I have come to realize that most gyms do not properly prepare their athletes for sport or life (Sorry, the whole be prepared for the unknown and unknowable is bogus bull shit unless you’re one of our elite who is killing people right now).  This comes not only from shitty programing, but mostly from a lack of knowledge (which then causes shitty programing).  If your base of knowledge is only CrossFit or your Personal Training certification you probably should not be coaching athletes.  You need to know how to get people to their GOALS which need to be quantifiable.  I like to think goals should be measurable, repeatable and observable.

As a coach you need to know more than you know and then some.  You should be reading everything you can get your hands on to better yourself.  Sometimes its knowing about things that you don’t necessarily agree with that will make you a better trainer.  This will also help you establish beliefs and a grounded program that expels the bull shit that is out there (There is a lot of bull shit out there). Some things you should know about are: HIT (and also HIIT), Super Slow Motion Training, barbell movements, running form, CrossFit and other General Physical Preparedness programs, Bio-mechanics and applied anatomy (these last two may be the most beneficial to a coach and very neglected). Information is your best friend and you are lucky most of it is free or cheap and it is in abundance. What I am here to show you today is the basic flow of how you should be running your program or how your coach needs to be running it.

Now, in the scheme of achievement we NEED goals in the athletic realm in order to reach athletic prowess. The basic flow for importance with regards to training for goals is as follows (Think of this as an upside down pyramid starting with the most important first): nutrition, mobility and flexibility, strength and conditioning, gymnastics and general physical preparedness, and sport specific /goal specific.

In the next few weeks, or lets not kid ourselves here months, I will cover each of these topics in much more detail.  Today’s goal was to make you aware of the fact that you may not know everything you think you need to know.  In fact, knowing what you don’t agree with can really help you as mentioned above.  It will also aid you in battles with shitty clients and the Oprah crowd.

1.) Nutrition- We need to eat for our goal.  If you want to lose weight you will have a drastically different plate of food from someone like myself who needs to make sure I get enough calories to support strength gain. Nutrition is of the utmost importance for athletic gains of all kinds.  If our nutrition does not match our goals, well you will not reach your goals.  How many strong athletic vegans do you know playing professional sports? Not many and if there is even one, now think about how much better they would be fueling their body properly to be better!

Your body is like a car, you don’t shit in the gas tank to get the best gas mileage possible so don’t shit on yourself and fuel your body! I basically feel everyone needs to put their body issues aside and fuel their body to be stronger. For athletic gains and mass check out CrossFit Footballs Nutrition.  For fat loss and health optimization check out Simple Paleo Now.

Finally, do not forget to hydrate your body. Lots of issues in #2 below can stem from inadequate hydration.

2.) Mobility and flexibility This is probably the most neglected area by all athletes, because it is boring and painful.  However, when we take this serious we can see serious gains! These two things are very important in our aid to recovery.  If you beat yourself into a pulp and never recover how are you supposed to build strength even if your nutrition and hydration is spot on?

When it comes to training one thing I love hearing is, “I’m quad dominate.” Chances are you are not.  What is much more plausible is that you are HAMSTRING WEAK. This is where knowing more than CrossFit or your Personal Training Cert comes in handy! We say we are quad dominate because of three reasons, 1) you’ve never been taught good mechanics or 2) you suck and you are lazy or 3) you have real medical mobility issues, in which case seek a doctor.

Here are some ways to improve mobility and flexibility issues quickly. Start by implementing a specific warm-up protocol (preferably a dynamic one in my opinion or one that has you actually warming up your body to complete the task that your are about to complete.) that involves the entire body before working out.  And then follow your workouts by implementing a cool down (which is where we do our static holds to help evoke a speedy recovery followed by our post workout meal).

We can then really focus on soft tissue damage and problematic mobility issues by targeting inflammation and breaking down kinks within our body.  Work out your kinks with my homeboy K-Star. He is the tits and will make you limber to squat heavy and run like a Kenyan. Remember most of us are hamstring weak, so check to see if you’re “hamstrung.”

