elitefts™ Sunday Edition
I've been writing this article series for about two years now. While I truly enjoy the interaction it has given me with other coaches around the country, it also forces me to look in the mirror and examine my own coaching, which is why most of my articles have focused on coaching or how to approach coaching. On a rare occasion, I've touched on programming or exercises, but I've written more about coaching because I believe that how you do something is much more important than what you do.
This month, I'll mix things up and show you some exercises that you probably aren't doing at all or aren't doing enough of. I promise they won't add 100 pounds to your bench or more kilos to your snatch (had to go metric for my Olympic friends). They're accessory exercises meant to bring up weaknesses, meaning they aren't "sport-specific" and won't blast your "core," but hopefully they'll help you and your athletes.
Landmine strict press
The first exercise is the landmine strict press. As you can see in the video, a good place to start is to find somewhere to jam a barbell. Load up one side of the bar (we use fat bars because they don't rotate), bring it to shoulder height, and press the bar. Be sure to keep your mid-section tight because you don't want to let the bar move you. You must move the barbell. This is such a huge coaching cue. We want to teach that we move objects—we don't allow those objects to move us. If the mid-section moves or a shoulder drops, we're experiencing leakage. The athlete should focus hard on these.
Tsunami bar high pull
The second exercise is the tsunami bar high pull. If you're an Olympic lifting purist, please stop reading because you might hate me after you see this movement. For this lift, just do a traditional high pull using the tsunami bar. We played with this over the summer and our athletes loved it. They always came back the next day saying, "My upper back and grip are wrecked." I even threw these in with our French contrast work. We did three to five pulls and then went right to a squat.
This movement makes the athlete so sore due to the eccentric load of the bar as it bounces when you bring the bar down. Additionally, the tsunami bar is a fat bar and very slick, so it takes an immense amount of focus to grip the bar.
Vertical rowing
Our third exercise is any type of vertical rowing. I'm a big fan of doing elevated rows, as shown in the video below. While Kroc rows have their place, when you're working with hundreds of athletes a day, any exercise that works and has little coaching behind it is an effective exercise. In addition, this exercise will humble any freshman who comes in telling you that he squats 500 pounds and benches 400 pounds but can't seem to row 135 pounds for ten reps.
Band pullover floor press
Our fourth exercise is the band pullover floor press. (I may name it the Hamer press because I've never seen anyone else do it.) This is a simple exercise that teaches an athlete how to involve his lats in the bench.
As you can see, the set up is simple. Just slipknot a band anywhere and grab the band just inside of shoulder width. Pull it to a floor press lockout (engaging the lats hard) and press. The key here is to try to keep the press in a straight line. Notice how the athlete fights the top of the lift and doesn't allow it to drift over his face.
Finally, our fifth exercise is for the mind—read more. I know some of you may be sick of hearing me say this, but it's my passion. If we aren't pushing our education, how can we educate?
I hope you enjoyed this article and have a few new ideas from what I have shown here.