Today’s post is a guest post from Kedric Kwan all the way from Malaysia. Kedric has been excessively stalking following this site and chatting with me on a regular basis through Facebook, and his passion for fitness comes through all the time. I wanted to give him a shot to have a bigger voice, and he didn’t disappoint. 

First up I want to thank Dean for allowing me to share my thoughts here. Dean has really been a wonderful mentor to me. We’ve had talks about anatomy, assessment, music, movies and all that kind of fun stuff.

It’s my absolutely pleasure to be featured here, so now let’s get down to the juicy bit.

There was once a boy who could work in a farm, not as a farmer but as a scarecrow. He was so skinny even the crows were afraid of him. It’s a pretty sad sight, if the crows flew away when he walked in the room imagine how the girls would react.

 

Just like every other guy, he found himself in the gym. He thought that by packing some muscle onto his frame while using his God given good looks, he could catch the eye of the girl next door. After all, study shows that most people work out to get laid, trust me, its science.

He experimented with different training routines. From annihilating the chest 3 times a week to a millions of bicep curls and any beginner routines you could think of, he’s done it. Except anything related to Tracey Anderson and Bosu Balls, those are the bane of his existence.

Over time, he had an epiphany and discovered the truth to building muscle. Instead of solely focusing on the pump with 10lbs dumbbells, he began his quest to lifting some heavy weights.

He grew stronger, packed on some size and no longer looked like a scarecrow. However, the happy ending where he imagined himself and the girl next door riding away on a motorcycle into the sunset didn’t actually happen.

The main problem was no longer his lack of muscle or good looks; it was simply the fact that he had trouble getting up the motorcycle!

All the thousand of bench presses, million of curls and heavy lifting has given his body quite a beating. Besides, his 5 minute warm up on the exercise bike did not carryover to riding a real motorcycle, it wasn’t functional.

It felt bad that his dream girl left, his body was so beat up he could barely run after her when she left.

Right now you are probably thinking the boy is destined for sadness, if you are; send me your pity right now. Because I was that boy, except maybe the girl next door wasn’t really the girl of my dreams and I never owned a bike. But you get the picture.

I know its bad-ass to be lifting some heavy ass weights around. Not only will it help you build some muscle and make you tougher than nails, it might cause a girl to miss her “anabolic window “after training because she was too busy looking at you, makes you feel like Zoolander

 

However, it sucks to have the other 23 hours complaining about aches and pains all over the your body. Your family probably has bleeding ears from all your complaints, give them a break.

I suffered a shoulder dislocation and still wanted to move heavy things, so I found ways to fix myself. Even though I’m not a 100% restored, my performance in and out of the weight room no longer suffers. So I think it’s safe to say I’ll score a solid 90%.

We all know we can’t fire cannon from a canoe, it simply isn’t stable enough. The same thing applies to our body, if our body isn’t functioning and aligned optimally, performance will suffer. However in this post I am not going to talk about how to fix your body (since your are reading Dean’s blog I am sure you’ve read a ton of his stuff that gives great insight on that) but on how to actually keep the body functioning properly.

So after finding a stable place to fire your cannon, you need to make sure that your cannons are properly maintained. Or if you are firing it off a bat cycle, make sure the wheels are greased and the engine is fine tuned and Anne Hathaway sits on top of it.

I’ve found 4 exercises to help you kick bigger ass in training. These are staples in almost all the programs I write. From the head to the toe, I’ve got all your bases covered. I will talk about how you can add them into your current training program as well, so you need not worry because after this you will feel like you are flying on cloud nine riding a unicorn with rainbow colored wings

Face Pulls

So we will start with the upper body. I honestly think the face pulls is one of the most underrated exercise in the strength training galaxy, somewhat like Qui-Gon Jin in star wars.

However this exercise might be the magic cure to reverse all your imbalances from making international bench day everyday of the week. While the general fitness population tries balancing bench presses with rows, it actually doesn’t really solve the problem.

Most pressing and rowing movements actually encourages a downward rotation of the scapula and internal rotation of the Glenohumeral joint. However the face pulls balances this by encouraging upward rotation and external rotation in the flexed or abducted position in the face pulls.

In doing so, the muscles that are used in upward rotation will be activated to a greater degree. These muscles include the upper and lower trapezius which you probably thought didn’t exist until you read this. This upward rotation helps to offset all the downward rotation that was caused during your journey to Swole chest.

To do the face pull:

–       Attach a rope to a pulley station set slightly higher than chest level.

–       Hold both ends of the rope with an overhand grip.

–       Step back so you’re supporting the weight with arms completely outstretched and stand with one foot forward. Bend the knees slightly for a stable base.

–       Imagine someone placing their fingers along your spine at about the mid-back. This helps remind you not to use the low back to move the weight.

–       Retract the scapulae, imagine you are squeezing the imaginary finger and pull the center of the rope slightly up towards the face, as the rope reaches your face, externally rotate and pint your fist towards the sky.

When to do it: Add into at the end of your dynamic warm up or in between sets of pressing exercises.

RKC Plank

Besides the undying desire to have chest as big as Pamela Anderson, most guys want abs that can be used in an Italian restaurant as a cheese grater. So we engage in a million of crunches every single day of the week, not knowing that nutrition plays a bigger role in getting that chiseled abs. The end result? Still fat but now you have sucky up core performance.

The simplest move to train your core is the plank. However, almost everybody butchers the form on the plank and makes me want to throw my head into a bee hive just to ease the pain.

If can hold you plank longer than 30 seconds, you are doing it wrong and not maximizing the benefit of this exercise.