3.) Strength and conditioning- This to me is probably the easiest portion of all of this. It is also the backbone of everything for here on out (seeing as you are now a paleo god and to quote K-Star “a supple leopard”). Strength and conditioning is founded and built off the back squat. Why? Because nothing else taxes the entire nuero-muscular skeletal system the same way as a heavy back squat. The only thing not under load is our head and neck.

This should be rounded out with the other barbell lifts found in this protocol. We pair a great lifting protocol with sprints.  We also like Starting Strength paired with sprint work and prowler work. The Texas Method and Jim Wendlers 5/3/1 is also great.  However, most people are not at that point.  When you are at this point you’re venturing into sport specific which is covered below.

For conditioning I really like suicides, shuttles, repeats and hills. Stay simple. Stay brutal. Check around on here for more info, but like I’ve said there is more to come and so much to write!

4.) Gymnastics and general physical preparedness- This is where our supplemental training and fun begins for most people. We want to focus on body awareness!

Gymnastics is not understood by most people, and thus most people would order this before strength and conditioning.  Well, that is false, those kind of gymnastics body weight movements really fall into #2 for mobility work.  What we are looking at here is supplemental training to our big lifts.  L-sits, handstand walking, rolling and mild incorporation of bar and rings.  The only reason we can do this is because we have built a great base level of strength and conditioning.

General Physical Preparedness or GPP is huge today with CrossFit.  However, it should be utilized again as supplementation.  Kettlebells, sandbags, odd object lifting, tire work, sledge-hammer work, rope climbing, sled work, prowler work, rowing, jumping rope; all fall in to GPP work.

We want to utilize these in short intense bouts.

We need to create body awareness and injury prevention by keeping the integrity of the movements mentioned above.

5.) Sport Specific/Goal Specific training This is where everything above comes together for a trial.  This could be a game, an event, or even the number on the scale (this last one is a joke go by how your close fit not a silly number).  If you’re an athlete these are your inter squad scrimmages or your trial runs or lifts.   Nothing makes you more prepared for what you’re real goals are then the real thing.  This is why in football we run the same play over and over again. This is why in running we add more distance.  But, if you have not conditioned your body to handle these things through training they will be unobtainable.

Sport specific and goal specific things are the little drills done at practice, ball drills, running drills, tackling drills, hitting of the tee, shooting free throws, strongman lifts, chains/bands or box squats, etc. etc. etc.

#4 and #5 really go together.  We really should have a whole discussion on body awareness and injury prevention through #1, #2 and #3.  From here we work on the little things that help make you a much better athlete. These however, tend to be very individualized.  Thus, I did not incorporate this in the flow of things above. With that said there are 6 steps to your programing from the ground up, but a blog post isn’t enough to fix your body awareness and help you prevent injury. You have to practice these with supervision so you don’t screw yourself.

So fix your nutrition. Then fix your range of motion. Get strong with weights and condition yourself with sprints.  Throw in accessory and skill work to round out your strength program.  Then apply it all to your sport and goals!

Okay, I’m tired of writing, I will write more on each eventually separately….

Just really into this song right now and couldn’t think of a picture to post, enjoy!

This post, as most, was brought on by someone who stopped into our training facility and was bewildered that we focus on getting people strong first and foremost.  They proceeded to ask me if they could continue doing the main site WODs mixed with some of the SEALFit WODs because they are in the Navy (Respect).  To which I said NO.  I was a bit irritated because although this person was in the Navy, they had this notion that they needed to keep up those kind of WODs to stay fit! I am always taken aback by this belief, especially when I always hear these kinds of things from people who are not physically fit to the naked eye.

I believe Raphe said something like “No wonder that dude was so round.  He’s following horse shit programing.”  Raphe and I had a convo a week or two ago about how neither of us, nor most other athletes, have ever been able to follow the dot com WOD.  It seems as if when we tried, way back when, we could only hit 2-3 cycles and then we would crash!

