What’s The Difference Between a Front Squat and a Back Squat?

The main difference between the front squat and the back squat is where you position the barbell. When performing a front squat, the bar is held on the fingertips (or directly on the front of the shoulders) and is supported by the front deltoids. Conversely, in a back squat, the bar rests across your trapezius and rear delts, so the weight is loaded on the backside of your body.

Front squatting recruits the chain of your body’s anterior muscles more heavily, engaging the quads and core to a greater degree. Back squatting, on the other hand, emphasizes the posterior chain—the large muscle groups of the back, glutes, and hamstrings.

Where you hold the bar also affects how you’re inclined to move throughout the exercise. “Back squats are a hip-dominant movement,” says Don Saladino, owner of Drive Health Clubs in New York City (where he trains stars such as Hugh Jackman and Blake Lively). “You’re leading with the hips, so your torso is more inclined to lean forward as you perform the exercise. With front squats, because of where the weight is loaded, you’re forced to remain more vertical.” If you lean forward on a front squat like you do back squatting, you’ll lose your balance and drop the bar at your feet. “This makes the front squat a more quad-dominant movement,” says Saladino.

The differences between the front and back squat are really just a matter of degrees. Both versions work your entire body, and Saladino compares squatting in general to moving while performing a plank position—your shoulders, abdominals, and back must engage to support proper form as your legs go through a full range of motion. That makes squats—of any kind—arguably the most functional and challenging exercise you can do.

How To Perform The Front Squat

(See 01:48 in the video above.)

Step 1. Grasp the bar with hands shoulder-width apart and point your elbows forward so that you can position the bar over the tips of your fingers (palms face up). As long as you keep your elbows pointing forward, you will be able to balance the bar.

Another way to do it is to cross your arms in front of you, holding the bar on the front of your shoulders (left hand in front of right shoulder, right hand in front of left, as pictured below). To do the classic front squat with the bar on your fingertips, you need a reasonable amount of flexibility through your shoulders and wrists to position the barbell correctly. If you don’t have it, the cross-arm version may be the better option for you at the moment (see also “Using Straps To Front Squat” below).

Step 2. Lift the bar out of the rack and step back, setting your feet between hip- and shoulder-width apart. Turn your toes out slightly. Without letting your feet actually move, try to screw both legs into the floor as if you were standing on grass and wanted to twist it up—you’ll feel your glutes tighten and the arches in your feet rise.

Step 3. Pull your ribs down and take a deep breath into your belly and brace your core. Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long line—your pelvis should also be perpendicular to your spine, and not tilted toward the floor. Focus your eyes on a point straight in front of you.

Step 4. Squat as low as you can while keeping alignment and maintaining your upright torso position. Remember to point your elbows forward, and raise them up if you feel them slipping downward. Ideally, you’ll be able to descend to where the crease of your hips is below the top of your thighs.

Your knees must stay in line with your toes. Trying to push them out and actively root your feet into the ground will all but ensure this.

Step 5. Extend your hips and knees to return to standing, pushing through the middle of your feet and squeezing your glutes.

Note: Because of the awkward bar position, which is less stable than in the back squat, you won’t be able to use as much weight as you would back squatting. If you’re used to doing back squats, make sure you adjust accordingly.

Using Straps To Front Squat

(See 03:50 in the video.)

One way to make the front squat more comfortable is to use lifting straps. Many people don’t have the mobility in their shoulders, wrists, and fingers to hold the bar in the classic front squat position (called the rack position), and the straps allow you to rest the bar on your shoulders instead, making it much easier to stabilize the bar.

Simply loop the straps around the bar and wrap the loose ends around each hand. Then hold onto the straps when you take the bar out of the rack.

How To Perform the Back Squat

(See 04:57 in the video.)

Step 1. Set up in a squat rack and grasp the bar with your hands as far apart as is comfortable. Step under the rack and squeeze your shoulder blades together and down, wedging yourself under the bar so that it rests on your traps or the back of your shoulders.

A “high-bar” squat describes the position of the bar as being high up on the traps, just below the neck. If you feel more stable with the bar resting lower on your back, balanced across the rear delts, you’re doing a “low-bar” squat. The former is advantageous for staying more upright with your torso and hitting your quads. The latter may allow you to lift heavier, but you’ll lean forward more on the descent. Either technique is OK. Experiment with both and see which you feel more comfortable with.

Step 2. Nudge the bar out of the rack and step back, setting your feet between hip and shoulder-width with your toes turned slightly outward. Without letting your feet actually move, try to screw both legs into the floor as if you were standing on grass and wanted to twist it up—you’ll feel your glutes tighten and the arches in your feet rise.

Step 3. Pull your ribs down and take a deep breath into your belly and brace your core. Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a long line—your pelvis should also be perpendicular to your spine, and not tilted toward the floor. Focus your eyes on a point straight in front of you.

Step 4. Bend your hips back as if you were going to sit in a chair, continuing to screw your feet down. Allow your knees to bend and push them out as you lower your body down. Go as low as you can while keeping your alignment. Ideally, you’ll be able to descend to where the crease of your hips is below the top of your thighs.

Your knees must stay in line with your toes. Trying to push them out and actively root your feet into the ground will all but ensure this.

Step 5. Extend your hips and knees to return to standing, pushing through the middle of your feet and squeezing your glutes.

Front Squat Benefits

If you’re looking to develop your quads, you can’t go wrong with adding front squats to your workout routine. Some bodybuilders build their leg workouts around front squats for this reason. If you’re interested in training in Olympic weightlifting, the front squat is a major component of the clean and jerk, so it will give you a foundation of strength and technique to base weightlifting training on.

The biggest potential benefit to front squatting versus back squatting, however, is that the vertical torso position makes the squat pattern safer for the lower back. “When people are back squatting, it’s common that they can’t maintain a neutral lumbar spine,” says Saladino. They lean their torsos too far forward, or let their hips rise faster than their shoulders as they come up out of the bottom of the squat, and their lower backs round over, putting the little muscles and discs in the lumbar spine at risk for strain. In the front squat, your vertebrae are essentially stacked, so your torso moves almost straight up and down, avoiding shear forces that cause injury.

One study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined the biomechanical differences between front and back squats. Researchers found that the back squat placed significantly more compressive forces on the lumbar spine, and concluded that front squats may be the better choice for lifters with knee problems such as meniscus tears, as well as for long-term joint health.

Back Squat Benefits

There’s ample reason why the back squat is called the “king of all exercises.” If you’re interested in getting as strong as possible, or training in powerlifting, it’s essential. The bar placement (along the back) is more comfortable and easier to balance than that of the front squat, so you have the stability to lift greater loads. Though the science isn’t clear, most coaches argue that it also recruits more overall musculature than the front squat, drawing heavily on everything from your shoulders and back to your glutes, hamstrings, and calves, in addition to the quads and core.

Strength gains (i.e., big numbers) will come faster with the back squat, but, as discussed above, the risk for lower-back injury is greater. For general population clients who are only interested in having healthy, well-shaped, and strong legs, many trainers eschew the back squat entirely for front-loaded squat variations, such as front squats, landmine squats, and goblet squats. Unless you’re an athlete who competes in the sport of powerlifting or gets tested on back squat strength (as some power athletes do), it’s not an exercise that you “must” do.

Muscles Used In The Front Squat

The primary muscles worked are:

– Quadriceps

– Glutes

– Hamstrings

– Abdominals

– Lower back (spinal erectors), upper back

– Shoulders

A 2015 study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences compared the muscle-recruiting effects of the front squat versus the back squat. The researchers found that the vastus medialis—one of the four quadriceps muscles—was targeted more heavily during the front squat. Of course, all the major muscle groups of the legs were shown to be highly active during both lifts, but the quads engage to a greater degree when the weight is loaded anterior to the trunk.

Muscles Used In The Back Squat

The back squat targets all the major muscle groups of the body, but its focus is on the posterior chain. The primary muscles worked are:

­– Glutes

– Hamstrings

– Quadriceps

– Lower back (spinal erectors), upper back

– Abdominals

– Shoulders

The same 2015 study that identified that the vastus medialis worked harder in the front squat showed that the semitendinosus—one of the three hamstring muscles—was lit up more during the back squat. Again, both versions of the squat hit all the major muscles of the lower body, but when the weight is loaded posterior to the trunk, there’s greater engagement of the hamstrings.

Front Squat vs. Back Squat Ratio

Some coaches believe that a lifter should be able to front squat 90% of the weight that he/she back squats. So if your best back squat is 315 pounds, your front squat ought to be around 280. However, Saladino scoffs at this notion, arguing that it’s nothing more than nonsense used to help trainers market programs.

“There are any number of anatomical or mechanical reasons that a person might be better at either the front squat or back squat,” he says. Generally speaking, your front squat load will be less than your back squat load, simply because of the less stable bar position and biomechanics of the lift, but you don’t need to shoot for a specific strength ratio to ensure balance—or meet anyone else’s criteria of fitness. Rather, focus on incorporating both versions of the squat—if you can—and aim to perfect your form so you can safely and effectively improve the performance of both lifts over time.

See another squat variation in our guide to the squat clean.

The post Front Squats vs. Back Squats: Everything You Need To Know For Building Muscle appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Our number-one suggestion for anyone training at home: do full-body workouts. First, read up on the advantages of full-body training below, and then see four of our favorite routines for getting in shape, whether you have minimal equipment (such as a single light dumbbell or kettlebell, or a suspension trainer), or your bodyweight only.

Why Should You Work Out Your Whole Body?

Working the whole body in one session offers three big advantages over body-part workouts. For one thing, it ensures that you train the entire body evenly. You can’t neglect any one muscle group, or simply forget to do it for a week (ahem, like leg day). For another, working all your muscles together ramps up the calorie-burning effect, and trains your heart, so that you can maximize fat loss in your workouts and get aerobic benefits as well. A study in BioMed Research International found that subjects who performed just three 30-minute, full-body circuit-training sessions per week lost fat and improved their resting heart rates and blood pressure.

Lastly, hitting every muscle in one workout can lead to faster muscle gains for each body part. One reason why is that the volume you do per muscle group must be kept low. Think about it: if you do five or more sets of squats, how could you also fit in rows, presses, curls, pushdowns, hip bridges, etc., within a reasonable period of time? To avoid a marathon workout session, you simply have to cut back your volume. At first, reducing the workload for a muscle may sound like a liability, but it’s actually an advantage. Because you can’t do a lot of volume for one muscle in a single session, you can be sure it will recover again quickly. That means you can train it again sooner. For example, if you do three sets of squats on Monday, you could do two sets of lunges on Wednesday, and then maybe four sets of stepups on Friday. It may not seem like a lot of leg work in each training session, but that’s nine total sets for the quads alone inside of one week. Provided you can recover from your workouts, the more frequently you train, the faster you can build muscle. A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that subjects who trained the whole body three days per week gained more arm muscle than another group that trained each muscle group just once (a standard body-part split).

“Full-body training is the most efficient way to stimulate and develop your major muscle groups,” says Chad Waterbury, PT, DPT, an LA-based physical therapist and trainer to celebrities and pro athletes (@drchadwaterbury on Instagram). “Due to the greater metabolic demand, it’s terrific for improving body composition.” To show you how to set up your own total-body training days, Waterbury wrote the four workouts that appear below.

How Often Can You Do A Full-Body Workout?

Full-body workouts can and should be done frequently to take advantage of the fast recovery. Just how frequently you train depends on how hard you want to go and how much work you want to do. If you’re limited to using your body weight alone, you could conceivably train six or even seven days a week, doing one or two all-out sets of basic bodyweight exercises. Pushups, split squats, and chinups aren’t very hard to recover from, so, generally speaking, you can do them often. However, if you have weights, particularly heavy weights, you may need more recovery time before working one or more body parts again.

In general, three to four workouts per week on non-consecutive days is a good schedule. For example, you could perform all four of the workouts shown here in one week if you liked (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday), or, you can repeat one that suits you best for three to four sessions a week. If you can improve your performance by some measure each time you repeat a workout (such as by adding reps, adding weight, or reducing the rest periods), you can be sure you’re recovering well enough to make progress. If you can’t, you should ramp up your recovery efforts (sleep, nutrition, etc.), or consider training less frequently.

How To Work Out At Home Without Weights

If you don’t have access to weights at home, you’ll have to make the most of your bodyweight, and a suspension trainer makes that easy to do. It allows you to position your body at certain angles so that your arms or legs can take on more or less of your weight, as much as is appropriate, to make the exercises you’re doing effective. For most suspension exercises, the more directly you position yourself under the trainer’s anchor point, the more challenging the exercise will be. On an inverted row, for instance, you can make the movement harder by walking your feet forward so that your body is more parallel to the floor under the anchor point. To make it easier, walk your feet back further so that you’re rowing from a steeper angle.