To remedy this, let me introduce RKC plank. The RKC (russian kettle bell certification) was developed by Pavel Tsatsouline who is a legend in the strength training industry and if you never heard of him you might be from another planet.

The reason why I chose the RKC plank for core training is because of the ton of benefits it offers. Below are the main benefits the RKC plank provides:

1. 4 times higher lower abs, 3x external and 2x internal oblique activity during the RKC plank.

2. Higher glute max activity due to posterior pelvic tilt which can help offset the anterior pelvic tilt.

3. Help prevent low back pain by teaching proper hip mechanics that will prevent lumbar hyperextension during hip extension movements.

4. Teaches full body tension which is an essential component when it comes to moving heavy weights.

To do the RKC plank:

–   Get all on fours like a normal plank position.

–   Brace your core as if someone is going to punch you in your gut.

–   Press your elbows done into ground.

–   Imagine bringing your toes towards your elbows.

–   Keep neck packed and neutral.

–   Feel your body shake like you are in a club.

When to do it: I usually include a set of RKC plank right after my warm-up to serve as whole body activation exercise before heavy lifting.

Adding RKC planks at the end of your training is also a good way to add in some form of core training. I usually perform 10 sets of 10 seconds before I end my day.

Dead bugs

As of late this is probably my favorite exercise. I don’t see it done in the gym often because you might get weird stares and people might think you are stupid. Well those are probably the same people who juggle dumbbells while standing on a Bosu Ball because it’s functional, so don’t mind them.

The dead bug is the perfect companion to the RKC plank for it teaches spinal stability which is an essential component in core strength and performance.

It can also it can help improve all aspect of life by simply improving your neuromuscular coordination during activities. Your left hand descents together with your right leg and many people can’t seem to be able to do this efficiently.

Practicing the dead bug will actually help you “unglue” this poor pattern when you focus on the coordination between opposing muscle.  This has a significant carryover to sports that includes any form of sprinting.

Imagine sprinting but your left hand raises the same time your left leg does. Pretty much looks worst than Justin Bieber skating on the bowling alley and I’m sure you can figure the carryover to sports performance

Lastly, the dead bug can also serves as a breathing drill where you focus on belly breathing while depressing you rib cage during the exhalation. This is a simple drill to help remedy thoracic hyperextension and rib cage elevation that is commonly found in those with faulty breathing mechanics.

To do the dead bug:

–   Lie on your back and bend your hips so that your knees are facing the ceiling

–   Brace your core like someone is about to give you a punch

–   Press your lower back firmly into the ground by posteriorly tilting your pelvis

–   Arms should be off the ground and pointing towards the ceiling.

–   Exhale as you lower the arms and leg contra-laterally (left arm and right leg)

–   Inhale as you return to the starting position

–   Repeat with opposite arm and legs

When to do it: Just like the RKC plank, dead bugs can be done as a warm-up at the start or core exercise at the end of a session.

Now we’ve cover the upper body and the core, let’s move on to the lower body.

Saying that I have a love for deadlifts and squats is probably an understatement. My love for them are so huge, I might name my children after them.

We all know moving big weights on exercises is awesome, but due to the sedentary work life most of us go through, our posture is less than ideal. With poor hip mobility and inadequate thoracic extension, moving heavy weights with a broken body will break you even further.

So I’ve been messing around to find one movement that will address both these issues and will continue to help make you an all around bad-ass.

This exercise is called the Cossack Squat to Overhead reach. It’s a long name, but I guarantee you that the benefits are almost as much as the letters contained in the name.

The Cossack Squat will teach proper hip hinge mechanics which is vital in performing almost all hip flexion and extension movements (squats, deadliest, hip thrust etc). It also helps in frontal plane stability. Most training typical focus on sagittal plane movements but almost every sport requires some form of movement outside the sagittal plane.

Sports like soccer, hockey and football requires a whole lot of frontal plane movement and this exercise will help athletes strengthen movement in the frontal plane. You don’t want to end up like the guy below because of poor performance.

Lengthening of the adductors will take place on the leg that is sticking out. You could end up with injuries if you don’t fix your shortened adductors. This is because the adductors pull the knees towards the mid line of the body and if you couple that with weak glute med and glute min this is a recipe for disaster.  Even Dean does some dedicated adductor work 😉

So during the Cossack squat, it helps lengthen the adductors to injuries due to repetitive strain which can hamper performance such as sprinting, jumping and lateral cuts. The fact that you actually need to control yourself when you move down into the squat will also help improve hip mobility and control as well. Now do you see why this exercise is magical?

The overhead reach portion will help work on some thoracic extension that can help eliminate the Mr Burns syndrome commonly found in almost everyone.

During the overhead reach, cue yourself to keep your chest up. This will help bring your position back to neutral and reverse that kyphotic posture. Doing so also activates your anterior core to prevent you from tipping over.

In short, this exercise will help you develop dynamic flexibility in your hips, hamstrings, groins and ankle mobility. Not to mention the involvement of your anterior core and thoracic spine, this exercise is the equivalent of having all the different ability of the power rangers into one single ranger.

However it’s not easy to master this exercise and it takes some time to do it properly.

It’s hard to explain the steps, so I’ll just demonstrate in the video below.

When to do it: Do it as a part of your dynamic warm-up and mobility work.

So that’s it from me, I hope adding these exercise will turn you into some serious ass kickers. Do let me know how these exercises went and if your unicorn ride across the rainbow was fun.

 

Kedric is a personal trainer in Malaysia, and a student in marketing. You can check out more of his work at KedricKwan.com