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OPTION #1

Teaching explosiveness, including training athletes to appropriately jump and land, is a critical component of what I do with my athletes and this exercise is one of the foundational jumping variations.

The barbell jump squat is a great explosive lower body exercise to enhance power output and activation of fast twitch muscle fibers. Going barefoot or minimalist further enhances this response and promotes optimal foot and ankle innervation.

OPTION #2

Instantaneous Post Activation Potentiation Trap Bar Box Jump & Depth drop: The loading & motor unit recruitment from 90 deg eccentric isometric trap bar deadlift not only wakes up a large number of muscle fibers helping to prepare them for the subsequent jump but it also activates muscle spindles which enhances proprioceptive feedback & kinesthetic awareness ultimately enhancing jumping & landmine mechanics.

These can be done with brief pause or immediate drop & jump. I’ve found the pause version forces athletes to cognitively think about eccentric induced co-contraction which is a key element of performance training as it produces strong muscular contractions (i.e. slingshot effect) due to reciprocal inhibition.

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OPTION #1

The seated row using a rope and rotational movement allows greater activation of the lats as the pronated grip allows greater stretch and elongation of the lats while the supinated position promotes a stronger contraction throughout the back in the contracted position. You'll have to drop the weight a bit but the stimulus to the upper back and lats is well worth it. It's also incredibly joint friendly and excellent for anyone struggle with shoulder or neck pain. Make sure you fully extend on the eccentric phase without allowing the shoulders to round as this would represent excessive protraction, a common rowing mistake.

OPTION #2

One of the most effective ways to prepare the body for a chest workout as well as maximize chest pressing mechanics is to wake up the upper back & lats while instilling perfect posture. The plank row, an exercise I first saw Lee Boyce use is one of the best drills to instill this as it directly stimulates the back by taking the arms out of the equation. The single leg sprinter protocol provides bonus of hip & core activation.

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Looking to take your chest & core training to the next level? Try this brutal exercise demonstrated by pro baseball player Parker Meadows as we had him combine several of my favorite methods including, bottoms up, single leg, t-bench, head off chest press, using an eccentric isometric protocol. If your core & hips aren’t firing with near maximal effort you’ll literally feel like you’re going to flip off the bench or dump the kettlebell.

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Easier Version This next exercise is a hang cleans below the knee in an isolateral fashion (two dumbbells instead of one). Here are 10 reasons why this is so effective.

Although a majority of Olympic lifts & power variations I use with my athletes emphasize explosive power output, I periodically employ variations that emphasize motor control, balance, & stability while also exhibiting various elements of power & speed. That’s because power & speed without control are useless.

1. Improves and Requires Better Mobility On The Snatch: If you’ve never performed isolateral dumbbell snatches (2 dumbbells at once) the very first thing you’ll notice is how difficult the overhead catch position is. That’s because when you eliminate the ability to create lateral tension on the barbell (i.e. pulling the bar apart or pushing out against the bar), you’re forced to rely more on smaller stabilizers in the shoulders, core, hips, and upper back that normally would not be called into play. In addition, because you’ll be catching the dumbbells in a closer position rather than the traditional wide hand placement, this requires significantly greater levels of shoulder mobility. Simply put, the isolateral dumbbell snatch is one of the most effective movements for building simultaneous stability, mobility, and motor control in the glenohumeral joint. As an added bonus this overhead instability combined with a sudden overhead catch is absolutely brutal on the core and spinal stabilizers.

2. Requires Greater Motor Control And Stability: An interesting trend I’ve noticed over the years is that athletes with poor motor control and significant instability are oftentimes able to perform Olympic lifts with fairly solid mechanics. However, once you move them to dumbbells or kettlebells their movement efficiency drops significantly as they lack the ability to control two separate objects. It’s one thing to produce power but it’s another thing altogether when the athlete is required to control and harness that power. Performing Olympic lifts with dumbbells requires the lifter to not only produce significant power, torque, and speed to launch the weights up, it also forces them to control their body and the load with significantly greater levels of stability and motor control than what would typically be required during barbell movements. This has a tremendous impact on the transfer to a variety of athletic skills as learning to control your power is critical in nearly all sports as power that can’t be controlled is essentially useless.