Look for a trainer that has foot cradles in addition to handles, so that it can support your feet for a variety of leg exercises and pushup movements. The TRX and Jungle Gym XT are both good options. If you can’t get a hold of a suspension trainer, however, hope is not lost. We’ll introduce you to an exercise in the bodyweight workout below that requires absolutely nothing but a floor to work your back muscles hard.

How To Stretch and Warm Up Before A Full-Body Workout

Use the following mobility drills to warm up and mobilize before any full-body routine. They focus on commonly tight and injury-prone areas, such as the thoracic spine, hips, and shoulders. Perform 2–3 sets of 5–10 reps for each move.

Egyptian

Kneeling Arm Thread

Kneeling King Dancer

Shinbox Switch

The Best Full-Body Workouts At Home

Full-Body Workout #1 – Suspension Trainer and Bodyweight

Perform the exercises in circuit fashion, completing one set of each move in order. Do as many reps as possible for each lift. Rest 45 seconds between exercises, and then repeat the circuit for 4–5 total rounds.

For exercises 1A, 1B, and 1C, you’ll use a suspension trainer (Onnit Suspension Rings, a TRX, or any other model are all OK, as long as the trainer has foot cradles). Find an angle that you’re sure will allow you to perform 8­–15 reps, and use it consistently over the next few weeks so that you can gauge your progress. If you can perform more reps at the same angle, you know you’ve gotten stronger.

You may be able to use the same handle height for each exercise, if you set the handles at about knee level.

1A Inverted Row on Suspension Trainer

Step 1. Grasp the handles with your palms facing down, and hang from the suspension trainer at whatever angle is appropriate for you (just make sure there’s tension on the straps). Brace your abs and draw your shoulders back and down—think “proud chest.” Retract your neck, as if making a double chin, so your body forms a straight line from your head to your feet.

Step 2. Row your body up to the handles, tucking your elbows close to your sides, and rotating the handles so that your palms face each other.

1B Pushup To Pike on Suspension Trainer

Step 1. Sit on the floor and place one foot at a time in the foot cradles of the suspension trainer. Get into a pushup position, and tuck your pelvis so that it’s perpendicular to the floor. Your hands should be directly under your shoulders, and your body should form a straight line from your head to your (suspended) feet.

Step 2. Lower your body until you feel a stretch in your chest, tucking your elbows near your sides. From there, press your body back up.

Step 3. Continue pushing your hands into the floor as you bend your hips and drive your butt toward the ceiling, piking your body up as high as you can and squeezing your abs. That’s one rep.

1C Single-Leg Hip Bridge on Suspension Trainer

Step 1. Set one handle of the trainer to about knee height and lie on your back on the floor. Place the foot of your weaker leg in the foot cradle of the trainer, and bend the hip and knee of the other leg 90 degrees. Tuck your pelvis slightly so that it’s perpendicular to the floor, and brace your core.

Step 2. Drive through your heel to raise your hips off the floor. Keep your core tight so that you don’t hyperextend your lower back. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite leg.

1D Skater Squat

Step 1. Set a towel, or stack mats, on the floor behind you, and stand on the foot of your weaker leg. Reach your arms out in front of you to help you balance.

Step 2. Begin bending your hips and the knee of the support leg while reaching back with your free leg. Continue squatting down until your rear knee touches the mats, but don’t rest on it. (Do not let your toes touch down.) Drive up through the middle of your foot and return to standing. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite leg.

If you’re new to skater squats, or don’t have much experience with single-leg training, elevate the towel or pad as needed so that you shorten the range of motion. You can gradually progress to touching the floor with your knee.

Full-Body Workout #2 – 1 Dumbbell or Kettlebell

This workout is ideal if you’re stuck somewhere that offers only one modestly-weighted dumbbell or kettlebell—such as the rusty 20-pounder Uncle Elmer has been using as a doorstop for as long as you can remember. The weight (or lack thereof) doesn’t matter much if you keep the pace brisk and add some instability to the exercise, by working one side at a time and fighting for balance.

Perform the exercises in circuit fashion, completing one set of each move in order. Do as many reps as you can for each exercise. Rest 45 seconds between exercises, and then repeat the circuit for 4–5 total rounds.

1A Single-Leg Bent-Over DB/KB Row

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell or kettlebell in your weaker hand and rest your other hand on a table, chair, or other sturdy surface. Stand on the leg that’s the same side as the one that’s touching the table, and bend your knee slightly. Bend your hips back until your torso is roughly parallel to the floor and extend your free leg behind you. Your head, spine, and pelvis should form a straight line, and your core must be braced.

Step 2. Row the weight to your side, avoiding twisting your body in any direction. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

1B Split-Stance One-Arm Push Press

Step 1. Stand with your legs staggered, and hold the weight in your weaker hand at shoulder level. Tuck your pelvis slightly so that it’s parallel to the floor, and brace your core.

Step 2. Dip both knees quickly and use the rebound effect to help you press the weight overhead with momentum. Avoid bending or twisting in any direction. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side, switching your legs as well.

1C Offset Reverse Lunge

Step 1. Hold the weight in your weaker hand at shoulder level. Brace your core.

Step 2. Step back with the leg that’s on the same side as the weight, and lower your body until your rear knee nearly touches the floor and your front thigh is parallel to the floor. Avoid bending or twisting. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

1D Single-Leg RDL

Step 1. Stand on your weaker leg and hold the weight at arm’s length on the opposite side. Take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core.

Step 2. Bend your hips back, allowing your support leg to bend as needed, while keeping your head, spine, and pelvis in a straight line. Continue until you feel a stretch in your hamstring. Avoid bending or twisting. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

1E One-Arm Floor Press

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor, holding the weight in your weaker hand over your chest. Spread your feet wider than your shoulders and dig them into the floor. Tuck your pelvis slightly so that it’s perpendicular to the floor. Take a deep breath into you belly, and brace your core.

Step 2. Lower the weight until your triceps touch the floor and pause for a moment. Press back up. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

Full-Body Workout #3 – Resistance Bands and Bodyweight

The workout requires the use of two bands—one long, and one short (a mini band, if possible). Bands are easy to acquire, safe to use, and can provide variable amounts of resistance. Need them to feel heavier? Choke up on the band. Lighter? give it more slack. Bands are also great for giving you feedback. On exercises such as the fire hydrant and frog pump, the tension of the band will remind you to keep your glutes engaged constantly. This not only compensates for your not being able to use heavy weight, it will teach you to mentally connect with muscles you’ve neglected. Becoming more aware of a muscle and how it works will help you fire it even harder for better results.

The exercises are grouped into two circuits. Perform the exercises in the first circuit (1A–1D), completing one set of each move in order. Rest 30 seconds between exercises, and then repeat the circuit for 4–5 total rounds. Go on to exercises 2A–2C, and perform them in the same fashion.

1A Banded Face Pull

Reps: 18–20

Step 1. Attach the long band to a sturdy object at about face height. Loop the ends of the band around your wrists, and extend your arms in front of you. Stand back to put tension on the band.

Step 2. Keeping your ribs drawn down and core tight, pull the band toward your face, stopping when your upper back is fully contracted. Do not extend your lower back to help pull the band.

1B Clap Pushup

Reps: As many as possible

Step 1. Get into pushup position and tuck your pelvis so that it’s perpendicular to the floor. Your hands should be directly under your shoulders, and your body should form a straight line from your head to your feet.

Step 2. Quickly lower your body until your chest is about an inch above the floor, tucking your elbows close to your sides as you descend. Use the rebound effect from the fast descent to come back up as explosively as you can. Come up so fast and high that your hands leave the floor and you can clap your hands in mid air.

1C One-Arm Band Curl

Reps: As many as possible

Step 1. Loop the long band over your left foot and run it under your right foot. Now grasp the free end in your right hand and stand tall. (Note that if your left arm is weaker, reverse the setup.)

Step 2. Curl the band up without letting your elbow drift forward. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

1D One-Arm Banded Triceps Pushdown

Reps: As many as possible

Step 1. Attach the long band to a sturdy object that’s overhead and grasp the free end in your weaker hand. Bend your hips back slightly.

Step 2. Keeping your elbow close to your side, extend your arm and flex your triceps. Complete your reps, and then repeat on the opposite side.

2A Standing Fire Hydrant Hold w/ Band

Reps: Hold 30 seconds (each side)

Step 1. Wrap the short band around your legs, just above the knees, and face a wall, standing a foot and a half back. Touch the wall for support.

Step 2. Draw your ribs down and brace your core. Bend the knee on your weaker leg, and bend your hips back until your torso is about 60 degrees. Raise your free leg out to the side, drive your heel backward to extend your hip fully, and rotate your knee outward. Avoid any rotation at the pelvis, and let the movement come purely from your hip. Hold the position 30 seconds, and then repeat on the opposite side.

2B Frog Pump w/ Band

Reps: As many as possible

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor and wrap a band around your legs, just above the knees. Bend your knees 90 degrees and bring the soles of your feet together. Drive the backs of your arms into the floor at about 45 degrees to your torso. Tuck your pelvis slightly so that it’s perpendicular to the floor, and brace your core.

Step 2. Drive your knees outward as you push through the outer edges of your feet to raise your hips off the floor. Rise until your glutes are fully contracted.

2C Jump Squat w/ Band

Reps: 10

Step 1. Wrap a band around your legs just above the knees. Stand with feet slightly wider than shoulder width.

Step 2. Quickly bend your hips and knees, throwing your arms back behind you, and descend to about half your normal squat depth. Drive your knees outward against the band the whole time—your knees must be in line with your big toes. Use the rebound effect to jump upward with momentum. Jump as high as you can, and land softly. Begin the next jump immediately.

Full-Body Workout #4 – Bodyweight Only

Isometric holds mean holding the hardest position in an exercise’s range of motion. When you do this, you put the muscle under the greatest amount of tension possible, and that translates to growth. When you follow that with full-range reps, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can exhaust your muscles with so little exercise volume—and no external load!

Perform the exercises in circuit fashion, completing one set of each move in order. Rest 45 seconds between exercises, and then repeat the circuit for 4–5 total rounds.

1A Pushup w/ Isometric Hold

Step 1. Get into pushup position and tuck your pelvis so that it’s perpendicular to the floor. Your hands should be directly under your shoulders, and your body should form a straight line from your head to your feet.

Step 2. Lower your body until your chest is about an inch above the floor, tucking your elbows close to your sides as you descend.

Step 3. Squeeze your pecs while actively pulling your arms toward each other—but do not move them. Simply tense your pecs and hold the contraction isometrically for as long as possible.

Step 4. When you can’t hold the position any longer, rest 15 seconds, and then perform as many full-range pushup reps as possible.

1B Three-Position Isometric Row

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor with knees bent and feet flat on the floor. Extend your arms out 90 degrees to your sides, and then bend your elbows 90 degrees.

Step 2. Drive your elbows into the floor as hard as possible for 10 seconds, as if rowing your bodyweight. Rest 5 seconds, and move your arms toward your body to 45 degrees. Drive your elbows down again for 10 seconds, rest 5, and reposition your arms once more next to your sides. Drive down for 10 seconds, and rest.

1C Isometric Hip Bridge/Leg Curl

Step 1. Lie on your back on the floor with your knees bent 90 degrees and feet on the floor, but allow only your heels to touch down. Tuck your pelvis under slightly, and brace your core.

Step 2. Drive through your heels to raise your hips off the floor, and then dig your heels into the floor as if trying to perform a leg curl. Perform the isometric for 10 seconds.

1D Split Squat w/ Isometric Hold

Step 1. Stand with feet staggered and your weaker leg in front.

Step 2. Lower your body until your front thigh is parallel to the floor and your rear knee is just above the floor. Hold the position while tensing your front leg hard as long as you can. Rest 15 seconds.

Step 3. Now perform normal split squat reps—standing up tall and lowering into the lunge position. Do as many reps as possible.

Step 4. Rest 30 seconds, and then switch sides and repeat the isometric hold, followed by the reps.

The post 4 Full-Body At-Home Workouts for Getting & Staying Fit appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Nowadays, the fitness industry defines cardio more broadly, and while you’re still welcome to do long jogs if that’s your thing, you have another option as well: high-intensity interval training—often called HIIT. Interval workouts can use any type of exercise, from cardio machines to bodyweight to free weights, so you can customize your workout to your own needs.

Burn Belly Fat With These 3 Great HIIT Workouts For Women

Here’s how HIIT works: you alternate fast, intense periods of exercise with bouts of light activity or complete rest. While it takes a fraction of the time a traditional aerobic workout does, HIIT can be just as effective for reshaping your body—and many people (including yours truly) think it’s a lot more fun and challenging.

HIIT may be the perfect kind of cardio for busy moms or women who can’t (or won’t) run anymore, as well as those who don’t have access to a gym. In fact, low-impact HIIT workouts are the number-one request I get from my clients and female Instagram followers. HIIT can be tailored to your experience level and the equipment you have available, including if you work out at home.