For those CrossFit zealots who are probably reading this going “Haha it’s because you’re not elite!” I do not think the majority of ”CrossFitters” know what elite really is (Elite in my mind means playing professional sports or being sponsored by something not CrossFit or Body Building related).  I do not consider myself elite in any way and I’ve been invited to professional level sport showcases, I have played collegiate athletics and I train collegiate and amateur athletes. Most “CrossFitters” are just exercise enthusiasts like myself.  Which is fine, but you need to be aware of that. So, go do some sumodeadlift high pulls… wait don’t …that’s exactly why I am writing this.  Let me digress and apologize for my rant so that you can stop beating yourself into a pulp and actually start to RX your WOD in a respectable time frame.

When we train, we train with purpose.  And that purpose is to be stronger and faster than you and more importantly anyone near by when the shit hits the fan in 2012.  To achieve such a feat is really simple: We mix lifting heavy things and sprints.  With this in mind we want to share with you some movements that we feel you should omit from your training for optimal results.

Movements to Omit from Training

1.) Kipping pull-ups:  We want to be strong, we want you not only to be able to do one pull-up but a whole slew of them.  We want you to be able to do a pull-up with weight on you.  If you can not do a real pull-up in a controlled manner, you have no business kipping! Why? Well your shoulders are not nearly developed enough to handle that kind of torque.  We are looking for strong healthy muscles, joints, ligaments and tendons.  To develop healthy tissues and joints you need to get stronger.  Kipping has its place in fitness, but leave it for the gymnast and the serious CrossFitters (you know the ones on tv who can probably do a real pull up with you holding on to them). But, people forget that we are training to be better.  Kipping pull-ups are a skill to posses and are very useful if you want to stay weak.  If you can do one real pull-up we can prob get you to do 20 kipping. So, which is really superior?

For further reading read Melissa Urbans Got Pull-Up?

2.) Ring Dips: Why would you do these if you cannot even do bar dips? Most people I know can not do bar dips, just saying.  Most people, myself included, have no business hitting ring dips.  Why? Well, most of us interiorly rotate to make the movement [ring dips] attainable.  That does not mean that we are doing the movement correctly, it simply means we are able to make it look as if we are. Yes, you work harder doing ring dips, but if you are not externally rotated it means jack shit (especially when you tear your shoulder).

You can get more out of doing some fucking sick ass push-ups. Remember crossfit is founded on doing the simple things uncommonly well.

I hardly ever see good push-ups.  I know probably 10-15 ex military guys who told me they would destroy push ups and then do half push ups or push ups with their hips sagging which makes them look like a flopping fish.  If these guys don’t have perfect push ups you probably don’t either.  Until you can do 20 perfect chest to deck head forward push ups don’t even think about doing any kind of dip.  Greg Everett talks push-ups.

3.) Handstand push-ups: I can’t believe I really have to tell you guys to not fucking do these.  If you can not press your body weight then you should not fucking do handstand push-ups especially not on parralletts! This list is the stereotypical CrossFit “Become a Badass” post courtesy of CrossFit Coastal. Once you can more than rep your body weight on press, you can then throw in handstand push-ups for variety.  But, until then stick to shoulder press because we tax our neuromusculoskeletal system under that load and develop a much stronger “core” (still don’t like that word but you get the picture) as well.

4.) High Rep Oly-Lifts and Deadlifts: Anyone who does these high reps has ZERO formal training on them.  These movements are about the efficiency and efficacy of your pull.  However, if you are a strongman competitor you will need the endurance.  BUT, strongmen competitors are strong and get strong through heavy weights at low reps FIRST.

You lose hamstring tension and your lumbar curve too easily when going through high rep training, thus losing all integrity of the motions.

The goal of training these motions is to get your body to produce a large amount of force and generate it quickly (Not as much so with the deadlift).  If you are at a gym and their workout includes high rep deads or oly lifts, stop and ask them why? When they can not give you a valid reason, point and laugh at them in front of their “cult” and tell them to go to college not just a CrossFit Level 1 or Golds Gym certification.

5.) Sumodeadlift Highpull: If the name makes you go “WTF?” well, stay away from it.  Again, this is a motion that can only be beneficial if you have perfect posture.  In fact, this motion puts you in the same position that we use to check for a SLAP tear.  Weird, why would we do a motion that causes a tear.  Change this out for power cleans or Kettlebell work. Dallas Hartwig has a great article on this and I suggest listening up, since he is a PT and all, READ.