3. Provides A More Functional Catch Position On Cleans: Lets face it, performing barbell cleans by racking the bar on your shoulders in the typical Olympic weightlifting front-racked position, i.e. extended wrists and semi-contortionist arm positions, is not very functional when it comes to every day tasks or athletic performance. In fact, you could make the argument that the traditional front-racked barbell clean position promotes dysfunctional upper body mechanics, i.e. over-extended wrists and overly flexed elbow joints, particularly when it comes to maximizing joint stability in the upper extremities. Unless you’re an Olympic weightlifter it’s really not that necessary. Furthermore, unless you are actually using an Olympic barbell, the traditional front-racked clean position is almost impossible to accomplish in the same fashion with any other tool. In other words it’s very specific to the sport of weightlifting and not much else. In contrast, cleaning dumbbells requires the lifter to use their own muscle mass and functional strength to catch the load near their body rather than allowing it to collapse to their shoulders and roll into their fingers. Simply put this represents a more functional approach to how humans would typically hoist a weight to their body.

4. Eliminates Wrist Issues But Crushes The Forearms: The front racked position can also be quite stressful on the wrists due to the over-extended position. Cleaning dumbbells requires little if any wrist flexibility and mobility. However they do require a significant degree of forearm and grip strength as well as motor control and full body tension particularly during the catch.

5. Requires More Brute Force And Raw Strength: The dumbbell Olympic lifting variations rely more on brute force, power, and sheer aggression rather than precisely timed sequencing of events. If you’re an Olympic lifter nailing every component of the sequence is critical as technique is paramount to the sport. However, most athletes aren’t interested in becoming professional Olympic weightlifters, therefore relying a bit more on sheer power rather than precise execution of each and every individual sequence is something to consider when programming Olympic lifts for athletes.

6. Provides More Low-Back Friendly Clean And Snatch Variations: Dumbbell Olympic lifts tend to be easier on the low back than standard variations predominantly because the lifter can use much lighter loads to produce a strong training stimulus. In essence the lifter will use approximately 70% of the load they would typically use on barbell variations (when the weight of the dumbbells is combined) yet the stimulus to the hips in terms of teaching high power output is still exceptionally high. If you’re looking for high effort variations of Olympic lifts that are low-back and generally speaking very joint friendly, the dumbbell cleans and snatches are tough to beat.

7. Minimizes The Drop And Catch Effect: Unless you’re a competitive Olympic weightlifter, learning to drop and catch under the bar is not entirely necessary. In fact, overemphasizing the drop and catch can oftentimes minimize the triple extension effect as the lifter is overly concerned with dropping under the bar, ultimately creating a scenario where they short-change the extension phase. Because the lifter won’t be able to drop under the dumbbells more than several inches (as doing so feels very unnatural with dumbbells especially snatches) this forces the lifter to launch the load up with extreme aggression as anything less will result in the weight stalling out before the lift is completed.

8. Improves Symmetry: Lets face it, every athlete has some degree of asymmetry and muscular imbalance from side to side. More than likely this translates to one side of the body working more intensely when performing barbell Olympic lifts. Using dumbbells helps eliminate this as each side of the lower body, core, and upper body must work equally and in synchrony thereby eliminating asymmetries and imbalances that commonly occur during explosive movements.

9. Eliminates Bar Quality Issues: Bar quality can make a significant difference when performing Olympic lifts. If the barbell collars don’t spin or they have a tendency to get stuck when attempting to flip and catch the bar, this can not only make the clean or snatch quite awkward but it can actually cause various injuries. In addition, some bars are overly stiff making it quite uncomfortable to catch especially during cleans. Lastly, the degree of knurling is also important as excessive knurling can make it feel as though the barbell is stuck to the hands thereby disrupting your catch or racked position. Fortunately these issues are a moot point when performing dumbbell cleans and snatches as the quality of dumbbells has little if any impact on the efficiency of the Olympic lift variation.

10. Helps Minimize The Erroneous Jumping Cue: Many lifters place too much emphasis on trying to jump when performing Olympic lifts rather than emphasizing hip extension. In fact, trying to implement an exaggerated jump and stomp, as is commonly employed by many coaches, is one of the worst cues you can implement when performing Olympic lifts, as it minimizes force output and hip extension. The dumbbell variations help to eliminate this as you’re forced to maintain contact with the floor throughout the lift otherwise it will be difficult to maintain control of the weights especially on the catch.

Harder Version

In this particular drill I’m demonstrating a clean variation that combines 3 of my favorite olympic lifting modifications namely kneeling Olympic lifts, dumbbell Olympic lifts, & single leg Olympic lifts. You’ll notice I have my support leg elevated on a small box in order to give my elevated leg room to swing through on both the eccentric & concentric phases.

