The overhead squat is a great tool for exposing and overcoming imbalances in your body. Inflexibility and weakness in the lower back, abdominals, hips, glutes, and shoulders, will be exposed and with practice/work can be improved.
Use shoulder dislocates to warm up shoulders. Begin the overhead squat with light or no weight. Your depth and balance will improve as you practice and increase flexibility. Overhead squats are tremendous for increased trunk strength and will improve your back squat.
The challenge with baseball players, quarterbacks, basketball players and other throwing/shooting athletes is how to increase strength evenly throughout the shoulder girdle without compromising shoulder mobility or range of motion. Keys include balance in your press and pull exercises and performing all movements through a full range of motion. Don’t make the mistake of avoiding strength training because you’ve heard it will mess up your shot, or throwing motion. Proper and balanced resistance training will add power, bring up lagging body parts, and help prevent injury.
The kneeling tornado drill for throwing athletes (see below) is a an example of how to increase strength through functional and balanced resistance.
Joe Hashey from Synergy Athletics takes us through a couple of trunk/ core strength training exercises in his “chop series” with an old car tire. Rotational strength development will improve athleticism and add power to your clubs and bat. Functional exercises like the “chop” are an excellent alternative to crunches and other single plane single joint movements that don’t translate as directly to the ball field or golf course performance.
Additionally old tires provide another example of how to save money on fitness equipment. Tires are great for the exercises shown below and other throwing movements, jumping, and sledge hammer work.
More dynamic warm up and flexibility fun w/ the straight leg bear crawl. For an alternative warm up, to increase flexibility, improve agility and body control try a 10 yard bear crawl with a sprint back and repeat. Add more reps and or distance to improve conditioning. Mix in a crab crawl and back pedal for variation. Remember to keep hips high on both the crab and bear crawl. You’ll increase shoulder and hip mobility, as well as, improving trunk and core strength. These total body exercises are sure to provide some added stimulus to your training. Throw these old school moves in for an alternative to your tired old jog or treadmill routine.
To add resistance, partner up for a loaded bear crawl and let the fun begin.
Add a new wrinkle to your training with some kettlebell juggling. Juggling kettlebells is a fun way to challenge yourself, increase grip strength, and improve conditioning. With a partner or by yourself, flips, switching grips, tossing between hands or your partner are just a few ideas. Variations are endless. Try some of these to get started or make up your own.
The glutes are the largest and most powerful muscle in the human body. Glute training can go beyond squats and lunges. Two examples (hip thrust variations) using body weight, show how to work glutes and improve the performance of the back side. Use benches or steps to increase range of motion. Barbell or dumbbells can be placed on upper thigh to add resistance. Powerful glutes increase explosion, speed, and bring the upper and lower body into balance.
Challenge yourself with an unbalanced attack on your training. Use different weighted implements to perform unbalanced exercises that will increase the difficulty of any movement. Unbalanced movements will improve stability and bring the whole body into balance.
Begin with weight you are confident in handling and increase resistance and imbalance gradually. Unbalanced lifts can be performed with just about any movement, with dumbbells and kettlebells alike. Go unbalanced with presses, pulls, and squats to strengthen your body from the mid-line out.
The above example is with the kettlebell alternate double snatch. Select two disparaging weights ( 53 lb, 70 lb ) and continue to switch hands for several rounds or sets of the lift. Unbalanced work is a great way to maximize your kettlebell or dumbbell collection, if you don’t have doubles of a particular weight.
Add ladders or drop sets by increasing or decreasing weight within the same set or round. Progressive or descending drop sets are an excellent way to increase conditioning and improve cardiovascular fitness. Work your way up or down the rack for time or more rounds. For additional stimuli and extra spice go unbalanced with your drop sets. If you are looking for muscle confusion, unbalanced work is sure to shake things up.
photo from kbatoday.com
The Bulgarian training bag is a sand bag with handles, can be used for countless exercises, and a must have for your home gym.
All you will need to make your very own Bulgarian training bag is a car inner tube, knife or box cutter, zip ties, sand or other filler, and some duct tape. Cut the inner tube, fill it with desired amount of sand or other filler to weight you want, zip tie off ends w/ enough room at each end for handles to grip. Duct tape handles (optional). Below video shows you how to build your own and some exercise ideas.
Use bags to add resistance to bodyweight exercises like squats, lunges, plyometric jumps, and stairs. Swinging movements will promote and increase balance, stability, trunk, and rotational strength. Use at the beginning of your training session for a dynamic warm up, or to intensify conditioning work.
Workout of the day: A backyard DIY workout with bodyweight and kettlebell exercises.
-Step ups: @25-30 reps or for time 20-30 seconds. Be explosive and drive off top foot.
-Kettlebell Towel Swings: @8-10 reps both directions. Great shoulder and trunk warmup, Variations include (standing and from squat position)
-Bodyweight Squats: @15-25 reps
-Burpees:@8-10 reps. Add a push up and jump to a burpee to increase intensity.
-Elevated Spiderman pushups: @10-20 reps. Elevated feet, hands, or both or ground level this is a nice twist to a great bodyweight exercise.
-Front squat/ Front squat w/ overhead press: @8-10 reps. One hand or two.
-Kettlebell swings: @16-20 reps
-Kettlebell Towel Curls and or overhead tricep extension: 10-15 reps.
-Elevated Knee Tuck Pushups: @15-20 reps. Variation of the spiderman
Repeat for 2 or 3 more rounds. Reps are listed to give you an idea, don’t get hung up on counting reps. Keep it simple, and do @10 reps of everything, or set a timer for 15-25 seconds and forget about counting reps.
As you gain confidence with kettlebells and have mastered the swing, clean and jerk, and high pull, next on the list is the snatch. The single arm snatch can be performed with kettlebells, dumbbells, and even the straight bar, and is one of the best builders of explosive total body strength there is. Along with the mentioned variations, the kettlebell double snatch and alternate double snatch are two additional ways to increase resistance and add a degree of difficulty to a great complex multi- joint movement.