What Are HIIT Workouts?

There are many ways to do high-intensity interval training, but the concept is always the same: work hard for a few seconds to get your heart rate up, and then take it easy to recover. Repeat for rounds. Unlike traditional cardio (jogging, swimming, cycling, etc.), where you work at a moderate and steady pace for long periods (usually 30 minutes or more), HIIT workouts are anaerobic—they don’t use oxygen as their primary energy source. Instead, they rely on creatine phosphate to provide the power for explosive, rapid-fire activity, which means HIIT has more in common with weight training than it does jogging. So if you love to lift as much as I do, chances are you’ll enjoy HIIT more than steady-state cardio!

Because HIIT workouts are so intense, you simply can’t perform them for long (just as you can’t lift weights steadily for minutes on end). Work intervals are usually much less than 60 seconds (rest intervals may be longer or shorter, depending on how hard the work bouts are), and the whole workout typically lasts 20 minutes or less.

How Females Can Benefit From HIIT Workouts

HIIT workouts may not last long, but they can provide just as good a workout as sessions that take much more time. According to the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), HIIT workouts can burn more calories per minute of exercise than aerobic training does, making it the better cardio option when you’re short on time.

The other big benefit of HIIT is the effect it has on your metabolism. Like weight training, HIIT increases post-exercise oxygen consumption (EPOC). Says the ACSM: “This is generally a two-hour period after an exercise bout where the body is restoring itself to pre-exercise levels, and thus using more energy. Because of the vigorous contractile nature of HIIT workouts, the EPOC generally tends to be modestly greater, adding about six to 15% more calories to the overall workout energy expenditure.” In other words, HIIT has you burning more calories—including more fat—when you’re recovering after the workout. That means you’ll actually be getting leaner when you’re hanging out around the house, watching TV, and sleeping! You don’t get this same effect with aerobic training.

Since HIIT has the muscles working hard, it also has the potential to boost muscle growth. Look at power athletes such as sprinters and sprint cyclists—their workouts are variations of HIIT, and they typically have ripped bodies to show for it.

How Many Times Per Week Should You Do HIIT Workouts?

As with lifting weights, HIIT is stressful to the body and requires recovery time. You can’t do it every day. I generally recommend that my clients do two or three HIIT sessions per week, done either on the same day that you lift (preferably right afterward or several hours apart) or on days in between.

For as many advantages as HIIT has over steady-state cardio, it’s still important to fit some long-duration aerobic training into your week if you can. I’ll jog or jump rope at a light pace at least one day per week, and for a minimum of 15 minutes. Steady-state cardio builds an aerobic base that your body can use to fuel all its other activities, and it’s good for your heart, as well as burning extra calories.

Beginner HIIT Workout For Women

If you’re new to HIIT, or working out in general, this routine is a perfect place to start. You’ll use only your bodyweight, and every move is low impact—so if you’re overweight, or have back, knee, or shoulder problems, these exercises shouldn’t aggravate them.

Directions: Perform reps of each exercise in turn for 30 seconds, resting 15 seconds between sets. After you complete one round, rest about a minute (more if you need to), and then repeat for 3 to 5 rounds.

Workout duration: 20–30 min.

1. Squat Twist

Step 1. Stand with feet between hip and shoulder-width apart and cross your arms in front of your chest to help you balance. Twist your feet outward and into to the floor (as if you were standing on turf and trying to twist it up beneath your feet), but without moving their position—you just want to create tension and feel your hips and glutes fire up. You should feel the arches in your feet rise.

Step 2. Begin to lower your body, pushing your knees apart and sitting back as if into a chair. Go as low as you can while keeping your head, spine, and pelvis in a long line. If you feel your tailbone is about to tuck under, stop there.

Step 3. Come up out of the squat and twist your torso to the left, raising your left knee into the air 90 degrees. Squeeze your abs. Reverse the motion and repeat the squat, twisting to the opposite side.

2. Reach and Crunch

Step 1. From standing, pull your ribs down and tuck your tailbone slightly so that your core is braced. Raise your arms straight overhead—keep your core tight so that your ribs don’t flare out and your back doesn’t hyperextend.

Step 2. Twist your torso to the left as you bring your left knee up and pull your arms down, as if delivering a knee strike. Crunch your abs, trying to bring your ribs and hips together.

3. Shuffle Punch

Step 1. Stand with feet together and your arms chambered at your sides, ready to throw straight punches.

Step 2. Shuffle your feet to your left and land in a deep squat with feet outside shoulder width. As you drop into the squat, punch your right arm straight out, and then shuffle to the right and punch with your left arm.

4. Squat and Reach

Step 1. Perform a squat as you did in the squat twist above, but start with your arms bent in front of you, as if you had just curled a barbell. Squat until your elbows touch your knees.

Step 2. Come out of the squat quickly so the momentum makes you come up on the balls of your feet. Reach your arms overhead while keeping your ribs pulled down and core engaged.

5. Side-To-Side Knee Drivers

Step 1. Stand with feet outside shoulder width and reach your arms overhead and slightly to the left.

Step 2. Draw your arms down while driving your right knee up and to the left, as if delivering a knee strike. Repeat on the opposite side.

6. Mountain Climber

Step 1. Get into the top of a pushup and then drive your right knee to your chest while keeping your hips level with the floor.

Step 2. Replace your right foot and raise your left knee to your chest. Continue alternating sides at a brisk pace.

7. Table Top Reach and Lift

Step 1. Sit on the floor with feet planted in front of you and hands underneath your shoulders. Brace your core.

Step 2. Push through your heels to raise your hips off the floor. Raise your left leg straight out in front of you and reach for it with your right arm. Lower your hips and repeat on the other side.

Step 3. Raise your hips into a full table-top position, tucking your pelvis under slightly and bracing your core so that your lower back doesn’t hyperextend in the top position.

Advanced HIIT Workout For Women

When you’re ready to take it up a notch, try this HIIT routine, which employs some light plyometric exercises—jumping moves that train explosive power. Not only do they get your heart rate up and challenge your muscles, but they’re fun to do. You’ll feel like an athlete again (or, if you didn’t play sports in school, for the first time—it’s never too late!)

Directions: You’ll need a small box, step, or other platform. Perform reps of each exercise in turn for 20 seconds, resting 10 seconds between sets. After you complete one round, rest about a minute (more if you need to) and then repeat for 3 to 5 rounds.

Workout duration: 12–20 min.

1. Toe Tap

Step 1. Set a box or step that’s about a foot high in front of you. Quickly raise one leg and tap the top of the box with your foot.

Step 2. Return your foot to the floor and repeat on the opposite leg. Get into a rhythm that’s like you’re running, tapping the box quickly with each foot and staying light on your feet.

2. Explosive Hop Up

Step 1. Sit on the box with feet on the floor at hip width. Raise your arms up in front of you.

Step 2. Swing your arms back as you jump off the box as high as you can. Land with soft knees and lower yourself back onto the box. Reset before you begin the next rep.

3. Hop Over

Step 1. Stand to the right side of the box and place your left foot on top of it.

Step 2. Push off the box to hop over it laterally, landing with your right foot on the box and your left foot on the floor. Immediately repeat to the right side and continue performing reps in a rhythm.

4. Quad Hop

Step 1. Stand behind the box and place your left foot on it.

Step 2. Press through your foot to hop up into the air. Swing your left arm forward as you come up to increase the height of your hop. Land softly and repeat immediately. After you’ve spent 20 seconds on your left side, rest, then switch sides, and repeat.

5. Hands-On Climber

Step 1. Place your hands on the box and get into a pushup position.

Step 2. Perform mountain climbers as described in the beginner’s workout above.

6. Feet-On Climber

Step 1. Rest your feet on the box and get into pushup position.

Step 2. Perform mountain climbers as you have above, alternating each knee to your chest, but move more methodically, being careful to replace each foot on the box before you lift the other one.

7. Single-Leg Switch

Step 1. Sit on the box and extend your right leg straight out in front of you. Reach your arms forward to help you balance.

Step 2. Stand up from the box using only your left leg and then quickly hop onto the right foot and sit back down. Now stand up on the right leg. Get into a rhythm.

HIIT Workout You Can Do At Home

HIIT doesn’t need to be done in a gym. All you need is some light dumbbells (even a pair of three-pounders will do) and a few feet of open floor space.

Directions: Perform reps of each exercise in turn for 30 seconds, resting 15 seconds between sets. After you complete one round, rest about a minute (more if you need to), and then repeat for 3 to 5 rounds. To make your glutes work harder, wrap an elastic exercise band just above your knees so that it resists your legs (optional).

Workout duration: 20–30 min.

1. In/Out Squat Jump Press

Step 1. Stand with feet close together, holding a pair of light dumbbells at your sides with elbows bent 90 degrees.

Step 2. Jump and spread your legs, landing in a deep squat at the same time you press both weights out in front of you at arm’s length. Jump back to the starting position.

2. Alternating Kickback Press

Step 1. Stand holding dumbbells at shoulder level with feet closer together.

Step 2. Extend your left leg behind you with knee straight as you press the dumbbells overhead. Return to the starting position and repeat on the opposite leg.

3. Jumping Jack Press

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at shoulder level and stand with feet close together.

Step 2. Dip your knees quickly to gather momentum, and then jump your legs to outside shoulder width as you press the weights overhead. Land with soft knees.

4. Squat Press

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at shoulder level and squat.

Step 2. As you come up, press the weights overhead.

5. Lunge Press (right leg)

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at shoulder level and step back into a staggered stance so your right leg is front. Lower your body so that your left knee nearly touches the floor and your right knee is bent 90 degrees.

Step 2. Stand straight up from the lunge position and press the weights overhead.

6. Side-To-Side Squat Front Raise

Step 1. Stand with feet together and dumbbells at your sides.

Step 2. Step out to your left side and squat as you raise the dumbbells up to shoulder level in front of you. Step back to the starting position and then repeat to the right side.

7. Lunge Press (left leg)

Perform the lunge press again but with the left leg in front.

8. No-Jump Jack

Step 1. Hold dumbbells at your sides with palms facing forward, and stand with feet together.

Step 2. Step to your right side as you raise the weights overhead in an arcing motion, as if doing a jumping jack. Repeat to the opposite side.

How To Create Your Own HIIT Workout

Once you’ve gotten the hang of HIIT, feel free to make up your own HIIT workouts to keep your training fun and challenging. Here are some guidelines to remember.

1. Choose exercises you can do in one place (more or less). Because the work and rest intervals tend to be brief, you don’t want to create a workout that has you running around your gym from station to station. Keep your equipment and setups simple.

2. Alternate really hard exercises with easier ones. If you squat with weights in one interval, you probably shouldn’t do burpees in the next one. The point of HIIT is too work hard, but not so hard that you burn yourself out early and can’t finish the workout with intensity. Another tip: play with your work-to-rest ratios. You may want to use shorter work intervals and longer rests when you’re just getting started, and add work and subtract rest as you get fitter.

3. You can make HIIT workouts with mobility exercises. If you want to spend more time opening your tight hips or stretching your hamstrings, use mobility drills like the hip-opening mountain climber and twist and sit-knee in your HIIT sessions. You can alternate them with tougher bodyweight or weight-training moves, or use mobility exercises exclusively. You may be surprised how fast mobility moves done with focus and precision can raise your heart rate.

The post Burn Belly Fat With These 3 Great HIIT Workouts For Women appeared first on Onnit Academy.

All of these fundamental movements can be transitioned from barbell exercises to kettlebell exercises.

How do you build muscle with a Kettlebell? Don’t you just swing kettlebells a million times? How is that going to build muscle?

These were all valid questions over a decade ago when kettlebells were first introduced, but get with the times my friends. The same principles of bilateral training with a barbell can be implemented with a heavy pair of kettlebells, and I mean heavy.

The following 6 kettlebell exercises will have you packing on the muscle in no time: 

Kettlebell Exercise #1: Double Clean and Press

The Double Kettlebell Clean and Press is a powerful exercise that combines both upper and lower body strength and power. The clean and press is a complete workout hitting nearly every muscle in the body, generating full body tension. This is one of the best strength exercises available yielding phenomenal results. Performing clean and presses with a heavy pair of kettlebells takes pressure off the wrists usually found when performed with a barbell.

Kettlebell Exercise #2: Double Floor Press

The Double Floor Press combines a shoulder and chest workout along with your core. Using kettlebells for the exercise provides a unique challenge. This is a great chest exercise for those with shoulder issues, since you are only going as low as the floor rather than below as in normal benching, it takes a lot of strain off the rotator cuff. Because there is a little twist at the top your abs receive some attention as well. Use this exercise if you want to build some massive upper body strength!

