No, no, no, this is not some new variation of the push up but of Jamaican lizards that do push ups and other physical displays to ward off other males from their territory. Read More
Push Ups are actually one of my favorite upper body exercises.
Great for shoulder health and core stability.
Works more then just the chest, shoulder and arms, done properly your trunk muscles must work in-order to hold proper alignment.
In the video below I demonstrate some of my favorite variations of the push up.
Excellent exercise for training the hamstrings and gluteals.
This exercise was featured in an earlier post using a slide board but with this version no slide board needed and it is just as good.
It is very important for females to strengthen their hamstrings since the hamstring aids the ACL in stabilizing the knee joint and females are up to 8x more likely to injure their ACL then males.
When a movement causes pain, doing the opposite will usually relieve the pain and correct the problem.
E.g.
My shoulders hurt when bench pressing ... do more rowing (pulling) exercises like chin ups or supine pull ups.
My low back hurts when I bend forward to tie my shoes ... do press ups.
When I sit for long periods I get pain in the back, neck and shoulders ... stand more and do the Brugger Relief Position. Hold the below position for 5-15s and do 3-5 repetitions.
Do your athletes land from jumping like this? Well if they do, you just identified an athlete with a higher risk of a non-contact knee injury, particularly ACL tear. Male or female, it does not matter but females will display this kind of knee posture more often then males and this is one of the reasons why females are 2-8x greater risk of a non-contact knee injury.
What can we do about this?
Get stronger using movements like squats, lunges and single leg squats with great technique (i.e. keep the knees out!).
During my presentation last weekend I had some multi-media difficulties and was unable to show the class these videos. The videos demonstrate what the research indicates; athletes injure their knees when they have an increased valgus stress at the knee. Valgus at the knees simply means when the knee(s) collapse inward toward the mid-line of the of the body.
The strength coach podcast, if you have not listened, is quite good. The information presented is geared towards professionals working in the health, fitness, rehabilitation field and obviously the strength coach. It comes out every 2 weeks and each one last about 60 minutes.
I usually download it and listen to it while I train, the Swedish athletes I work with get all "excited" when I tell them I have a new episode of the Strength Coach Podcast!
Single leg squats are a great exercise for keeping your knees healthy. In a future post I will give further explanation on why this is a good exercise and even show some research.
Be Well, Mike Reid
ps Even though there are many coaches who advocate single leg exercises, below I found one who has an interesting argument against them.
“Compete on one leg; train on one leg.”
“Train the sport specific way.”
It’s hard to miss the promotion of this training method or the self-promotion of its Gurus.
You can deep squat over 200kg, yet, when tested, you can’t do one unloaded single leg squat without starting to fall over. Amazed by your newly discovered ‘inadequacy’, you’re easily convinced that you must overcome it.
But that argument can be turned on its head. Since the formula for power output is weight times distance divided by time, it is precisely this same test that proves there will be training losses if SLS work is substituted.
Let’s get this straight from the outset. You will be hard pressed to ever lift one sixth as much with a single leg squat as you could with both legs, no matter how long you work at it, so there better be a convincing argument for its inclusion.
Supporters claim that you must be able to stabilize at least your own bodyweight to be optimally stabilized in motions specific to your sport.
But, like the gyroscopic effect of a bicycle in motion, the stabilization requirements for a body in motion are far less than when stationary, regardless of the direction of that motion.
Supporters argue that the single leg squat is more specific to the motion of the sport itself.
While that might sound reasonable at first, it doesn’t stand up to closer examination.
A study by Loren Chiu, a PHD candidate at USC, Dr John Garhammer of Cal. State Long Beach, and Dr. Brian Schilling of the Univ. of Memphis compared the movements of the single leg squat and other movements.
They found that the magnitude and direction of forces in a SLS were significantly different when compared to running to cut, backpedal and cutting to the left for both the hip and the ankle. In fact a bilateral squat was much closer to these movements than a SLS. (The Science of Specificity).
In the below video I go over a series of movements to improve your lower body flexibility with particular attention to the hips. All the drills are based on the Squat, Lunge and Dead Lift. Great to use before training sessions as part of a warm up.
this is one of the reasons why females are 2-8x greater risk of a non-contact knee injury.
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