0:00 This is Brent coming at you with another integrated exercise, this is one of my 0:04 personal favorites for jacking up that strength training. This is the front 0:08 squat to press. Now, I should mention that I've already done a front squat video, so 0:14 for those of you who are looking for more queue's, setting up a good 0:17 foundation for your integrated exercise, I would go back and watch that video. 0:21 Remember, before we do any integrated exercise, we should probably master the 0:25 two exercises that we're combining. I'm going to have my friend Mike Tierney, 0:29 from Metropolitan Fitness, come out and help me demonstrate this exercise. Just a 0:33 couple form queues that you are already aware of, but we should probably 0:36 review a little bit, we know our kinetic chain checkpoints in the anterior view, 0:40 feet parallel, second toe pointing forward, as he drops down I'm going to be 0:46 looking to see that his patella tracks over his second and third toe, and, of 0:49 course, his hips knees and feet are in alignment. Usually people get this down 0:53 pretty good. In a front squat to press variation, most of our discrepancies can 0:58 actually be seen in a lateral view. So, I'm going to have you face me. A couple 1:03 quick ones on the squat, go ahead and drop down into a squat and hold it for 1:06 me, we want to make sure his tibia torso angle is parallel, and then you can 1:11 already see how he has his head back. This is something that somehow got out 1:16 there, this teaching queue of trying to keep people's chins up, it actually would be 1:20 better for his spine for him to come down, and look about five feet out in 1:25 front of his feet. This will keep his spine nice and stable, nice and straight, 1:28 helping improve those scapula thoracic mechanics. As he comes back up, and presses, 1:35 we want to make sure that, just like on any shoulder press, he doesn't go into an 1:39 excessive lordosis, or an anterior pelvic tilt. Alright, so those are the queues we're 1:44 looking out for. Tibia torso angle, keeping the head in a neutral position, 1:48 and then that excessive lordosis. Alright, let's grab those dumbbells and kick this 1:52 up a notch. So we've got to talk just a little bit about this 1:59 cradling position, I see this messed up a lot in front squats, I want 2:03 his forearms perpendicular, his wrists in a neutral position. I don't want to see 2:08 that radial deviation, which I see often, or an ulnar deviation 2:13 where it sags. This isn't a good position to have the wrist in. I want a 2:17 nice neutral position, a nice strong position. I tell my clients, before 2:21 we get the weights in, imagine somebody's going to come down, like you're going to 2:24 hit somebody. Think of our field athletes, our football players, or 2:27 basketball players who have to take hits. We want to teach them a nice, strong, 2:32 cradled position. Best queue I've found for the squat portion, is I want him thinking 2:39 elbows to knees. That doesn't mean he actually has to get down so far that his 2:43 elbows touch his knees, I only want him to go down as far as he can keep optimal 2:47 form, but he's going to be thinking elbows straight down to his knees, and 2:51 then I want him to use the momentum from his legs to get those weights up over 2:55 head. Hold for two, bring them down slow to your shoulder. Alright, you 2:59 ready? -Yep. Let's hit it. Great. Let's see a couple more of those. Ready? Push, draw-in. 3:09 That was a little too deep. 3:12 He went a little too deep and his hips went into a posterior 3:16 pelvic tilt, so I want you to stop about three inches before your knees. Ready? 3:20 Glutes. Up. Draw-in. Back down. Good, let me go ahead and grab those from you. 3:26 So, one thing I want to mention, while Mike takes a little 3:31 breather here, we've actually done several takes, so Mike's getting a little 3:34 tired. I don't personally enjoy the Olympic bar front squat to press. I'm not 3:43 saying it's bad for my power lifters, I know you have to practice for your 3:46 sport, you guys do you. But, if I'm just training somebody for fitness, or I'm 3:51 training an athlete for sports performance, there is a problem with that 3:55 bar, and the position you have to be in. This position here, forces hypermobility 4:02 at the wrist. It also reinforces a common postural dysfunction that happens 4:08 at the elbow that could set somebody up for carpal tunnel, for those 4:14 epicondylitis we see like tennis elbow and golfers elbow. I would rather see 4:18 somebody use a dumbbell, where they can keep a nice, neutral position. 