6.) Medicine Ball Clean and Wall Balls: These two are the least of our worry.  However, they still present an interesting problem: degregation in form at high reps, which is basically the only time these are ever used.  These two movements are great for a little change of pace or something different.  But, I do not understand their need when you have a barbell or dumbells to do power cleans and thrusters with.  Also, you do not get nearly enough load from a #20 medball to understand the violent hip extension needed for both movements.

7.) Muscle-ups: CrossFit loves them and real athletes should never do them.  Just think really quick: if you can not do a bar dip and thus you can not do a ring dip then you should definitely not do muscles ups.

It takes gymnasts years and years to build up the shoulder stability and strength to make this skill look like walking.  That’s why real gymnasts laugh at you when you kip your way up.  If you have a good shoulder press and good shoulder mobility this can be beneficial strength training in a slow controlled motion.

Another point, most gymnast are less than 150lbs and the average male crossfitter is 185lbs.  Gravity plays a huge part in this motion, there is a reason small guys do these and big guys play football.  And there is a reason why female gymnasts do not use the rings.  Just saying. John Welbourn on why athletes do not do MUs.

John Welbourn on Risk vs. Reward.

***It is important to note that some of these movements may be useful for crossfit competitors and thus need to be practiced.  The key word is practiced, they are skills not to be used as training tools, but rather saved for rest days as skill work***

END

And will write some new cool stuff. I promise. Mean while, go lift something heavy and run some hill sprints so a wolf doesn’t eat you. What? It could happen….

Thanks for brining in your badass dog (Sobe) Tiff!

1.) Squat: Heavy and often. Below parallel. Fast. Hit box squats. Rest Less. THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MOVEMENT IN ANY TRAINING PROTOCOL! If you are not squatting you are minimizing your athletic capabilities.

2.) Stop whining: You hit the gym to be better.  Getting better comes with the price of pain and agony. Getting better sucks. However, when there is a minute left and the person across from you is dying and you have plenty of gas left in the tank, you will be happy you endured the pain of your training regime.  So, stop fucking whining!

3.) Stop praying to the bar: Grip it, load yourself, and lift the damn bar. You do the work, staring at the bar just makes that take longer.

4.) Shut up about the programing: There is a method to the madness.  All programs suck when you follow them.  Good programs will make you attack your weaknesses and strengths.  If it was easy it would not be effective. BE EFFECTIVE.

5.) Worry about yourself: The only person you should be worrying about is yourself.  You want to beat yourself and only yourself.  Give it your all because that’s where improvement lies.  So, if you are concerned with anyone other than yourself you will see your performance suffer and form degregate as well.  It does not matter if you finish the workout first or if you do it with the most weights.  What matters is that you do it RIGHT.  The gym is not a place for an ego unless you’re body building.  And let’s face it, if you’re reading this you’re probably not a body builder.

6.) Stretch: Before and after.  The more range of motion you have the more gains you are capable of making. Flexibility and mobility can also help decrease your injury rate.

7.) Listen to your Coach/Trainer/Partner: They are not there to boost your ego.  They are there to make you better.

8.) Use the Prowler: I can not express this thought enough.  If you’re gym does not have a prowler or something you can push or pull in the same manner, I suggest finding a new place to train. And you may vomit, get over it.

9.) Envision success: You will never beat yourself or anyone else if you do not believe in yourself. Visualize yourself hitting that Personal Record (PR). Visualize yourself dominating your opponent. Success does not just stem from physical ability, but mental fortitude.  And this can be a very powerful and useful weapon.

10.) Show up to training: It’s that simple.  You will not always want to do your offseason regime and this is okay.  But, you will not get better sitting on your ass eating ho ho’s. You will only get better if you do exactly what is need and you can only do that by showing up to train.  And you will be thankful that you did when game time comes.

