Don’t let the title “Hip Flow” fool you. This routine is about more than just the hips; it’s a full-body warm up and joint mobilization sequence. When creating the flow, Coach White started with the hips, but also paid special attention to the thoracic spine to help unwind our athlete’s bound-up bodies.

The Cal Poly Hip Flow

The Cal Poly Hip Flow was designed to transition smoothly from one exercise to the next. It not only caters to the individual, but can also be an effective way to get big groups warm for the training you have ahead.

The following is the sequence of exercises in the flow: 

1. Hip circles x 3 (each direction)
2. Tall reach
3. Downward dog x 3
4. Left foot up and step through
5. Hip distractions x 6
6. Worlds greatest/lunging thoracic rotations x 6
7. Cossacks x 6
8. Blocking hip rotations x 6
9. Downward dog x 3
10. Right foot up and step through
11. Repeat steps 5-9
12. Downward dog x 3
13. Thoracic bridge x 6 (each side)
14. Wide stance push back/downward dog x 3
15. Wide stance thoracic rotations x 6
16. Wide stance push back/downward dog x 3
17. Sweep left leg through with chest folds x 6
18. Sweep right leg through with chest folds x 6
19. Downward dog x 3
20. Table top stretch x 6
21. Downward dog x 3
22. Walk feet into squat
23. Left elbow pry x 6
24. Right elbow pry x 6
25. Both elbows with shifting
26. Stand up and kick out
27. Kneeling dorsiflexion x 60 sec
28. Kneeling plantarflexion x 60 sec

Make the Flow Your Own

As stated in the video, we have added exercises as the teams have progressed. After practicing this sequence for a while, feel free to slip in other movements that are appropriate for you. You can also add more time to certain exercises like we have done with the ankle mobility exercises at the end. Typically, we increase holding time by 15 seconds. Most of our teams hold each for 90 seconds.

We’d like to thank Max Shank, Andrew Read, and Peak Performance Project (P3) for their influences during the creation of this routine. Enjoy!

More Ways to Mobilize for Maximum Performance:

• Ramp Up Your Warm Up: Prepare With Purpose
• Warm Up to Lift Big: A Movement Prep Blueprint for Strength
• Warm Up Quickly With the Agile 8 Routine
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Teaser photo courtesy of Chris Holder.

The post Get Ready for Full Throttle: The Cal Poly Hip Flow appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

• Motor mechanics
• Central nervous system activation
• Increase blood flow to muscle and other tissues
• Increase body temperature
• Enhance muscle firing rates
• Increase active mobility

Detailed below are eight individual “primer” exercises that will ignite your central nervous system, enhance your motor mechanics, and develop a sounder snatch. Additionally, I have included a sample snatch warm-up routine using these exercises that you can use before each time you snatch.

Warm up like you work out. Work out like you warm up.

8 Snatch Drills to Develop Speed and Efficiency: 1. Snatch Press + Overhead Squat

Reason: The development of proper overhead and squatting mechanics is vital for snatching. The snatch press + overhead squat will promote vertical squatting patterns and better stability in the catch of the squat.

Technique:

1. Start with a snatch grip on the barbell on the back rack position.
2. With you feet in squatting stance, begin the behind the neck (BTN) snatch grip press. Unlock the knees and hips to simultaneously “press” yourself into the bottom of the overhead squat.
3. This exercise is to be performed slow and under control rather than explosively.
4. Pause at bottom of exercise, and ascend under control.

8 Snatch Drills to Develop Speed and Efficiency: 2. Heave Snatch

Reason: This exercise is used to develop proper overhead mechanics and squatting technique in the catch. It’s a great exercise to use for overload strength development and/or warm-up sessions.

Technique:

1. Start with a snatch grip on the barbell on the back rack position.
2. With your feet in squatting stance, perform a dip and drive, similar to the jerk, to initiate sending the barbell off the body.
3. Unlock the knees and hips to simultaneously “press” yourself into the bottom of the overhead squat. This exercise is to be performed under control rather than explosively. Pause at bottom of exercise, and ascend under control.
4. It is important to emphasize the drive under the bar in the catch.

8 Snatch Drills to Develop Speed and Efficiency: 3. Snatch Balance

Reason: This exercise is used to develop speed under the barbell in the catch. It’s a great exercise to use for technique and speed development and/or warm-up sessions.