4:22 Unless somebody's doing powerlifting, why would we even need to worry about the 4:26 bar. So think toward your goals, as far as where you're headed, and 4:31 what apparatus you're going to use. Now, one thing we will show you, that works 4:34 out really well, is kettlebells. Actually, they have a very nice feel to them. So Mike's 4:38 going to grab those kettlebells and show you what that looks like. It 4:44 makes it a little easier if you grab the inner part, like you're not 4:49 balanced. You want to kind of grab up, in that inner corner of the kettlebell, and 4:53 then it tends to cradle really nicely. Mike can actually bring his hands in a little 4:56 bit, there you go. So his hands are going to be just inside his elbows. Alright, 5:01 how does that feel? -Very comfortable. Kettlebells make this exercise very 5:04 comfortable. So now let's go ahead and show them this. Front squat, and boom! 5:09 Press. You can see Mike has really nice form, we've been working on those queues. So go 5:13 down, elbows to knees, right before, glutes, draw-in, back down nice and slow. Alright. 5:19 There're some of the teaching queues we can use. You can put that 5:22 down for a second. Let's talk about some progressions. I can go in a couple of 5:27 different directions. Obviously if I want to just increase Mike's strength, I can do 5:31 that. I can just keep increasing weight. We can even move this from a 5:34 hypertrophy general strength phase, where we're doing six to twelve reps, and get 5:38 into those max strength weights once he's really got the form down, and do one 5:42 to six reps, this could be our full body exercise. We can also go in a different 5:46 direction. I like this exercise for some stability reasons. I can go unilateral. So 5:53 if you guys think about our field athletes who take hits, basketball 5:56 players, or football players, it's very rare that they get to hit straight on with 6:02 even force on both arms. Let's get their core working towards a unilateral force. 6:07 You are going to find that this is extremely challenging to get down, and 6:12 keep that midline. So, I'm going to have you turn and face the camera, grab one 6:15 kettlebell or dumbbell, whatever you're most comfortable with, and the 6:20 whole time I'm going to be watching to make sure that he doesn't lean towards 6:24 me, or lean away from me and kind of cradle the weight, I 6:29 don't want any compensation. Can he keep this midline against an unbalanced force? 6:34 Then the form stays the same, so let's see that. 6:40 I know some of you are noticing that that right foot turns out. 6:43 We've been working on that, but we didn't want to keep from making this video. Keep 6:47 going, Mike. Great. You can see, in his core, Mike is keeping a wonderful 6:54 centerline. This is a great progression for him. This is something great for him 6:58 to work at. We could take this up another notch, I find that Airex pads make this 7:04 particularly challenging. You could do, if we're in a stability 7:08 progression, 12 reps on each side. I'd love to see a video of somebody trying to do 7:12 kettlebell, front squat to press, 12 on each side, on Airex pads. That would be a 7:18 wonderful goal to set your athletes up for some very big progressions later on. 7:24 Of course, if we were going power, this exercise sets up wonderfully for 7:30 some videos that you are going to see in the future, for our power press, or 7:35 our power squat to press. If you're thinking about doing that in the future 7:39 in your programs, this would be a wonderful way to set that up, a 7:43 prerequisite exercise. The last thing I want to show you guys before we end this 7:47 video is a regression for those working on their compensation patterns. The front 7:52 squat to press is a wonderful exercise, because we can still do a ball wall 7:57 squat, which allows us to reduce the need for dorsiflexion. So why don't you grab 8:02 the kettlebells, those seem to be more comfortable for you. We could even do 8:07 this unilateral, but I'm gonna have him do it bilaterally. 8:13 He's going to lean back against the ball as much as he needs to reduce 8:18 dorsiflexion, and then he's going to basically pretend like the balls not 8:22 there. So he's going to try to get his butt back, and then push up and you 8:27 can see, we could actually have him step out a little further, 8:30 I can still see a little 8:36 turn out, so I'll have him step out a little further, pretend the balls not 8:38 there, and up and push. Good. Relax, Mike. So there you go, we've got progressions 8:44 for stability with the unilateral and the Airex's pad, you can keep 8:47 increasing the weight for strength, or if somebody's still compensating, you've got 8:51 the ball to regress. I hope you guys enjoy this integrated strength exercise, 8:54 it's a fun one! Keep it up!