Kettlebell Exercise #3: Double Bent Over Row

An excellent upper-body pulling movement; the double bent over row will build strength in the back and biceps muscles. Pulling exercises are a necessity to ensure balance for the upper body. There is an alliance between pulling and pressing muscles. The better you get at pulling, the stronger your pressing will be and vice versa.

Kettlebell Exercise #4: Double Front Squat

To avoid looking like a rec-room hero you need to work the legs. Even if you don’t care about leg development, lower body training will help upper body development through a greater release of growth hormone. The Double Front Squat is one of the best core and leg strengtheners out there. You not only get the benefit of stronger legs, but your shoulders will be given a fantastic workout as well. Simply holding the kettlebells in place is taxing on your shoulders, upper back, arms, and core.

Kettlebell Exercise #5: Double Swing

Balance is key when building muscle and you need to balance the quad growth from the squats with some hamstring exercises. The Double Kettlebell Swing is the brutal distillation of everything kettlebell training is about: power, explosiveness, flexibility and lung searing cardio. The double kettlebell swing will hit your lower back, glutes, and hamstrings, strengthening the entire posterior chain. Double swings are great progression that can be used to increase your strength and power.

Kettlebell Exercise #6: Turkish Get Up

The core connects the lower body to the upper body and if your midsection is weak, everything is weak. The Turkish Get Up is great core exercise that also had tremendous benefits to your pressing ability. Throughout the entire movement your core is being worked. To the same degree, the shoulder is being used to maintain that overhead position. Since you go through a wide range of positions, you’re flexibility and mobility are challenged giving you a far greater exercise.

Muscle Building Kettlebell Workout:

Heavy kettlebells are bells you can only do a few reps with. Start with low reps to get used to the heavier kettlebells. Make each rep perfect. Once that gets easy, start building the reps. When you can start completing the lifts for 8-10 reps, increase weight.

A1: Double Kettlebell Clean and Press – 5 rounds x 5 reps

B2: Double Kettlebell Floor Press – 5 rounds x 5 reps
B3: Double Kettlebell Bent Over Row – 5 rounds x 5 reps

C1: Double Kettlebell Front Squat – 5 rounds x 5 reps
C2: Double Kettlebell Swings – 5 rounds x 5 reps

D1: Turkish Get-Ups – 5 rounds x 3 reps (each side)

6 Kettlebell Exercises to Build Muscle

The post 6 Kettlebell Exercises to Build Muscle appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Despite new apps, new equipment, new gyms, and new online training platforms, the biggest, strongest, leanest, and most powerful people on the planet still skip most of the trends (fads?) and do the same basic lifts that their predecessors relied on a century ago. For example, squats and cleans with a good old-fashioned barbell. 

Combine these two classic movements and you have the squat clean, a foundational exercise for Olympic weightlifters, and a great choice for people who are looking to get stronger, more explosive, and more functionally fit overall.

In this guide, you’ll learn why the squat clean is timeless, and how to implement it properly in your training to maximize benefits and minimize injury risk.

What Is the Squat Clean?

The squat clean is another name for the first half of the clean and jerk movement—a lift that’s performed in Olympic weightlifting contests. In the clean and jerk, the clean has you pull the weight off the floor and heave it up to your shoulders (called the rack position), and, in the same motion, lower into a full front squat and then stand back up. The jerk is when you then dip your knees and power the bar up overhead to lockout. To perfect the movement, weightlifters often train the components of the clean and jerk separately, hence the squat clean exercise (cleaning the weight and squatting it).

Most people who have played football or done CrossFit are familiar with power cleans, a variation in which you catch the bar on your shoulders and dip your knees slightly to absorb the force. In other words, the power clean omits the squat. Another difference is that, in a classic full-range, weightlifting clean/squat clean, you pull your body underneath the bar as it approaches your shoulders. This reduces the clean’s range of motion slightly, and allows you to use more weight. The squat clean, then, is a more challenging progression of the power clean, and it better simulates the requirements of a full clean and jerk.

“The squat clean sounds simple, but when executed properly, it’s actually an incredibly complex exercise,” says Chris Ryan, CSCS, instructor for the interactive home gym company MIRROR (mirror.co) and a USA Weightlifting (USAW) Level 1 and CrossFit Powerlifting-certified coach. “The ultimate goal is force production and transfer from the feet, legs, hips, core, and back. It’s a full-body movement with maximal power.”

What Muscles Does the Squat Clean Work?

Nearly all the major muscles get involved when doing squat cleans. They include:

–Glutes (gluteus maximus, gluteus medius) 

–Quadriceps (vastus lateralis, intermedius, and medialis; rectus femoris) 

–Hamstrings (biceps femoris, semimembranosis, semitendonosis) 

–Calves (gastrocnemius, soleus)

These muscles get the lift started, taking the bar off the floor and then explosively extending your hips, knees, and ankles (what weightlifters call “triple extension”) to propel the bar up to the rack position. The quads, glutes, and hamstrings are also the main players in the squatting portion of the lift.

–Abdominals and core 

Your midsection stabilizes your spine as you lift. Any kind of clean puts a lot of stress on the lower back, so it’s extra important to breathe in and brace your core properly.

–Trapezius (middle and upper portions)

–Shoulders (front and lateral deltoids)

The traps and delts assist the lower body in getting the bar up to shoulder level, and stabilize it during the squat.

–Biceps

These elbow flexors help to finish the clean portion of the lift, although you must not let the clean turn into a cheat curl. Most of its momentum comes from the hips and lower body—not the curling of the elbows.

Benefits of the Squat Clean

Whether you think of the squat clean as a combination of a power clean and front squat or the first half of a clean and jerk, its constituent movements develop explosive power, strength, and muscle in the lower body and core. When combined, you’re reaping the benefits of triple extension and squatting in one exercise.

Greater power and strength have carryover into all speed-strength sports, as well as everyday activities involving lifting and carrying. In other words, the squat clean is a classic “functional” exercise. 

So, who should be doing squat cleans? First of all, anyone who does Olympic weightlifting (cleans, snatches, clean and jerks), either competitively or recreationally. “If your goal is to compete in Olympic lifting, where the clean and jerk is an actual event, you’ll need to learn the squat clean in order to do maximal lifts,” says Ryan. “If you don’t learn how to drop quickly under the bar, you’re robbing yourself of the ability to lift a heavier load, and you’ll ultimately have to lift the weight higher off the ground to complete the lift. At the elite level, competitors will always be able to squat clean more than they can power clean.”

If you don’t compete in Olympic lifting, training the squat clean can still be very beneficial for developing overall athleticism, muscle, and strength. But deciding whether or not to add it to your repertoire depends on your goals, physical limitations, and how much time and effort you’re willing to put into practicing technique.

“If you’re an athlete whose sport of play is not on an Olympic lifting platform or in CrossFit [i.e., football, basketball, track and field, soccer, etc.], usually power cleans will be sufficient, somewhat safer, and less time consuming to learn,” says Ryan. “That said, most athletes, and even weekend warriors, can benefit from squat cleans, as it’s one of the most efficient, all-encompassing movements you can do for full-body power and strength.”

Bottom line, the squat clean is a beneficial exercise for anyone who:

– Wants to build explosive power and strength that carries over to “real-world” activities, as well as the athletic playing field. 

– Competes in weightlifting or does the Olympic lifts recreationally as a means of improving functional fitness.

– Wants a big bang-for-the-buck exercise to improve training efficiency for quicker, more intense workouts. 

How To Stretch Before Doing the Squat Clean

Use these drills to warm up and help mobilize your hips, upper back, and shoulders before you train any clean variation.

How To Do the Squat Clean

Step 1. Stand behind the bar with feet hip-width apart. Bend at the hips and knees to lower down and grasp the bar with an overhand grip, hands slightly outside shoulder width. Extend your torso and draw your shoulders down and back—your head, spine, and pelvis should form one long line. Focus your eyes on the floor in front of you. Take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core like you were about to take a punch in the gut.

Step 2. Begin pushing through your heels to extend your hips and knees and pull the bar off the floor. Your shoulders and hips should be in sync with each other as they rise. When the bar passes your knees, finish extending your hips, knees, and ankles explosively, and pull the bar straight up in front of your body. Keep the bar as close to your body as possible as you pull it upward. The objective here is to pull the bar as high as possible as your body becomes upright. The pull should make your shoulders shrug and your heels leave the floor.

Step 3. When the bar reaches stomach level, quickly bend your elbows and drive them forward so that you can catch the bar in the rack position: barbell resting on the front delts, fingers grasping the bar just outside the shoulders, elbows up so the upper arms are parallel with the floor. As you begin to catch the bar in the rack position, simultaneously drop your body under the bar. When you feel the bar touch your shoulders, that’s your cue to begin the squat. Don’t pause after the clean.

Step 4. Lower into the squat, keeping your long spine and tight core. Keep your elbows pointed forward and your chest up. Go as low as you can without losing the alignment of your head, spine, and hips (if you feel your pelvis tucking under, or your lower back rounding forward, stop, and come back up).

Step 5. Drive up out of the bottom of the squat to full hip and knee extension.

Step 6. Carefully lower your arms and drop the bar to the floor under control. (Bumper plates and/or a lifting platform are recommended.) Re-set yourself for the next rep.

Timing: As an exercise that trains both power and strength, squat cleans should be performed early in a workout, after a thorough warmup, but when your muscles and nervous system are fresh. 

Sets/Reps/Load: Generally speaking, Olympic lifts (including squat cleans) should be trained with relatively low rep counts and generous rest periods. When doing squat cleans to enhance power and strength, Ryan recommends 4–6 sets of 1–3 reps, and 2–5 minutes between sets.

As for load, always err on the light side. Ryan recommends beginners start by lifting a PVC pipe and gradually work up to an unloaded barbell (45 pounds).

“The goal, as with any lift, is to move well first and add load later,” says Ryan. “Plenty of people who can squat 400 pounds will have a major ego check when they add squat cleans into their training regimen. Concentrate on seamless transitions between the clean and squat portions of the lift.”

Squat Clean vs. Power Clean vs. Hang Clean

The squat clean is one of three main types of cleans—the other two being the power clean and hang clean. Seeing as they’re all cleans, developing power and explosiveness is a common goal among the three. However, squat cleans, power cleans, and hang cleans are different enough that each provides its own unique benefits. 

Here’s a rundown of all three, highlighting each variation’s distinguishing features and identifying the specific goals, and athletes, each caters to.

Squat Clean

As discussed above, a squat clean is a full clean, going from the floor into a front squat. Of the three variations, the squat clean utilizes the greatest range of motion by far. (The clean portion is shorter-range than in the power clean, but the front squat that follows takes the hips and knees through a full range of motion.) With proper technique, the squat clean also allows for the greatest amount of weight to be used, since you don’t have to pull the bar as high as you do for a power clean or hang clean.

“The squat clean involves so many movement patterns,” says trainer Mike Hanley, owner of Hanley Strength Systems (hanleystrength.com). “You get a lower-body, hip-dominant pull and upper-body pull with the clean, and then a quad-dominant squat, all in one exercise. On top of that, you’re involving your core to brace the clean, as well as the front squat to keep your upper body upright and in good position.”

Who Should Do Squat Cleans?

The squat clean is obviously ideal for competitive weightlifters, but it can also be a great exercise for those interested in functional fitness and even physique gains. 

“If you have good mobility and technique,” says Hanley, “squat cleans are a great full-body movement that can be used for muscle building. They also provide metabolic conditioning [i.e., they burn calories and build anaerobic endurance] and overall training efficiency so you get the most out of your time in the gym.”

Power Clean

A power clean is essentially a squat clean without the squat. The barbell is pulled off the floor explosively, but instead of dropping underneath it into a full squat, the knees only dip to allow you to catch and stabilize the bar.

Technique and overall proficiency being equal between the two variations, you won’t be able to go as heavy on power cleans as with squat cleans, but they’re much easier to get the hang of and still train explosiveness effectively.

“The power clean is used to develop speed and explosive power,” says Hanley. “You’re not getting as much leg development in this exercise, due to not having to finish with a front squat. It’s more about overall power, as well as upper-body pulling to get the bar to the catch position.”

Who Should Do Power Cleans?

As with squat cleans, power cleans can be utilized by anyone with good mobility (particularly in the wrists and shoulders) and sound technique, but they’re most useful for athletes competing in speed-strength sports like football, basketball, volleyball, lacrosse, and many others.

“Power cleans are great to use with athletes to teach them how to generate force and speed throughout the lift and catch,” says Hanley.

Hang Clean

The major difference between this variation and the other two is that, with the hang clean, the bar does not start on the floor but just above the knees. Each rep begins with the lifter standing upright and holding the bar at arms’ length in front of the thighs. From here, there’s a shallow bend of the hips and knees and then an explosive upward pull. Essentially, a hang clean is the top half of a power clean.