Technique:

1. Start with a snatch grip on the barbell on the back rack position.
2. With your feet in pulling stance, perform a dip and drive, similar to the jerk, to initiate the sending the barbell off the body.
3. Explosively unlock the knees and hips, and open the stance width (about a foot width extra) to simultaneously “drive” yourself into the bottom of the overhead squat.
4. The snatch balance is to be performed explosively.
5. It is important to emphasize the explosive drive under the bar in the catch.

8 Snatch Drills to Develop Speed and Efficiency: 4. Drop Snatch

Reason: This exercise is used to develop maximal speed, proper overhead mechanics, and squatting technique in the catch.

Technique:

1. Start with a snatch grip on the barbell on the back rack position, with your feet in pulling stance.
2. Unlike the snatch balance, do not perform a dip and drive in the drop snatch.
3. Rather, unlock the knees and hips to simultaneously “drive” yourself into the bottom of the overhead squat, opening open the stance width (about a foot width extra), as fast as you can.
4. This exercise is to be performed at maximal speed, explosively.
5. Negating any dip and drive will force the athlete to be 100% confident in their footwork and stability under the barbell in the catch.

8 Snatch Drills to Develop Speed and Efficiency: 5. Snatch From Full Extension

Reason: This exercise will develop maximal speed and sound footwork under the bar in the catch. Additionally, it will teach the athlete to drop vertically under the bar.

Technique:

1. With snatch grip, elevate yourself on to your toes, and shrug with long, fully extended arms.
2. With your chest out and chin up, pause at peak extension.
3. When ready, pull the mental trigger to forcefully and violently pull yourself into the bottom of the squat.
4. The stance width should open about a foot width extra as you drop, with your hips landing inside the heels, and your elbows and wrists fully extended.

8 Snatch Drills to Develop Speed and Efficiency: 6. Snatch Liftoff

Reason: This positional pull prepares a lifter for the hamstring and posterior chain activation that will be required to properly load the first pull of the snatch (floor to knee).

Technique:

1. Start in the snatch position from the floor.
2. With your feet hip width apart, turn your toes open 15-30 degrees.
3. Grab the bar with your hook grip, and load yourself into your snatch pulling position.
4. As you ascend, pull your knees back shifting the weight from the balls of your feet to your heels, all while staying over the barbell with the chest and lats.
5. The shoulders and hips should rise together through the lift.
6. When you have reached knee level, return the barbell to the floor and repeat.

8 Snatch Drills to Develop Speed and Efficiency: 7. Muscle Snatch

Reason: The muscle snatch is a great teaching and strengthening exercise to develop sound pulling mechanics and minimizing horizontal displacement. By negating the catch phase, you force the hips and upper body to fully maximize strength and power.

Technique:

1. Start in the snatch position from the floor.
2. With your feet hip width apart, turn your toes open 15-30 degrees.
3. Grab the bar with your hook grip, and load yourself into your snatch pulling position.
4. As you ascend, pull your knees back shifting the weight from the balls of your feet to your heels, all while staying over the barbell with the chest and lats.
5. As you pass the knees, explosively bring the bar vertical up the legs and extend your hips, transitioning into your high pull.
6. Without rebending your lower knees and hips, rotate the barbell to snap yourself under the bar, forcefully extending the elbows and driving yourself under that bar.

8 Snatch Drills to Develop Speed and Efficiency: 8. Power Snatch

Reason: The power snatch is the fundamental snatch variation to build overall strength and power in the movement. By limiting the full catch position, you force maximal power and upper body strength, hip extension, and enhanced turnover of the barbell in the catch.

Technique:

1. Start in the snatch position from the floor.
2. With your feet hip width apart, turn your toes open 15-30 degrees.
3. Grab the bar with your hook grip, and load yourself into your snatch pulling position.
4. As you ascend, pull your knees back shifting the weight from the balls of your feet to your heels, all while staying over the barbell with the chest and lats.
5. As you pass the knees, explosively bring the bar vertical up the legs and extend your hips, transitioning into your high pull.
6. Quickly rebend your hips and knees, rotate the barbell to “snap yourself under the bar”, forcefully extending the elbows and driving yourself under that bar.
7. Your catch position should have the bar locked out overhead, with your hips at or above parallel.