1. Establishing a routine. When I say routine I mean approach. You need to know how you’re going to grab the bar. How you’re unracking and reracking the bar. If you’re going to wiggle your butt or stomp your feet, you need to have that down as well. Having a routine makes you comfortable lifting anywhere.

2. Naming your weightlifting shoes and/or belt. Just because.

3. Envisioning yourself completing the lift. This could be the single greatest piece of advice. The more you believe in yourself, the more possible anything becomes. However, be realistic. If you’re going for a PR don’t jump up a billion pounds, 10 is enough.

4. Not having sex for at least 7 days (this includes self-services). Talk about built up frustration and tension. Punish the platform.

5. Yelling/grunting. It improves power output 10-12%.

6. Change your surroundings. This could be moving stuff around your typical lifting space. Changing the lighting. You can also change your environment if you have portable equipment.

7. Journal/Log your workouts. This way you have references to see if what you’re doing is helping you achieve your goals or not. It also allows you to see where you have been and gives you a sense of accomplishment. Again, positive thoughts are the shit.

8. Have a workout partner. They should have similar goals and be able to push you to excel at your strengths and weaknesses. They also make lifting safer through spotting and checking your form.

9. Proper shoes. Lift in shoes you’re comfortable in first. Second, just please, please, please do not lift in running shoes (unless they are tubes). I’m pretty okay with everything else.

10. Prowler work. It is brutal and effective enough said.

As society changes and we progress in a more technological world, people have started to rely on an easier way of life. Which is fine, I am all for newer, faster and more efficient ways of doing things. But, that is no reason to become lazy and neglect your fitness nor your health. People are becoming obese at a faster rate than ever and at younger ages than ever. In our fast pace world we need something that does not take hours to do but will keep our health in check. Well my friends, I have found the secret to an easy and healthy life: Nutrition and training (exercise is not enough, you must establish goals). It does not matter your age, your fitness level, or your coordination. But, for whatever the reason, people seem to be afraid to take a chance on something that they know works and opt out for a quick fix that has not yet been proven in a long run test nor been approved by the FDA. I am here to let you know you can achieve a healthy lifestyle at any age, I mean it is better sooner than later especially with child obesity on the rise.

I have started to notice people in our society want to change, but they seem to be scared to change (that or lazy and full of excuses). Why? Why be scared of something so simple? It just starts with a simple task, such as walking a little farther each day or just picking something up. We just need to do SOMETHING.

There is a model called the Transtheoretical Model of Behavior Change which consists of 5 stages:

1.) Precontemplation: (this has two wings) 1.) Nonbelievers- People who do not believe a behavior is important for them, i.e.) working out for health. 2.) Believers- People who believe in a behavior as important but feel they are spread too thin to follow through with it.

2.) Contemplation: Thinking about really making a change within 6 months.

3.) Preparation: Thinking of making a change within 30 days.

4.) Action: This is where one is finally doing something to produce positive outcomes in their behavior modification and has been doing so for 1-6 months.

5.) Maintenance: You have been doing this behavior for more than 6 months and it has produced many positive outcomes whether it is general health or in another manor.

If you are reading this entry it is safe to say that you are at least interested in improving your health, whether it is something that you would like to achieve or maintain. This is an important process because that means you realize that it is up too you to find a way to succeed and you understand those quick fixes are not life-long.

As the old proverb says, “Give a man a fish and he won’t go hungry for a day, teach a man to fish and he won’t go hungry for a lifetime.”

Our aim is not to reinvent the wheel, but make it better. Starting is simple. Once you’ve started exercising, you then need to establish specific goals. Once you have goals you must train to achieve them. You can’t get stronger, bigger or smaller if you don’t eat to support that. So you must realize everything is routed in nutrition. Performance is derived from it. Simply put, if you eat like shit, you will perform like shit and look like shit.

When you are ready to take your success into your own hands, here are 5 easy steps to a better you:
1. Get your sleep in check. This means you need 7-9 hours of sleep in a cool dark place. Get rid of your clock and Make your room pitch black. I guarantee you sleep better and feel better.