Technically, a hang clean involves dropping under the bar into a full squat after the initial pull (like the squat clean). But many lifters like to do a hang power clean, which involves only a dip of the knees when catching the bar (like the power clean). The names here aren’t set in stone, however; the simple term “hang clean” often refers to a clean with no squat, depending on the coach or trainer who’s using it.

Because you sacrifice range of motion at the hips and knees with the bar not starting on the floor, hang cleans generally don’t allow you to go as heavy as squat cleans and power cleans.

“The purpose of the hang clean is to force you to work on your upper body pulling, since you don’t get to use your legs as much due to starting in a standing position,” says Hanley.  “You initiate the move with your hips, but you mostly pull the bar with your upper body and back muscles. When you do hang cleans with a squat, it involves a strong core and leg drive, just like the squat clean.”

Who Should Do Hang Cleans?

Like power cleans, hang cleans are most useful for sport athletes. “Hang cleans are great for athletes due to the start position being very similar to an athletic position in their sport,” says Hanley. Exploding off the line in football, picking up an opponent in wrestling, and a basketball jump-shot can all benefit from training hang cleans.

Hanley also uses hang cleans specifically with beginner-level athletes; the shorter range of motion simplifies the movement and makes it easier to teach the pull. By the same token, if you’re a recreational gym goer who just wants to build muscle and feel more athletic, hang cleans may be more appropriate than squat cleans or power cleans. They’re less complex and easier to get down.

Alternatives to the Squat Clean

The barbell squat clean isn’t the only way to combine a triple-extension power movement with a squat. If you’re not keen on doing squat cleans for one reason or another, there are a number of alternatives that will deliver more or less the same results in full-body power and lower-body strength.

And why might you want to change equipment? Because of the “catch” portion of the clean. The excessive wrist extension involved with it is uncomfortable for many people, and others have wrist issues that don’t allow them to perform the movement, period. Subpar shoulder mobility can also be a limiting factor with the catch portion of a squat clean.

Fortunately, forgoing a barbell in favor of other equipment shouldn’t hamper your results, as the power and strength developed with squat cleans isn’t due to hand position or grip; that’s simply the best way to hold the barbell when doing the exercise with that implement. If you don’t compete in Olympic lifting, you can do essentially the same movement without having to perform the catch by simply using more grip-friendly tools.

“Squat cleans are all about producing maximal strength and power through the hips, but they’re not for everybody,” says Ryan. “Ultimately, it comes down to goals coupled with mobility and strength to make sure you can do the movements powerfully. There are plenty of strong, powerful athletes that, because of the catch position and the tension in the wrists, would be better served doing other movements, and/or working on increasing wrist flexibility first [before doing barbell squat cleans].”

3 Squat Clean Variations

Below are a trio of squat clean variations that involve the same basic clean and squat movements, minus the catch position required with a standard barbell.

1) Landmine Squat Clean

A landmine is like a long, empty tin can that you can load one end of a barbell into. It revolves and rotates to let you use the bar as a lever, allowing you to do a wide range of lifts in a more user- and joint-friendly manner, as well as in multiple planes (up and down, side to side).

To do squat cleans with a landmine, you can perform the movement with both hands or one arm at a time for different training effects. The catch at the top of the clean is much easier than doing the squat clean conventionally, as the wrist doesn’t go into extension at all. 

How To Do the One-Arm Landmine Squat Clean

Step 1. Load one end of a barbell with a plate and anchor the other end in a landmine unit.

Step 2. Start in the same start position as a barbell squat clean, but grasp the end of the bar with one hand and a pronated grip (thumb pointing back at you, and palm facing the same side leg).

Step 3. Pull the weight off the floor with the same powerful triple-extension as a standard squat clean. As you do so, pull the bar up to your same side shoulder (right shoulder if you’re using your right arm); at the top, quickly flip your hand over to catch the bar in front of your shoulder with your palm now facing the midline of your body. 

Step 4. Drop down into a full squat, keeping the end of the bar in front of your shoulder. Then stand back up with the weight. Lower the bar back down and repeat. Perform an equal number of reps with each arm.

2) Pentagon Bar Landmine Clean

A Pentagon bar looks like the front half of a trap bar, and attaches to a regular barbell in a landmine unit. The Pentagon bar has swiveling handles, so it’s perfect for performing wrist-friendly clean and press variations.

How To Do the Pentagon Bar Landmine Clean

Step 1. Anchor one end of a barbell into a landmine and slide a Pentagon bar onto the other end. Load the Pentagon with equal weight on both sides.

Step 2. Start in standard squat clean position, grasping the Pentagon with both hands, knuckles facing the floor.

Step 3. Pull the weight off the floor with a powerful triple-extension. As you near the top, bend your elbows and flip your hands over so your knuckles face upward. Lower the bar back down and repeat for reps.

3) Dumbbell/Kettlebell Squat Clean

The dumbbell version of a squat clean allows for the same easy wrist action as the landmine when transitioning from the clean to the squat. Only difference here is that you’re working with a true, unanchored free weight. Using dumbbells won’t allow you to go as heavy as you can with barbell squat clean variations, but they make for a user-friendly movement that you can perform in any crowded gym (or your garage).

Like the one-arm landmine version, the dumbbell squat clean also requires each arm to move independently, which promotes stability and balanced development on both sides. For the best results, use kettlebells if you have access to them. Kettlebells will allow you to perform more of a traditional clean motion, spinning the weight around your wrist, rather than reverse curling it as you would with dumbbells.

How To Do the Dumbbell/Kettlebell Squat Clean

Step 1. Start in the initial squat clean position, holding a pair of kettlebells resting on the floor just outside your feet. If that’s too low to keep your lower back in a safe position, do a hang clean instead: bend your hips and knees so that the weights hang at your sides, just above your knees.

Step 2. Pull the weight up in a powerful triple-extension motion. When you’re fully extended, bend your elbows to bring weights to the front of your shoulders.

Step 3. Drop down into a full squat with the weights in front of your shoulders, and then stand back up. Lower the bells back down, and repeat for reps.

Exercise demonstrations provided by Onnit Coach Josh Orenstein. Follow him on Instagram, @jorenstein_lifts

The post The Squat Clean: How To Do It & Why Your Workout Needs It appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Summary

– The quad muscles include the vastus medialis, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis, and rectus femoris. They extend the knee.

– Injury typically occurs when we take our bodies through ranges of motion and movement patterns that they’re not used to.

– Improving hip and knee mobility can help prevent injury to the joints and quad muscles.

– To prevent knee injury, try to keep your shins vertical during any lower-body training you do.

The Best Quad Stretches & Exercises To Fit Into Your Workout

The quads are some of the biggest muscles in the body, and whether you want to build them up further to avoid hearing taunts like “hey, chicken legs,” or so you can run faster, jump higher, and lift heavier, the quad muscles need to be prepared for anything. We rounded up some mobility drills you’ve probably never tried to help you improve performance and reduce your risk of injury.

What Muscles Make Up Your Quads?

The quadriceps femoris (the quads’ formal name) consists of four different muscles—hence the “quad” name. These are the vastus medialis, vastus intermedius, vastus lateralis, and rectus femoris. The three vastus muscles originate on the femur (thigh) bone, while the rectus femoris originates at the pelvis. All four muscles come together at the kneecap and attach to the shinbone. The quadriceps muscles work to extend the knee.

The vastus medialis is located on the innermost side of the thigh. Bodybuilders call it the “teardrop” muscle when it’s well developed, as the shape it makes going into the knee looks like a droplet of water. The vastus intermedius isn’t visible from the outside, as it lies beneath the rectus femoris muscle, which runs down the center of the thigh. The vastus lateralis extends down the outer side of the thigh.

Why Should You Stretch Your Quadriceps Before Exercising?

The quads connect at the hip and the knee, and while that makes them crucial for producing lower-body strength and explosiveness, it also opens them up to injury at both junctions. “We tend to hurt ourselves in positions or movement patterns that we don’t train or use very often,” says Cristian Plascencia, a mobility coach in Austin, TX (@cristian_thedurableathlete on Instagram). “So you want to get used to exposing your body to end ranges and planes of motion that it’s not used to.” If you never stretch your quads, but one day decide to run some sprints—or you play softball and you find yourself running for home plate—your quad muscles won’t be prepared for the sudden pulling that occurs when fast running creates extreme hip extension. That puts you at greater risk of straining or tearing a muscle.

Plascencia recommends drills that stretch your quads in the end ranges of hip extension and knee flexion before you do any running, jumping, or lower-body strength training. Not only will they help train your quads to move more safely during athletic activities, but they’ll double as a warmup that gets your body ready to move heavy weight on hard exercises like the squat, deadlift, or lunge, and all their variations.

The drills that follow are examples of dynamic stretches—exercises that take muscles through their range of motion actively, as opposed to statically. Static stretching, on the other hand, is when you put a muscle into a stretched position and hold it for time (toe touches, for example). Both types of stretching have their place, but dynamic stretches have been shown to be more effective when done before activity. They don’t inhibit muscle strength, and may even improve your nervous system’s ability to recruit your muscles. A study in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research examined the effect of different stretching protocols on quad muscle power. While none of the stretching reduced power, dynamic stretches led to the greatest increases in power during subsequent testing.

Another study found that dynamic stretching before training improved power significantly over not stretching at all.

Quad Stretches to Fit Into Your Workout

Plascencia offers the following dynamic stretches to add to your warmup.

Half-Kneeling Pelvic Tuck

Step 1. Kneel on one knee, resting it on a pad or towel. The knee should be directly under your hip; press your toes firmly into the floor. Tuck your pelvis so that it’s parallel to the floor, and straighten your torso. Draw your shoulders back and down (think: “proud chest”).

Step 2. Bend your hips back while keeping a long spine from your head to your pelvis. Hold for 5 seconds.

Step 3. Drive your knee into the pad as you tuck your pelvis again, and extend your hips to bring your torso back upright. Squeeze your glutes as you extend the hips.

That’s one rep. Perform 3 sets of 5 reps on each side.

Half-Kneeling King Dancer

Step 1. Begin the movement as you did for the half-kneeling pelvic tuck above. Rest on one knee, bend your hips back, and squeeze your glutes as you extend the hips again.

Step 2. Turn your torso toward the back knee and bend your hips as you curl your back leg up. Grasp the top of your foot with your hand.

Step 3. Tuck the pelvis as you extend your hips again while holding onto the back foot. You should feel a strong stretch in the front of the thigh and hip.

That’s one rep. Perform 3 sets of 5 reps on each side. 

Shinbox Tripod Extension

Step 1. Sit on the floor with your feet in front of you and knees bent 90 degrees. Rotate your hips and knees to the right until your knees are flat on the floor, your left knee beneath your right foot.

Step 2. Pull your left foot close to your butt so the top of the foot is on the floor. Press your right hand into the floor and pull your ribs down, bracing your core.

Step 3. Extend your hips, pressing your knees into the ground while you squeeze your glutes. Extend your left arm overhead as you come up. Hold the top for one second. Be sure to keep your core tight so that your lower back doesn’t hyperextend.

That’s one rep. Perform 3 sets of 5 reps on each side. 

How To Stretch A Quad With A Bad Knee

Plascencia says most people are good at moving forward and backward, but injury often occurs when rotational forces are put on the knee—turning, cutting, or when your knee travels laterally or medially during an exercise. “We don’t think of the knee joint as being able to rotate internally and externally,” says Plascencia, “but it does have degrees of rotation. Moving it through those ranges prepares it to take on load when it’s forced into rotation during activity.”

You can use the egg beater drill (see below) if you’re currently nursing a knee injury. It doesn’t require your knee to support any weight, and it will train the hip and knee joints to rotate internally and externally. The mountain climber with hip twist can be used later to prevent further knee problems, as it targets the leg’s lateral line of fascia—the webbing of connective tissue that links the muscles together. “If you can get greater mobility in that lateral line,” says Plascencia, “you can distribute force more equally down the leg and through the knee. It’s telling your IT band, obliques, and all the other tissues that cross the lower leg and hips that you can use this new range when you’re running, landing, or squatting, and that will take pressure off the quad tendon.”

Egg Beater

Step 1. Hold one end of a foam roller or other sturdy object for support. Stand on one leg (the same side as the roller) and raise your opposite leg off the floor, bringing your knee up to hip level.

Step 2. Keeping your thigh level with the floor, extend your knee, kicking the leg straight out.

Step 3. Bend the knee again as you rotate your lower leg away from the midline of your body, moving it purely from the hip.

Step 4. Rotate your leg toward midline, and then extend your knee again. The entire movement should look like you’re beating an egg and your leg is the whisk. That’s one rep.

Perform 3 sets of 5 reps in each direction on each side.

Mountain Climber Hip Twist

Step 1. Get on all fours on the floor with your hands under your shoulders and knees beneath your hips. Extend your knees so that you come up into the top of a pushup—your body should form a straight line from your head to your heels.

