. Better yet, try to take a walk with them after you’ve picked them up.

Hex Dumbbell Lifting:

There is a tool many strongmen use called a “blob.” Many people make their own by cutting the ends off of hex dumbbells. As I don’t have any dumbbells I can cut apart at the moment, I turn them into pseudo-blobs by grabbing the hex ends and trying to lift them. This can be done two-handed (one hand on top of each end in a pinch-grip fashion), or one-handed (dumbbell on its side, one hand grasping the end widthwise). This is much more difficult than it sounds, especially if you have mini-hands like I do.

Hook Grip Kettlebell Swinging:

Kettlebell swinging for endurance, even without the hook grip, is a very tough grip workout. I like to do one-handed hook-grip swings and go until my grip just about gives out. Then I do the same number on the other hand without stopping (which gives my first hand a break), and keep switching back and forth that way. In addition to having major cardiovascular and fat-burning benefits, this will build great finger strength and hip power. To make it more difficult, widen the grip of the bell by wrapping a towel around it or wearing thick gloves, or even try wearing lotion on your hands (make sure nothing/no one breakable is in front of you!).

Plate Curls:

A wonderful way to build finger and wrist strength is doing plate curls. Grab a weight plate of appropriate poundage. Hold it in your palm with your thumb over the top and your fingers extended over the bottom. Do bicep curls like that.

Sandbag Deadlifts:

Fill a few trash bags with sand and load them into a canvas duffel bag, or buy a commercial sandbag. Do NOT use the handles of the sandbag. Instead, try to pick it up, deadlift style, by pinching/crushing the material of the bag.

Extensor Training:

At some point, you’re going to need to open your hands again. Get a rubber band off a bunch of broccoli, slip it over your fingers, and open your hand as wide as you can. Add more rubber bands as needed.

Don’t overdo it with grip training. 3-5 reps of 3-5 sets of intense grip work one to three times per week (experiment and see what works best for you) is enough. Now get out there and dominate!

The post The 3 Types of Grip and the 8 Ways to Train Them appeared first on Breaking Muscle.