2. Match your nutrition to your fitness goals. You’re not going to get jacked eating twigs and berries. And you’re not gaining to get strong that way either. Likewise, you’re not going to lose weight eating Twinkie’s. Make sure you do not neglect your hydration as well (meaning drink water and not Gatorade).

3. Stick to a program. Again what is your goal? If you want to get stronger find a reputable program built around strength. If you want to get fast do the same. This takes real commitment. Give whatever program you choose 2-3 months. I suggest starting with strength training and branching off from there. Mark Rippetoes Starting Strength is a good start.

4. Do not neglect mobility. Strength and flexibility correlate. The more range of motion you’re capable of the better gains you will see.

5. Envision your success. You must be dedicated to improvement and you must believe in yourself. A lot of times the only thing between you and your goals is YOU. Develop some will power and stop being a pussy. A weak mind is a horrible thing.

Success and failure are in your hands. Which will it be?

This was written on my iPhone, so I apologize for any errors.

The fitness industry is constantly evolving. And thanks to CrossFit, it is why I know many of you. However, the goal of everything we do is to make you better aka we do not want or need to drop the hammer on you every time you’re in here. How can you see results if we destroy you day in and day out?

To be honest we can’t. Your body will break down and become so weak that the saying, “Mind over matter,” will be completely irrelevant.

This is why this site was fucking created people. We love CrossFit’s foundation and start-up. But, you the athlete need to realize that CrossFit is not a training program anymore. CrossFit is the Sport of Fitness. And, I, for one, am happy CrossFit has kind of started to establish itself as so. If you think Rich Froning won the CrossFit Games World Series of Exercising by doing the CFHQ programing you are clearly less intelligent than we give you credit for.  They fucking lift heavy shit and do short intense WODs.  They also progress to this, meaning they don’t do this every day 24/7/365. You must train for results.

This is why we specifically focus on 3-6 week (sometimes longer) training cycles.  Right now, at the gym, you are in the middle of a strength protocol.  The reason for this is to build up your work capacity (and really your base level strength) to a level that will allow you to benefit from our following programing cycle.  Ideally during our next cycle you will be in the gym 4-6 days a week.  However, we realize that some of you have real lives so we will tweak it as needed.

The Protocol is as Follows (It is very similar to CFWF Protocol found here):

1.) Squat 5 (reps) x 3 (sets) (Increasing 5lbs each week)
 Press 5 x 3 (Increasing 5lbs each week)
 Pulling WOD or 3 sets of Strict Pull-ups until failure with appropriate rest between each set. *** We prefer the pull-ups unless you’re sport specific***

 2.) Power Cleans 3 x 5 (Increasing 5lbs each week)
 WOD ranging 4-12 minutes maybe 4×2 or other variations
 Ideally you would now REST a day or devote a day to just skill work.

 3.) Squat 5 x 3 (Increasing 5lbs each week)
 Bench 5 x 3 (Increasing 5lbs each week)
 WOD (Sprint Based)

 4.) Dead 5 x 1 (Increasing 5lbs each week)
 WOD ranging 4-12 minutes maybe 4×2 or other variations

 Ideally you would now REST a day (maybe two) or devote a day to just skill work.

The goal is not to produce pain and vomiting (even if you think the contrary based on how we laugh at you). The goal is to see measurable progress through development of skills; more specifically: strength, conditioning, and mobility.  If you achieve these measurable goals you will become healthier and fitter.

If you just want to come in and shoot the shit, we love that too.  However, if that’s all you want to do, we do not want to hear you bitch about how paleo does not work for you and how your knees hurt from squatting.  Why? Because the reason they are hurting and paleo is not working IS YOU.

We can only pollute your mind with so much information and advice.  However, our job stops there.

What is that? You think we don’t care? Bull shit, we fucking care a lot.  That is why 99% of our clients see the results they want.

So, stop punching yourself in the face and shut the fuck up. Results do not lie within pain. Result come from traing harder, smarter, and better!