The Complete Snatch Warm Up

Perform with an unloaded barbell, focusing on precision and speed.

1. Snatch Press + Overhead Squat: 1 set x 10 reps
2. Heave Snatch: 1 set x 3-5 reps
3. Snatch Balance: 1 set x 3-5 reps
4. Drop Snatch: 1 set x 3-5 reps
5. Snatch from Full Extension: 1 set x 3-5 reps

Then, load the bar with 20-50% of your 1 rep max and perform:

1. Snatch Liftoff: 2 sets x 3-5 reps
2. Muscle Snatch: 2 sets x 3-5 reps
3. Power Snatch + Overhead Squat: 2 sets x 3-5 Reps

When done, load the barbell with 50% of your 1 rep max and perform 1 set x 3-5 reps of the full snatch. Then, progress into your training program.

Attack With Purpose

This is a great routine to do when you are recovering from a few days off or want to take additional time to develop smoother movement mechanics at the end of a session. You can also interchange the snatch and the clean and jerk, depending on the emphasis of your training session.

Remember, in weightlifting it’s always technique first, speed second, and personal bests last. With this warm up on hand, you can attack your snatch training sessions with purpose.

You’ll Also Enjoy:

• How to Trim the Fat Off Your Warm Up Routine
• Ramp Up Your Warm Up: Prepare With Purpose
• How Warming Up the Right Way Can Still Go Wrong
• New on Breaking Muscle Today

Photo courtesy of Mike Dewar.

The post The Complete Snatch Warm Up appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

First, I’m going to tell you how the warm up should go. And then, I’m going to discuss all the ways it can go horribly wrong.

The Proper Way to Warm Up

The purpose of your warm up is to raise your body temperature (especially that of the muscles) in order to prime the body for lifting. The warm-up period should prepare all the body’s relevant systems (cardiovascular, respiratory, nervous, and muscular-skeletal).

You must do this gradually, increasing the demand on those systems until you are ready to add some weight to the bar. You will start with a low intensity activity, perhaps walking or light jogging. Just enough to get the blood flowing. This may be supplemented by the wearing of sweats. This will raise the body temperature somewhat without using a lot of energy, and that is what you want.

The next step requires more physical activity. With lifters, this will be a stretching of all major muscles, tendons, and ligaments in the body. This should not be done randomly. Start at the extremities and work towards the core areas, the smaller joints to the large ones. This ensures that the required amount of flexibility is achieved before any serious lifting occurs. When your stretching routine is complete you should be warm and loose.

The next step is to practice your motor pathways. This is just a fancy coaching term for broomstick lifting. Most routines have the classical lifts opening the day’s list of exercises. You are sharpest at the start of a workout, so you want to do your technique work then. Take the broomstick and start doing snatches. Make sure you are indeed as loose as you should be in the lift. The advantage to doing this is that the body temperature will be more effectively increased in the specific body parts you will be using.

When you are satisfied you can start using only the bar and then add weight until you get to your work sets. When done properly, a warm up will reduce the likelihood of an injury while ensuring your technique is as correct as possible. A good warm up also ensures that the lactic acid build-up is kept to a minimum.

How the Warm Up Can Go Horribly Wrong

What I’m now going to talk about is how this warm up can go wrong, despite following all of the above suggestions. To address this, we have to think back to the reason you warm up – to raise the body temperature.

Ambient temperature can influence your personal body temperature significantly. A warm room or atmosphere will certainly help you raise your body temp. In no time you will feel that you are ready for the big plates. After all, you are sweating already. What can go wrong?

Well, here is what you have to watch out for. I remember the 1979 Pan American Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico. They were held in mid-summer, it was very hot, and it was even more humid than it was hot. Most of our Canadian team was from eastern Canada where humidity was high, but nothing like San Juan. Ditto the heat. Everyone thought that their warm ups were going great. The heat gave everyone a false sense of readiness.

Sure, their body temps were high enough (probably too high), but they soon found that their flexibility was not keeping up. They were warm, but they were surprised to be still a bit tight when taking their first attempts. Pulled muscle injuries were a real possibility. They then learned they had to do more stretching. An obvious prescription, but one with a problem. The extra stretching also required more energy expenditure in the extreme heat. So they all had to re-plan their warm ups.