Step 2. Drive your left leg forward until your foot is outside your left hand. From there, slide your left foot back and twist your body slowly so that your right hip bends toward the floor. Drive your right leg into the floor to lengthen the leg and stretch the hip as you bring it to the floor.

Step 3. Pivot onto your left toes as you raise your hips up and back to the pushup position. Bring your left foot up to your hand again, and then switch sides.

That’s one rep. Perform 3 sets of 5 reps on each side.

Tips When Working Your Quads

“You can’t train muscles that act on the knee [like the quads] without paying attention to the ones that act on the hip and ankle,” says Plascencia. Improving your mobility in these areas, even if it’s just with some basic hip flexor stretches and ankle openers, will help your legs move more efficiently, again taking the pressure off the quads and knees.

Furthermore, avoid knee valgus when you train. That is, don’t let your knees cave in or bow out on any movement. Whether you’re jumping, squatting, or lunging, good technique means having your shins perpendicular to the floor so you avoid putting excess strain on the knee joints.

Lastly, Plascencia advises doing more exercises that use different planes of motion—moving laterally or with rotation, as opposed to just forward and back. Not only will this help to improve your movement skills to avoid injury, it will change the way your muscles are recruited, bringing up weak areas and boosting your muscle gains. “Instead of doing standard lunges and squats all the time,” says Plascencia, “do a curtsy or stepover lunge,” [see below for the stepover lunge] or try a squat holding one kettlebell in front of your chest so you have to fight to keep your balance. “If you do four or five leg exercises in a training week, have at least one or two work different planes of motion.”

Stepover Lunge

Step 1. Hold a kettlebell or dumbbell in each hand and step forward with one leg, turning your hips so that your knee points about 90 degrees from your body. You will land with your lead foot perpendicular to your rear one.

Step 2. Lower your body as far as you can—ideally to where your rear knee is just above the floor—while keeping your torso upright. Step back to the starting position and repeat on the opposite leg.

The post The Best Quad Stretches & Exercises To Fit Into Your Workout appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Summary

– The tuck jump builds lower-body power and coordination

– It works all the major lower-body muscles and the core.

– Tuck jumps should not be used for conditioning, due to safety concerns. (Don’t do them for high reps as part of a circuit workout.)

– To prepare your body for tuck jumps, work on landing safely.

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There’s a famous photo of Bruce Lee jumping in the air with dumbbells in each hand and his knees tucked to his chest. His body is so neatly folded it almost looks like he’s crouching on the ground. The photo perfectly illustrates The Dragon’s mystique: a man who made incredible displays of power and athleticism seem simple and effortless.

In case you haven’t deduced as much already, Lee was doing a tuck jump in that pic, and the move was one of many he used in a workout regimen that was ahead of its time. If you hope to capture some of his explosiveness, this guide to tuck jumps will help you master an exercise that put spring in the step of one of the greatest martial artists of all time.

What Is The Tuck Jump?

The tuck jump is a vertical jump in which you raise your knees to your chest as you rise into the air. Interestingly, unlike other vertical jumps, the tuck jump is not purely a triple-extension movement. That is, vertical jumps, along with Olympic weightlifting exercises such as the clean, have the hips, knees, and ankles all extending simultaneously to generate explosive movement. While the tuck jump begins like a vertical jump, the knee tuck causes hip-, knee-, and ankle-flexion, which contributes greatly to its effectiveness. Tuck jumps are primarily done by athletes to develop power and coordination.

Like all jumps, tuck jumps are a full-body exercise that work a lot of big muscles, so you often see them used in exercise classes and circuit workouts for the sake of raising the heart rate, but we don’t suggest that you perform them for that purpose. The tuck jump is a high-impact exercise—even more so than most other jumps, due to the height and the tucking of the knees—and performing it with anything less than perfect form is dangerous. So is jumping into tuck jumps too soon (no pun intended), failing to build up to them gradually.

For those reasons, we recommend starting with lower-intensity jump exercises for a while to condition your joints for the impact of tuck jumps, and ultimately using the tuck jump for its original intention—to develop explosive power. (See “Alternatives To The Tuck Jump” below.)

“The majority of people who do tuck jumps aren’t ready for them yet,” says Sam Pogue, CPPS, FRCms, VP of Brand at TrueCoach, and a performance coach to athletes, including World Series champion pitcher Jake Arrieta. But we’ll show you how to prep your body the best way possible to fast-track your hops.

What Muscles Does The Tuck Jump Use?

The tuck jump works all the muscles of the lower body and the core. Here’s a breakdown of how they contribute to the movement.

Glutes and hamstrings. Both muscle groups have an eccentric contraction (that is, they tense while lengthening) as you lower your hips toward the floor during the jump’s countermovement—think: coiling the spring. Then, when you explode upward, the glutes and hamstrings shorten rapidly to drive the hips forward, creating the power that propels the jump.

Quads. Like the glutes and hamstrings, they contract eccentrically on the way down and then concentrically to extend the knees as you jump. When you’re in the air, the rectus femoris quad muscle works again, along with the hip flexor muscles, to pull your knees up toward your chest.

Calves. The calves extend the ankles, assisting the glutes, hamstrings, and quads in getting your feet up off the floor.

Core. The abs and lower back must brace the spine as you lower into the jumping position, as well as when you tuck the knees and land back on the floor.

All of the above muscles also work as shock absorbers, reducing the force that acts on the joints upon landing.

While tuck jumps work many muscles, don’t make the mistake of thinking that they’re a great way to “tone” your legs. Jumps work primarily fast-twitch muscle fibers to provide explosive movement, but the volume you’ll train them for isn’t enough to build serious leg muscle, and no muscle group stays under tension long enough to induce the metabolic stress that’s associated with muscle gains. Jumps are done to translate the strength you build with more traditional lower-body exercises (squats, deadlifts, lunges, etc.) into powerful movements you can make on an athletic field, such as running, jumping, and cutting.

Benefits of the Tuck Jump

Tuck jumps are mainly used to increase bilateral power output. That is, to train your ability to move explosively on two feet. “Jumps are also really good for developing coordination,” says Pogue, “increasing your understanding of where your body is in space.” Because the tuck jump has the added hip and knee flexion at the end, its coordination demands are higher than a typical vertical jump. “It’s akin to the long jump,” says Pogue, the track and field event where you kick your legs out in front of you to get as much distance as possible. If you can tuck jump proficiently, it’s pretty much a given that you’ll be able to run fast, jump high, and turn on a dime when needed during sports play.

Nevertheless, you’ll notice that athletes get tested on their vertical jump height, not their tuck jump performance. “The tuck jump isn’t as applicable to sports as a vertical jump,” says Pogue, “but it’s a good jump to practice if you want to maximize athleticism.”

Pogue, himself a former baseball player, liked to use tuck jumps during games, because of their effect on the central nervous system. Explosive, reactive movements make the mind more alert and focused, so you can use tuck jumps to “wake you up” before you need to do something that’s explosive, fast, or requires maximum attention. “Baseball can be slow sometimes,” says Pogue, “so I used to use tuck jumps to recharge if I’d been standing around for a while.” Doing one or two reps before you step up to bat could make the difference between a strike and a base hit.

As tuck jumps place so much stress on the hips, knees, and ankles, they’re sometimes used in clinical settings to help identify an athlete’s risk of injury, particularly to the knee. A study published in Athletic Therapy Today concluded that tuck jumps may be a useful assessment tool in gauging neuromuscular control, and risk of ACL injury among female athletes.

How To Stretch Before Doing A Tuck Jump

Use the following warmup drills from Onnit Durability Coach Cristian Plascencia (@cristian_thedurableathlete on Instagram) before performing tuck jumps in a workout.

How To Do A Tuck Jump

Step 1. Stand with your feet between hip and shoulder-width apart and soften your knees.

Step 2. Bend your hips and knees to lower your body into a quarter-squat. You’ll end up in the universal athletic stance (picture a lineman in football)—hips and knees bent, chest lined up with your toes, looking forward, and ready to explode. Your torso should be about 45 degrees to the floor with your lower back in its natural arch. Swing your arms back as you bend your hips back so that they run parallel to your spine.

All of the above must happen quickly and in one movement. Think of it as coiling a spring as you dip your hips down and back before you reverse the movement to explode upward.

Step 3. Immediately rise up, extending your hips, knees, and ankles (come up onto your toes) and swinging your arms forward and up to jump as high as you can into the air. As you rise, pull your knees upward with you, tucking them under your chest. Your thighs should end up parallel to the floor. Try to stay tall as you tuck—don’t actively crunch yourself into a ball.

Step 4. Extend your knees on the descent and use your toes to buffer your feet as you land. “Land like a ninja,” says Pogue, bending your hips and knees as needed to absorb the force of the ground, although you should end in the same athletic position that you started the jump.

Take a moment to reset your feet before you begin the next jump, and begin it from a tall standing position again. You can also begin each successive jump immediately, rebounding out of your landing, but we don’t recommend this unless you’re an experienced jumper, and we definitely don’t like it as a means to get cardio. “Doing multiple reps like that can get really sloppy,” says Pogue. As you fatigue, your form will break down, and that’s when people get hurt. “If you want to get your heart rate up,” says Pogue, “there are other ways to do it without risking a blowout of your ACL.” When you can do 2–3 sets of 1–3 reps with good landings, you can attempt doing the tuck jump with continuous reps (no reset).

Don’t think you have to jump to the moon to demonstrate your explosiveness. If you can jump to where your feet are at the level your hips would be while standing, Pogue says you’re getting some pretty good air. As for loading the jump with dumbbells, a la Bruce Lee, it isn’t necessary, and it increases your risk of a bad landing.

When Should I Do The Tuck Jump?

For maximum power development, do tuck jumps when you’re fresh, at the beginning of a workout (but after you’ve warmed up thoroughly). They’re a great way to kick off lower-body sessions, so try them before squats or deadlifts, or any running/sprinting you do. As stated above, you can also do them during downtime from sports activities, for the sake of keeping your energy up.

Alternatives To The Tuck Jump

As you might have guessed, if you don’t land the tuck jump properly, you’re going to land hard, and that can wreak havoc on your ankles, knees, and hips. Pogue recommends building up to tuck jumps by first mastering the depth jump and box jump, in which you practice proper landings and absorbing the impact.

Depth Jump Prerequisite

Start with the most basic version of the depth jump, which has you rising onto your toes and then dropping your heels. It may not look like much, but it will go a long way toward conditioning your joints for a hard landing, especially if you haven’t jumped since you were a kid.

Step 1. Stand with feet hip to shoulder-width apart and raise your arms overhead.

Step 2. Raise your heels up, balancing on the balls of your feet.

Step 3. Now, in one motion, drop your heels and drive your arms down behind you, landing in a quarter-squat/athletic position. Stick the landing so that your ankles and knees have a moment to fully absorb the force.

Perform 3 sets of 3 reps, 1–2 times per week. Pay attention to how you land (it may help to have a friend watch you, or set your phone up to film your sets). You should be able to land without your knees caving inward, feet rotating out, or losing your spine position. Do not move on to any other jumping exercises until these problems are corrected.

Depth Jump

When you feel you’re doing the prerequisite exercise smoothly, and you’re sure it’s not aggravating your knees or ankles, move on to the classic depth jump and box jump below. (Note that it may take a few weeks to feel comfortable with the depth jump prerequisite; don’t rush it.)

Step 1. Place a box or step that’s about 12 inches high on the floor. Stand on the box with feet between hip and shoulder width.

Step 2. Step off the box with one foot and let yourself drop to the floor, landing with both feet in the quarter-squat/athletic position with arms driving behind you and parallel to the spine. Stick the landing, and step back up on the box to repeat for reps.

Perform 3 sets of 3 reps, 1–2 times per week. Again, be aware of any changes in your shin position (they must be vertical upon landing) and be sure that you’re landing with feet forward and flat on the ground. When you feel comfortable doing the depth jump from a 12-inch box, increase the box height to 24 inches. When you can perform depth jumps safely from a 24-inch box, you should be ready to do tuck jumps.

Box Jump

While you work on the depth jump, practice the box jump too (in the same session or in another workout that week). The box jump develops power similar to the tuck jump, but is safer and less demanding.

Step 1. From a standing position, bend one knee and raise it in front of you until your thigh is parallel to the floor. Notice where your foot is—the height of the box you use should be below that level. Place an appropriate-sized box on the floor and stand a foot or so behind it.

Step 2. Bend your hips and knees as described in all the jump variations above, lowering into the athletic position, and then jump up onto the box, controlling your landing.

Perform 3 sets of 3–5 reps. Gradually increase the height of the box over time.

In addition to lower-level jumping movements like those above, lower-body strength lifts such as squats and Romanian deadlifts will help enormously to prepare your body for tuck jumps. Pogue recommends doing the single-leg version of these exercises too, as most landings won’t happen on perfectly even feet.

