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This is Brent coming at you with another
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integrated exercise, this is one of my
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personal favorites for jacking up that strength training. This is the front
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squat to press. Now, I should mention that I've already done a front squat video, so
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for those of you who are looking for more queue's, setting up a good
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foundation for your integrated exercise, I would go back and watch that video.
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Remember, before we do any integrated exercise, we should probably master the
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two exercises that we're combining. I'm going to have my friend Mike Tierney,
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from Metropolitan Fitness, come out and help me demonstrate this exercise. Just a
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couple form queues that you are already aware of, but we should probably
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review a little bit, we know our kinetic chain checkpoints in the anterior view,
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feet parallel, second toe pointing forward, as he drops down I'm going to be
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looking to see that his patella tracks over his second and third toe, and, of
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course, his hips knees and feet are in alignment. Usually people get this down
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pretty good. In a front squat to press variation, most of our discrepancies can
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actually be seen in a lateral view. So, I'm going to have you face me. A couple
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quick ones on the squat, go ahead and drop down into a squat and hold it for
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me, we want to make sure his tibia torso angle is parallel, and then you can
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already see how he has his head back. This is something that somehow got out
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there, this teaching queue of trying to keep people's chins up, it actually would be
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better for his spine for him to come down, and look about five feet out in
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front of his feet. This will keep his spine nice and stable, nice and straight,
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helping improve those scapula thoracic mechanics. As he comes back up, and presses,
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we want to make sure that, just like on any shoulder press, he doesn't go into an
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excessive lordosis, or an anterior pelvic tilt. Alright, so those are the queues we're
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looking out for. Tibia torso angle, keeping the head in a neutral position,
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and then that excessive lordosis. Alright, let's grab those dumbbells and kick this
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up a notch. So we've got to talk just a little bit about this
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cradling position, I see this messed up a lot in front squats, I want
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his forearms perpendicular, his wrists in a neutral position. I don't want to see
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that radial deviation, which I see often, or an ulnar deviation
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where it sags. This isn't a good position to have the wrist in. I want a
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nice neutral position, a nice strong position. I tell my clients, before
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we get the weights in, imagine somebody's going to come down, like you're going to
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hit somebody. Think of our field athletes, our football players, or
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basketball players who have to take hits. We want to teach them a nice, strong,
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cradled position. Best queue I've found for the squat portion, is I want him thinking
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elbows to knees. That doesn't mean he actually has to get down so far that his
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elbows touch his knees, I only want him to go down as far as he can keep optimal
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form, but he's going to be thinking elbows straight down to his knees, and
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then I want him to use the momentum from his legs to get those weights up over
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head. Hold for two, bring them down slow to your shoulder. Alright, you
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ready? -Yep. Let's hit it. Great. Let's see a couple more of those. Ready? Push, draw-in.
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That was a little too deep.
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He went a little too deep and his hips went into a posterior
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pelvic tilt, so I want you to stop about three inches before your knees. Ready?
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Glutes. Up. Draw-in. Back down. Good, let me go ahead and grab those from you.
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So, one thing I want to mention, while Mike takes a little
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breather here, we've actually done several takes, so Mike's getting a little
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tired. I don't personally enjoy the Olympic bar front squat to press. I'm not
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saying it's bad for my power lifters, I know you have to practice for your
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sport, you guys do you. But, if I'm just training somebody for fitness, or I'm
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training an athlete for sports performance, there is a problem with that
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bar, and the position you have to be in. This position here, forces hypermobility
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at the wrist. It also reinforces a common postural dysfunction that happens
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at the elbow that could set somebody up for carpal tunnel, for those
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epicondylitis we see like tennis elbow and golfers elbow. I would rather see
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somebody use a dumbbell, where they can keep a nice, neutral position.
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Unless somebody's doing powerlifting, why would we even need to worry about the
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bar. So think toward your goals, as far as where you're headed, and
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what apparatus you're going to use. Now, one thing we will show you, that works
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out really well, is kettlebells. Actually, they have a very nice feel to them. So Mike's
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going to grab those kettlebells and show you what that looks like. It
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makes it a little easier if you grab the inner part, like you're not
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balanced. You want to kind of grab up, in that inner corner of the kettlebell, and
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then it tends to cradle really nicely. Mike can actually bring his hands in a little
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bit, there you go. So his hands are going to be just inside his elbows. Alright,
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how does that feel? -Very comfortable. Kettlebells make this exercise very
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comfortable. So now let's go ahead and show them this. Front squat, and boom!
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Press. You can see Mike has really nice form, we've been working on those queues. So go
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down, elbows to knees, right before, glutes, draw-in, back down nice and slow. Alright.
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There're some of the teaching queues we can use. You can put that
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down for a second. Let's talk about some progressions. I can go in a couple of
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different directions. Obviously if I want to just increase Mike's strength, I can do
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that. I can just keep increasing weight. We can even move this from a
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hypertrophy general strength phase, where we're doing six to twelve reps, and get
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into those max strength weights once he's really got the form down, and do one
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to six reps, this could be our full body exercise. We can also go in a different
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direction. I like this exercise for some stability reasons. I can go unilateral. So
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if you guys think about our field athletes who take hits, basketball
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players, or football players, it's very rare that they get to hit straight on with
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even force on both arms. Let's get their core working towards a unilateral force.
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You are going to find that this is extremely challenging to get down, and
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keep that midline. So, I'm going to have you turn and face the camera, grab one
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kettlebell or dumbbell, whatever you're most comfortable with, and the
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whole time I'm going to be watching to make sure that he doesn't lean towards
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me, or lean away from me and kind of cradle the weight, I
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don't want any compensation. Can he keep this midline against an unbalanced force?
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Then the form stays the same, so let's see that.
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I know some of you are noticing that that right foot turns out.
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We've been working on that, but we didn't want to keep from making this video. Keep
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going, Mike. Great. You can see, in his core, Mike is keeping a wonderful
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centerline. This is a great progression for him. This is something great for him
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to work at. We could take this up another notch, I find that Airex pads make this
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particularly challenging. You could do, if we're in a stability
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progression, 12 reps on each side. I'd love to see a video of somebody trying to do
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kettlebell, front squat to press, 12 on each side, on Airex pads. That would be a
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wonderful goal to set your athletes up for some very big progressions later on.
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Of course, if we were going power, this exercise sets up wonderfully for
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some videos that you are going to see in the future, for our power press, or
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our power squat to press. If you're thinking about doing that in the future
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in your programs, this would be a wonderful way to set that up, a
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prerequisite exercise. The last thing I want to show you guys before we end this
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video is a regression for those working on their compensation patterns. The front
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squat to press is a wonderful exercise, because we can still do a ball wall
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squat, which allows us to reduce the need for dorsiflexion. So why don't you grab
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the kettlebells, those seem to be more comfortable for you. We could even do
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this unilateral, but I'm gonna have him do it bilaterally.
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He's going to lean back against the ball as much as he needs to reduce
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dorsiflexion, and then he's going to basically pretend like the balls not
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there. So he's going to try to get his butt back, and then push up and you
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can see, we could actually have him step out a little further,
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I can still see a little
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turn out, so I'll have him step out a little further, pretend the balls not
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there, and up and push. Good. Relax, Mike. So there you go, we've got progressions
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for stability with the unilateral and the Airex's pad, you can keep
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increasing the weight for strength, or if somebody's still compensating, you've got
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the ball to regress. I hope you guys enjoy this integrated strength exercise,