There was one bright spot though. With all that sweating nobody had any problem making weight. The opposite problem ensued, that of maintaining weight. San Juan seemed like one giant steam room. On the positive side, all could indulge themselves on the great food in the games village.

Warm Up Considerations for Cold Climates

While it took some extreme climate circumstances to teach this lesson it should not have been so difficult. Our Canadian lifters actually have the same body-warming problems only in reverse.

Most Canadian lifters and many American ones train through long winters. Gyms may not be heated 24 hours a day. Some are only heated when someone trains in that basement and turns up the heat. In addition, the lifter’s body is still cold from being outside as he or she enters the gym. The joints are also tighter since muscles naturally tighten as a cold-fighting response. Technique deteriorates if the warm up is not sufficient. Lifters in these situations soon learn that warm ups must take longer in order to accomplish the same objectives.

It is easy to figure this out when dealing with low ambient temperatures. It is harder when hotter, since then you will be conned into thinking you are ready when you are not.

Your Warm Up Needs Can Change

You should also be aware of acclimatization with regard to all of this. I remember well my trip to Germany in 1974. There were five of us training, one other being Rob Macklem, now probably the world’s premiere weightlifting photographer. But back then we were just young lifters from the fairly dry Canadian prairies.

We were in Germany for a whole month, training almost daily. The German lifters were amused by how much we sweated in our first week. We were washing our sweats daily while the German lifters had to work hard to start glowing. But as the weeks went by, we got a bit more accustomed to the climate. We reduced our washing to every other day at least.

It was also important to take the lifter’s body mass index into the body heat monitoring. Me being a 95kg lifter, I still sweated well. But our too-skinny 67.5 lifter sweated very little.

The Take-Away

The bottom line in all of this is that warm ups have to be coordinated not only with body and ambient temperatures but most importantly with your degree of stretching and flexibility. Your desired body temperature may be easy or hard to get to depending on ambient temperature. But reaching that temperature will do you little good if your muscles are not loose and your motor pathways are awkward due to insufficient warm-up procedures.

Don’t let the thermometer fool you.

Photos courtesy of CrossFit Impulse.

The post How Warming Up the Right Way Can Still Go Wrong appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The study consisted of 121 elite youth soccer players (ranging for 13-18 years old) from two German professional sport clubs that were divided into two groups. One group performed a normal soccer warm-up first and then performed the same warm-up four days later supplemented with functional exercises for the trunk muscles. The normal soccer warm-up consisted of nonspecific running, coordination exercises, stretching, and acceleration runs. The second group performed those warm-ups in the reverse order.

Upon completing the warm-up program, each participant had to perform a linear sprint of about 30 meters, and a sprint that involved a change of direction. Linear sprint times were recorded for 5 meters, 10 meters, 20 meters, 25 meters, and 30 meters. The sprint that changed direction recorded times for 5 meters left, 10 meters left, 5 meters right, and 10 meters right.²

The trunk stabilization exercises consisted of a cycle of a prone kneeling exercise, forearm bridging, bridging with one leg to lift the pelvis, and lateral bridging with alternating leg flexion and leg extension. All exercises were performed for 8 reps per side. There were two age groups that were created to prevent fatigue in the younger athletes, as well as to assure activation in the older athletes.³

The results of the study indicated all of the subjects were significantly faster at all of the measured distances in the linear sprint after the normal soccer warm-up, compared to that of the trunk exercise warm-up. There was no significant difference for the change-of-direction sprint 5 meters left between the two programs. The normal warm-up group also produced faster times for the sprints 10 meters left, 5 meters right, and 10 meters right.⁴

Based on the results of the study, there is little evidence to conclude that the functional exercises provided an benefit to performance compared to the normal warm-up. However, the results did indicate that the components of a warm-up program, such as the soccer warm-up, did display improvement. Consequently, an optimal warm-up for sprint performance may contain nonspecific running, coordination exercises, stretching exercises, and acceleration runs. Functional exercises have their place in exercise routines, but according to this recent study, it is not during the warm-up.⁵

The post Warming Up: Is it Beneficial to Include Functional Core Exercises? appeared first on Breaking Muscle.