The post Tuck Jumps: How To Do Them & Why Your Workout Needs Them appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The clean and press was dropped from weightlifting competition because judges deemed it too difficult to assess valid technique (lifting a ton of weight causes you to bend backward, and it’s hard to tell to what degree the knees are bending, and therefore how much assistance you’re getting from them). Though it may have fallen out of fashion, the clean and press is still a worthwhile exercise, and an efficient choice for building muscle, strength, and explosiveness—even if you choose to perform it with dumbbells. In fact, the dumbbell clean and press is arguably a better choice for most people than its barbell predecessor (particularly those of us who aren’t trained Olympic lifters).

The dumbbell clean and press will allow you to access most of the same benefits gleaned from the barbell variation, but without the same steep learning curve or risk of injury. Here’s everything you need to know about the dumbbell clean and press.

What Muscles Does a Dumbbell Clean and Press Work?

The dumbbell clean and press works just about all of the major muscles along the posterior and anterior chains (i.e., the muscles that work together on the back and front of the body). In other words, it’s a total-body exercise.

Starting at the bottom of the body, the gastrocnemius and soleus muscles in the calves work in tandem with the quads, hamstrings, and glutes to drive the weights up from the floor (or hang position; see below) and extend the hips. The abdominals (including the rectus abdominis, transversus abdominis, and internal and external obliques) and spinal erectors provide stability for the spine as you extend the hips and stand up tall.

The traps, lats, and rhomboids contract powerfully to shrug and pull the weights up to shoulder level. As your elbows come under the dumbbells, the muscles of the hands and forearms work hard to maintain grip, while the biceps come under tension, too. To finish the exercise with a press, the deltoids, upper pecs, and triceps fire as the core works to maintain stability.

What are the Benefits of Doing the Dumbbell Clean and Press?

“The dumbbell clean and press develops total body-strength and power, and stability in the shoulders,” says Sean Pangelinan, owner of The Fit Lab in San Diego. Like the barbell clean and press, the dumbbell version has you taking a weight from the floor (or at least knee level) and controlling its path all the way overhead. You can’t ask for a greater range of motion through which to work your whole body, and the result is a total-body workout. Working all those muscles burns a lot of calories for one exercise, so the clean and press is a good move to use when training for fat loss. Though you won’t be able to lift as much weight with dumbbells as you do a barbell, the exercise is still intended to be done heavy, so you’ll build strength and size.

While you sacrifice some loading using dumbbells, they offer a few big advantages over a barbell. For one thing, they make the exercise unilateral. You have to control two weights separately, but coordinate their movement together. That increases the challenge to your core and many stabilizer muscles, including the ones in the shoulders that you need to press safely in any exercise. The dumbbells also offer a slightly greater range of motion than you’d get with a barbell clean and press, and greater range means more muscle activation.

“The dumbbell clean and press is a great introduction to the Olympic lifts,” says Pangelinan, “and is more forgiving for most people who don’t have experience in this area. You get most of the benefits of cleaning and pressing with a barbell, minus the stress on the wrists and other joints. The clean and press is one of the most efficient movements you can do, as it’s a compound lift that engages multiple joints and major muscle groups.”

How To Stretch Before A Dumbbell Clean and Press

Use these two mobility drills, provided by Onnit Durability Coach Natalie Higby (@nat.trill.fit on Instagram), to increase range of motion and stability in your shoulders and upper back before you perform the clean and press.

How To Do A Dumbbell Clean

It’s easier to learn the dumbbell clean and press when you break it down and master its component parts individually. This means starting with the dumbbell clean. A proper clean is not a sloppy curl done with momentum. When done correctly, it’s a full-body movement that builds power. Here’s how to do the clean portion of the clean and press.

Step 1. Place two dumbbells on the floor. You may position them so that the handles are horizontal, right in front of your feet. However, if it feels like they’re too far away to reach, you can place them vertically at the outsides of your feet—or angled slightly inward. If the floor still seems too far away, and you know you won’t be able to pick up the dumbbells without rounding your lower back (don’t worry, this is common), simply start with the dumbbells hanging at your sides.

Step 2. Stand with your feet straight and hip-width apart. Hinge at your hips, bending them back and allowing your knees to bend until you can reach the dumbbells on the floor. You should end up in the same starting position as a deadlift. Grip the dumbbells with your arms straight. Your head, spine, and pelvis should all be aligned.

If you’re starting from a standing position, bend your hips back and allow your knees to bend as needed until the dumbbells hang just outsides your knees. This is called the hang position of a clean, and you can begin the exercise from here.

In either case, draw your shoulders back and downward (think “proud chest”), so that someone standing in front of you could read the front of your T-shirt.

Step 3. Push your feet hard into the floor and squeeze your abs and glutes. Extend your hips and knees to get the dumbbells moving upward.

Step 4. As the weights pass knee level, shrug your shoulders hard, squeeze your glutes again, and allow the momentum to carry the dumbbells up in front of you.

Step 5. Thrust your elbows forward so that they come under the dumbbells and you “catch” the weights at shoulder level, bending your knees to drop into a quarter squat to absorb the force. Your thumbs should be facing backward and your closed palms facing each other.

How To Do A Dumbbell Clean and Press

To perform the full clean and press, clean the weights up to shoulder level as described above. From there:

Step 1. Ensure that your tailbone is tucked under slightly so that your pelvis is parallel to the floor. Brace your core, pulling your ribs down.

Step 2. Press the weights straight overhead to lockout while keeping your ribs down. Reverse the motion to bring the weights back to shoulder level, and then bend your hips back to lower them to the floor (or your knees) again.

How Many Reps Should I Do?

If your goal is power and strength, Pangelinan suggests doing the clean and press for sets of 3 to 6 reps. Three work sets (the challenging ones you do after your warmup sets) is enough. “This is the ideal amount of volume to get the full neuromuscular benefits of the exercise,” says Pangelinan, “without your form being compromised by fatigue.”

However, if you’re aiming to build your endurance and get more volume for the sake of muscle size gains, you could do 3 sets of 10 to 20 reps with a lighter weight. “Just make sure you stop if you begin to slow down or your technique deteriorates,” says Pangelinan. If you’re brand new to clean and presses, train with lower reps first to master the movement, and work on endurance after you’ve gotten the technique down.

Like the other Olympic lift variations, the dumbbell clean and press is a versatile movement that can be done in combination with other movements or with slight variations of technique. You can use the clean portion to get the weights into position for front squats or front-loaded lunges. Called the front rack position (weights held at shoulder level), you can also go into different pressing movements or overhead carries from there. If you want to train heavier or target even more power development, you can perform the press portion with leg drive, making it a push press exercise (shown in the video above). In other words, clean the weights up to your shoulders, and then quickly dip and extend your knees to help power the dumbbells overhead. Pressing the dumbbells strictly is better for shoulder strength and muscle gain, but getting assistance from your legs tweaks the exercise into more of a full-body power move.

At The Fit Lab, Pangelinan’s clients often combine the dumbbell clean and press into a circuit with reverse lunges and Romanian deadlifts. “I’ll also add in single-arm rows to improve scapular control, pushups as an antagonist to the vertical pull component of the clean and press, and single arm floor presses,” he says. Now you have a full-body circuit workout that’s great for fat loss.

Alternatives to the Dumbbell Clean and Press

If you’re not ready for the full dumbbell clean and press, you can regress the movement to something more manageable. If you want to make it even more challenging, there are progressions you can employ as well. See below for some alternatives you can use to customize your training.

Regression

If you’re not able to perform a dumbbell clean and press explosively, or you struggle with one or more stages of the exercise, no need to worry. Pangelinan recommends backing up and working on some foundational moves. “When someone’s struggling with the clean and press, we’ll work on the dumbbell deadlift, upright row, and press, separately, to groove the patterns of each phase of the movement,” he says. “I’ll also have them do quarter-jump squats [lowering your body just one-quarter of the way down], to work on the explosive component, and an overhead waiter carry to improve the integrity of their overhead position.” For the waiter carry, simply press dumbbells or kettlebells overhead and walk for distance or time. Keep your ribs down, core tight, and pelvis level with the floor.

Progression

Once you’ve got the two-handed dumbbell clean and press down, you could start doing single-arm clean and presses (shown in the video above), which add an even greater challenge to your stability and can help you correct any strength discrepancies between sides. “The kettlebell clean and press is another great alternative for someone who’s competent in the dumbbell variation,” says Pangelinan. Kettlebells require even more core stability and grip strength to control, so they’ll develop both areas.

Of course, you can also experiment with the barbell clean and press. “Start with a power clean from above the knees,” advises Pangelinan, “which gives you most of the advantages of the full clean, but with a shorter amount of bar movement, so it’s easier to control.” When that feels comfortable, you can start cleaning from below the knees, and eventually progress to full cleans from the floor.

If you want a more joint-friendly alternative to a classic barbell clean and press, try using a landmine unit (see above). The bar loads into a rotating sleeve that allows it to act as a long lever and move on an arc. The path of motion will be more controlled than doing a pure free-weight movement, but you’ll still have to stabilize it, and you won’t have to deadlift and catch the bar the same way as you do during a normal clean and press, which will take a lot of pressure off your lower back, wrists, and elbows. Still another option is using a Pentagon bar (see below). This barbell alternative offers swiveling handles, so you can get the feel of cleaning a barbell without the wrist and elbow stress, or having to time your clean perfectly to avoid a sloppy catch.

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How to Do The Dumbbell Snatch For Huge Gains

Benefits of the Dumbbell Snatch

The dumbbell snatch is a unilateral exercise, meaning that you focus on one side of the body at a time. Unilateral movements are excellent for reducing side-to-side muscle imbalances that exist in many people, while helping athletes improve performance in areas that can translate directly to the court, field, or mat.

To perform a dumbbell snatch, “An individual is forced to utilize greater levels of balance, stability, and coordination, when compared to a traditional [barbell] snatch movement,” says Dr. Brian Brabham, C.S.C.S., Associate Professor of Exercise Science at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, TX. “Whether you’re experienced with the snatch or not, using dumbbells is a great way to increase the level of difficulty of a program.” Like the barbell snatch, the dumbbell snatch is also a triple extension movement, meaning that the hips, knees, and ankles all extend at the same time, making for a powerful jumping movement that trains the explosiveness that’s specific to so many sports.

A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research compared the effects of barbell snatching to the dumbbell version. It confirmed that the dumbbell snatch generates greater ground reaction forces and doubles the speed at which forces impact the body during the pull phase (lifting the weight in front of your body) and the catch phase of the lift (finishing the rep overhead), respectively, on the non-lifting side—the one not holding the dumbbell. This asymmetry caused the researchers to conclude that unilateral variations of lifting movements, like the dumbbell snatch, offer different and beneficial training stimuli for athletes.

While the dumbbell snatch may look like it’s primarily an upper-body pulling motion—ripping the dumbbell off the floor and flinging it overhead by using your shoulders and upper back—the power that produces it is actually grounded in the major muscle groups of the lower body and the core. You have to use your quads, glutes, and hamstrings to powerfully extend your knees and press your hips forward as you draw the dumbbell away from the floor. Next, you need to brace your core when you “catch” the dumbbell above your shoulder, and stabilize the weight with your shoulders and upper back to keep the momentum of your pull from tearing your arm off. In other words, the dumbbell snatch targets just about every muscle group in your body, and, when done for high reps, demands a lot from your cardiovascular system.

Muscles Worked With The Dumbbell Snatch

– Glutes (for a powerful hip extension)

– Hamstrings (assist the glutes with hip extension)

– Quadriceps (extend the knees)

– Lats (assist in drawing the dumbbell from the floor)

– Trapezius (assist with pulling the dumbbell from the floor and up in front of the body)

– Spinal erectors (protect the lower back and maintain stability of the spine during hip extension and through the catch)

– Abdominals (assist the spinal erectors in protecting the back and maintaining stability of the spine)

– Shoulders (assist in pulling the dumbbell from the floor and raising it overhead; the rotator cuff stabilizers also help keep the shoulder joints safe as the dumbbell is extended overhead)

– Triceps (help to pull the dumbbell from the floor and lift it into overhead extension)

How To Do The Dumbbell Snatch

“If the movement is new to a client, I always recommend starting with lighter weights and working on technique rather than jumping into the movement with heavier weights,” Brabham says, adding that the dumbbell snatch is meant to be fast and explosive—so muscling up heavier weight at the expense of technique and speed is pointless. “I instruct my students to keep the dumbbell close to the body,” he says. “Pull with a high elbow, and then extend over the head. A common mistake I see is that they will get to the armpit position [where the weight is at armpit level] and then try to press the dumbbell overhead. Momentum should carry the dumbbell overhead—not a press.”

The Setup

Step 1. Place a dumbbell on the floor between your feet. Position your feet slightly wider than shoulder-distance apart.