Essentially we’re isolating unilateral hip extension, elements of hip mobility, core stabilization, unilateral hip speed, knee drive, lumbopelvic hip control, & shoulder stability, as well as deceleration & force absorption in an asymmetrical offset half kneeling position. Yes, that’s quite few biomotor qualities being addressed however this also does wonders for teaching athletes to eliminate extraneous motion & energy leaks during other high force activities including traditional Olympic lifts, plyometrics, & explosive drills. In fact, if there’s any misalignment, postural deviation, or form aberration in your Olympic lifts you’ll lose balance almost immediately as these truly expose & target a number of neuromuscular & biomechanical issues throughout the kinetic chain.

You’ll also be forced to keep your core fully engaged in order to maintain a high degree of spinal rigidity – a critical component for maximizing motor control as well as force production & force absorption. With that said if you want more info about these features here are 3 articles on each specific Olympic lifting variation.

1. Dumbbell Olympic Lifts - read more HERE.
2. Kneeling Olympic Lifts - read more HERE.
3. Single Leg Olympic Lifts - read more HERE.

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The rapid eccentric isometric lunge is highly effective for improving and correcting sprinting and stride mechanics as it teaches the body proper stride positioning as well as optimal recruitment patterns associated with running form. Focus on using the arms to rapidly drive the body into position, decelerate before touching the ground, pause, then drive the arms again to explosively propel the body upwards out of the lunge.

Rapid Eccentric Isometrics (REIs) are an advanced proprietary training technique I developed which I leverage to increase proprioceptive feedback from muscle spindles with the goal of improving performance and muscle function. REI’s also improve force development and stabilization as the muscles are forced to turn on rapidly to absorb high impact forces. REI's should only be used once proper form has been established with standard eccentric isometrics (EI’s).

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OPTION #1

This renegade row with crush your abs while also working the vertical pulling (overhead pulling) pattern similar to a lat pulldown or pullup. The difficulty significantly increases when using the quadruped bird dog position. If too difficult and to aalevaite some of the tension onthe core and spinal stabilizers you can do this exercise in a non bird dog position (have both feet on the ground and perform everything else as illustrated in the video).

OPTION #2

Here I have NFL athlete Edmond Robinson performing single arm kettlebell swings which is a great hip & core exercise. He could have driven the kettlebell back more on the eccentric. Focus on keeping the feet screwed into the floor and straight.

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OPTION #1

The overhead press is one of the most effective upper body exercises not only for building functional mass and strength but also for improving upper body mechanics. However this is contingent on the individual being able to perform the movement properly. Unfortunately, many athletes struggle to master the overhead press as it can be more technically, neuromuscularly, and biomechanically complex than many upper body exercises.

With that said, one variation I’ve found particularly useful not only for teaching proper overhead pressing mechanics but also for providing a variation that nearly all athletes can perform in a pain-free manner is the overhead box press. Think of this is a movement that’s similar to the floor press used by powerlifters to master their bench press or even the box squat to master the squat, only it’s applied to the overhead press. In fact I would go as far as saying that it may be one of the safest overhead pressing variations there is.

Here I’m performing 6 variations alongside several of my clients. Any of these variations can be used with even each set having a new variation. The overhead box press provides 11 unique benefits. Read more HERE.

OPTION #2

Single Leg Bottoms Up Overhead Press with Banded Isometric Hamstring Curl. Blasts the shoulders & upper body as well as hamstrings while requiring insane stability.

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Although it’s not something I use on a frequent basis, periodically programming unstable variations of Olympic lifts as well as other power movements such as single arm as well as single leg variations helps expose and address energy leaks, instability, lack of motor control, and areas of dysfunction you might not find otherwise. Once you return to more traditional Olympic lifts and power drills this can transfer to enhanced stability, motor control, and improved lifting mechanics.

As a rule of thumb, if you’re technically sound on your Olympic lifts as well as have a solid foundation of movement and body mechanics, you should be able to handle 50% of the weight you typically handle for hang snatches. If the number is substantially less, you may need to improve your hip mechanics, shoulder stability, core strength, body alignment, and proprioception.

One of the best ways to address these issues is by using eccentric isometrics applied to basic foundational movements such as squats, lunges, hinges, pushes, pulls, and more. In fact 90% of all of the training I do with my athletes revolves around eccentric isometrics including eccentric isometrics of hang variations on Olympic lifts.