Average consumption of sugar for a trick or treater is 3 cups of sugar or 4,800 calories

What exactly is bad about candy? Um, well everything.  What’s even better is that trick or treating is now a scheduled event.  Yay! Now our kids can get even fatter by indulging in multiple trick or treating excursions. I mean yes Halloween has been around for ages.  However, it was always known as a single day of indulgence for all the candy you could shovel into your face as you gained your sugar high.  And now we have kids doing this multiple days and at school and just in their daily lives! Do we even need to question why our children are so pudgy…?

Clearly, our society has lost a philosophy I grew up with as a child (I was only allowed to go to the houses of people I knew until I was about 12 when I was a trick or treater): “Don’t take candy from strangers.” This was established to keep away child predators, but I guess our society would rather serve our pudgy lil’ kids buffet style for a week straight by planning trick or treating gatherings.  We are just setting all these kids up so they can also be grazed over by some sicko (see John Gacy) who now has time to plan when to strike at these trick or treating neighborhoods.  Who knows, maybe you have a sex offender on your trick or treating route! (If you can’t tell, I watched a lot of scary movies when I was snowed in!)

Sorry, I got a little off topic there….Anyhow, if worrying about one day of diabetic sugar overload wasn’t enough, we now have about a weeks worth of festivities for our diabetic youth.  Hell, don’t forget how low all the candy prices go tomorrow! Guess our little tike’s who didn’t get enough in the past week will be at Wal-Mart tomorrow filling their cavities and rolls with more.

Too bad not all fat kids are goblin crusaders….

If you can not deadlift, you are a completely worthless human being and you might as well not exist.  Every time you pick anything up from a pen on the ground to a 315lb. barbell on the ground is a type of deadlift.  I want you to understand that you can hurt your back picking up either if you have shitty form.  So, what we are going to focus on today is how to get into proper form to assure you do not harm your back and you instead see yourself continuing on the path of lifting heavier and heavier shit!

Why do we deadlift? We deadlift so that we are less useless and a more functional part of our society. All joking aside, we deadlift to maximize the health and longevity of our spine.  We can subside your back pain, we can  increase core strength and grip strength, we can maintain bone density, and we can do much much more all from utilizing correct deadlift form.

How do we deadlift?

1.) Feet directly under the hips.

2.) Cut your foot in half.  Now, when you do this you will notice your shin is really close to the bar. Your shoelaces may be under the bar or just in front.

3.) Grip the bar  now (ass in the air) with your hands just outside of your legs.

4.) Bend your knees to the bar.

5.) Gain your lumbar curve now by squeezing your core and lifting the chest making your spine nice and ridged. (4 and 5 is what is known as our hamstring load) The Green is good and the red is wrong in regards to spinal positioning and protecting the lumbar curve:

6.) Make sure you get your shoulder blades pined back and tight (external rotation) to maximize tension down the spine (I can not express enough how important a rigid spine is).  Picture yourself trying to bend the bar around your legs.

7.) Your shoulder-blade will be directly over the bar. I want everyone to understand that we all have different spinal and femur lengths, however this does not change the anatomy of the starting position.  The same muscles are at work for everyone, we are just built different biomechanically.

8.) Lift the bar making sure you keep the bar in contact with your legs as you pull all the way up. This pull will be initiated from the glutes and the hamstrings (Think about trying to push the earth away from you and the bar as you stand). Keep a neutral head gaze about 5-6 feet in front of you and stand tall (Meaning: DO NOT HYPEREXTEND).

9.) Return the bar to the starting position while maintaining contact with your legs during the descent. (See picture below to understand leg contact)

Now that you understand how to deadlift, I do not want to see any of the following EVER AGAIN:

1.) Hyperextension of the back.

2.) Rolling the shoulders back at the top of a deadlift.  Why? Because they should already be back!

3.) Head looking up at the ceiling, during your pull (Remember think of it as a push.  You’re pushing the earth away from you).

4.) Standing too wide.

5.) Bending in the elbows.

6.) Leading with your knees on your descent (Come down the same way you got up!).

7.) Not coming all the way down to the floor.

8.) Deadlifting in running shoes.  If I catch you doing this, you will have 100 burpees!

Finally, the only movement that is more important then the deadlift is the SQUAT.  More to come on that soon!