Step 2. Roll your shoulders back and downward, pulling your shoulder blades down toward the center of your spine (think: “proud chest”). Press your hips back while keeping a long spine—your head spine and pelvis should maintain alignment as you hinge at the hips. Bend your knees as needed so that you can reach the dumbbell. Your chest and shoulders should be level with the floor and remain facing forward.

Step 3. Grasp the dumbbell with one hand, breathe into your belly, and engage your core. Keep your shoulders driving down and back and lock in your long spine position. Allow your free arm to hang at your side.

The Pull

Step 4. Powerfully extend your knees, hips, and ankles, drawing the dumbbell up off the floor and close to your body as you come up. The movement should be powered by your lower body, not your shoulders. Your feet may or may not rise off the floor for a moment.

Step 5. Shrug the shoulder that’s holding the weight, driving your elbow up high and backward. The dumbbell should travel in a straight line up in front of you. Think about pulling your whole body under the weight as it rises.

The Catch

Step 6. When it reaches its highest point (above shoulder level), turn your elbow under the dumbbell. Catch the weight overhead with arm extended as it continues upward.

Step 7. Finish in a quarter-squat position, which will allow you to decelerate safely. Then extend your legs to stand tall. Carefully lower the dumbbell back to the floor as you squat back down to set up for the next rep.

Where To Use The Dumbbell Snatch In Your Workout

The dumbbell snatch can be incorporated into a workout in a variety of ways, depending on your goals and your experience with the movement. If you’re not experienced with the dumbbell snatch, Brabham says your first priority is to master the technique. “I tend to keep the sets, reps, and weights low, initially,” he says. “Such as 2–3 sets of 3–5 reps. As an individual becomes more confident in his or her ability to correctly and safely complete the movement, the sets and reps and weight can all be gradually, although independently, increased for progressive overload.”

When you’re familiar with the exercise and your form is on point, you can perform the dumbbell snatch with lighter weight as part of your warmup for a heavy-lifting workout. As it targets all the major muscle groups in a functional manner, the snatch primes your nervous system to recruit your muscle fibers effectively for the work that’s to come. You can also do moderately-heavy snatches to kick off a lower-body or back workout, sometimes using it in place of deadlifts.

Likewise, because the dumbbell snatch engages so many muscle groups, it can effectively be used as part of a conditioning workout that helps you develop strength and endurance at the same time. Consider using the snatch as part of a circuit that includes other exercises like lunges, pushups, and pullups.

Another idea: use the dumbbell snatch as a finisher at the end of your workout, done EMOM style (every minute on the minute). Set a timer for five to 10 minutes and choose a weight that you can do 15 reps with. At the start of the first minute, do 10 reps on one side, and then rest for the remainder of the minute. Repeat at the top of the next minute, doing reps for the other side. This is a good way to perform a lot of volume without going to failure, therefore accomplishing more work than you could usually perform in a similar amount of time with conventional sets.

What’s the Difference Between The Dumbbell Snatch and Kettlebell Snatch?

Both the dumbbell and kettlebell versions of the snatch will build power and muscle, but the dumbbell snatch is better suited to less experienced lifters and those who aren’t familiar with explosive Olympic lifting exercises.

“I like to start people on the dumbbell snatch and then progress them to a kettlebell,” Brabham says. “The kettlebell requires the individual to have more control of the weight compared to the dumbbell.” Slight deviations in form can cause the weight to slap the back of the forearm on a kettlebell snatch, which can cause injury. The dumbbell snatch, therefore, is safer, as well as easier to execute.

Nevertheless, your ultimate goal should be to graduate to the kettlebell snatch. “Because the kettlebell has the ability to roll backward over the hand during the overhead extension, there’s more activation of the posterior chain musculature in a kettlebell snatch,” says Brabham—namely, the glutes and hamstrings.

The post How to Do The Dumbbell Snatch For Huge Gains appeared first on Onnit Academy.

But as good as the swing is as a kettlebell exercise, I believe the snatch actually surpasses it. Let’s call it, the Mother of All Kettlebell Exercises—even the king. The snatch is a beautiful, explosive movement that gets the posterior chain firing and core engaged, and it helps to stabilize the shoulder. It increases your heart rate, engages the whole body, and trains up your weaknesses.

How To Do A Kettlebell Snatch

Step 1: Stand with feet between hip and shoulder-width apart, holding a kettlebell in your right hand at shoulder level. The handle should rest diagonally in your hand just above your thumb—not near your fingers.

Step 2: With your shoulders drawn back and downward (think: proud chest), press the bell straight overhead, locking out your elbow. This is the finish position of the snatch, and if you can’t get into it properly, it’s an indication that you shouldn’t be snatching yet. Your ribs should be down, core braced, and pelvis level to the floor.

Step 3: Lower the weight back to the rack position, where the bell is shoulder level and your forearm is vertical.

Step 4: Now bend your forearm inward toward the midline of your body while simultaneously extending your elbow. Gravity will take over and pull the bell toward the floor—control its descent. When the bell lowers to just in front of your thighs, hinge at the hips, bending them back and hiking the bell between your legs. Maintain a long spine, keeping your head and pelvis aligned. Core still braced. Maintain your proud chest position as the bell hikes back, so that your shoulders are square to the floor.

Step 5: When your hips are fully bent, extend them explosively to stand tall again. As you rise, pull your elbow straight up vertically and, when it can’t rise anymore, allow the momentum from your hips to help you punch your fist straight to the ceiling. The bell should wrap around your wrist as your elbow extends. You shouldn’t need your fingers to finish the lift.

If you time it right, the kettlebell won’t smash into the back of your forearm.

When first learning the snatch, begin every rep from the arm extended position, lowering the weight down into the rack position and then hip hinging as described above. As you get comfortable with the movement, you can begin the snatch from the rack position, and then by simply hiking it from the floor (as shown in the video above).

Muscles Used During The Kettlebell Snatch

– Glutes

– Quads

– Hamstrings

– Core

– Upper back

– Shoulders

– Grip

The Keys To A Great Snatch

The kettlebell swing is, of course, integral within the snatch. The snatch is simply a progression of the single-arm kettlebell swing. You must be able to do a proficient swing before advancing to the snatch.

The hip hinge is the foundation of the snatch and should be the driving force. A ragged and inefficient snatch can usually be traced back to a deficient swing. While you will no doubt incorporate your grip and shoulder muscles, you do not want these to be the primary movers. The power in the snatch comes from the hips.

Beyond the posterior chain conditioning, the snatch is a brilliant exercise for the shoulder girdle. You need to quickly decelerate and stabilize the kettlebell. This is incredible for building strength and stability.

As mentioned in the directions above, if you have an unstable or misaligned overhead lockout position, then you are not ready to embrace the snatch. The overhead position is foremost as the bell spends the majority of its time there. This is particularly the case with longer-lasting sets that we see in kettlebell sport competitions.

Holding the bell overhead helps you develop shoulder stability. The bell shouldn’t be drifting in different directions when it’s overhead. This is why, in addition to the swing, the overhead press and overhead walk are pre-requisites to performing the snatch. You also want to ensure that your overhead lockout position is aligned properly. You can see how it should be aligned in the picture below.

The arm is vertical with an extended elbow and neutral wrist. The arm runs through the middle of the torso and the middle of the hip.

Benefits of the Kettlebell Snatch

The snatch works the glutes and hamstrings hard. These muscles extend the hips, and are responsible for generating the power and quickness you need in virtually all sports. The snatch also works the shoulder girdle. While you don’t press the weight overhead to finish the movement, flinging it up with the power of your hips and then having to “catch” the bell and decelerate its upward trajectory forces your stabilizer muscles to clamp down hard. This builds stability in the shoulder joints, which is needed for any pressing or pushing you do, in the gym or out.

As a matter of fact, the kettlebell snatch can be a great alternative to the overhead press if you are having shoulder issues. It helps create more thoracic mobility—the ability to extend your upper back (stand tall). This takes pressure off your shoulder joints. The movement also bypasses the AC joint, so if you have pain due to impingement in this area, the one-arm snatch shouldn’t aggravate it.

Much like the kettlebell swing, the kettlebell snatch is a magnificent movement for developing your aerobic capacity. It is a good alternative to traditional aerobic activities because there is no impact on the joints, as there is with running and jumping rope. Nevertheless, the metabolic response is impressive to say the least.

The snatch incorporates more muscles than the swing. Therefore, it is superior when it comes to the metabolic impact. A recent study examined 17 female NCAA Division 1 soccer players who undertook a snatch program for 4 weeks. The increase in VO2 max was significant and far superior to traditional circuit training.

Kettlebell Snatch Exercises To Try

The following snatch variations all have their place in a workout program. Experiment with the following and see how they can serve your goals.

One-Arm Deadstart Snatch Kettlebell Exercise

Starting the snatch from the floor will build incredible upper-body pulling strength and core stability. This variation may also be safer for your lower back because you don’t generate as much momentum on the way down. However, it requires you to own the deadlift position, picking the bell up off the floor, and that means a greater range of motion. So it’s a slightly more advanced move than the classic one-arm snatch.

Step 1: Place a kettlebell on the floor directly under your hips.

Step 2: Get your shoulders in a proud chest position and hinge your hips to grasp the kettlebell with your right hand. Your wrist should be slightly flexed.

Step 3: Explosively extend your hips and pull the kettlebell up, keeping it close to your body.

Step 4: As it passes head level, allow the kettlebell to rotate around the forearm as you punch through at the top.

Step 5: Lower the kettlebell slowly to the rack position.

Step 6: Unravel the kettlebell back to the ground and repeat.

Tips and Safety: Avoid rounding your back in order to pick up the kettlebell. Maintain a long spine and tension throughout the movement to keep your back safe. Utilize a loose grip to avoid ripping your hands or calluses. Keep the kettlebell close to the body throughout the entire movement.

Half-Kneeling One-Arm Kettlebell Snatch Exercise

If the basic snatch is too challenging, regress to this version, which allows you to focus on the hip action and punch-through more safely.

Step 1: Get into a half-kneeling position with your left knee on the ground.

Step 2: Place a kettlebell under your hips.

Step 3: Pack your shoulders into the proud chest position and hinge your hips to grasp the kettlebell with your left hand, wrist slightly flexed.

Step 4: Explosively pull the kettlebell up, keeping it close to your body.

Step 5: As it passes head level, allow the kettlebell to rotate around the forearm as you punch through at the top.

Step 6: Lower the kettlebell slowly to the rack position.

Step 7: Unravel the kettlebell back to the ground and repeat.

Tips and Safety: Avoid rounding your back in order to pick up the kettlebell. Maintain a long spine and tension throughout the movement to keep your back safe. Utilize a loose grip to avoid ripping your hands or calluses. Keep the kettlebell close to the body throughout the entire movement.

Kettlebell One-Arm Rotational Snatch Exercise

This snatch variation is excellent for building rotational power as well as shoulder strength and flexibility. Make sure you can perform the basic snatch and have mastered the punch-through before attempting this movement.

Step 1: Bring a light bell to the rack position on the right side.

Step 2: Internally rotate, and then swing the bell across your body to the outside of your right shoulder.

Step 3: Pull up explosively, and punch through at the top while facing 90 degrees to the right.

Step 3: Rotate back to where your shoulders and hips are square, rack the weight, and repeat.

Tips and Safety: Exhale at the point of exertion and maintain a long spine throughout the movement. Keep a slightly loose grip to avoid tearing your hands or calluses. Make sure the weight does not jerk you down as it crosses the body. This means unraveling the bell and straightening your arm quickly to allow the swing across the body to be smooth. Maintain a long spine throughout the movement to avoid rounding or over-twisting.

Double Kettlebell Snatch Exercise

The double snatch builds tremendous upper-body pulling strength as well as core and posterior chain power. Make sure you have perfected the single arm snatch variations before attempting the double snatch to keep yourself safe. The benefits of the double snatch will carry over into all athletic endeavors.

Step 1: Set up a pair of kettlebells about a foot in front of you.

Step 2: With a shoulder-width stance, hinge and grasp the kettlebells while keeping a straight back.

Step 3: Explosively hike the kettlebells.

Step 4: Snap your hips and drive the kettlebells forward. As they start to pass your legs pull up hard while keeping the bells close to your body.

Step 5: As the bells pass your chest, start rotating so that the kettlebells will be put into position to punch through at the top.

Step 6: Unravel the kettlebells into a downswing, slightly further out in front of you than on the way up.

Step 7: Hike and repeat.

Tips and Safety: Exhale at the point of exertion and maintain a long spine throughout the movement. Keep a slightly loose grip to avoid tearing your hands or calluses. If you cannot safely unravel the bells, lower the bells down to the rack and unravel from there, as described in the basic snatch directions. This will allow you to work the double snatch without having to worry about dropping the kettlebells from overhead.

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