0:04 This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute 0:06 going over progressions for that pushing, 0:08 or chest movement pattern that we're 0:10 all so familiar with in our resistance 0:12 training programs. Specifically, we're 0:14 going to go over push-up progressions 0:16 using a suspension trainer. So, I'm going 0:19 to have my friend, Melissa, come out. She's 0:21 going to help me demonstrate the 0:23 variations and progressions that we do. 0:25 Alright, let's see it, lets see which we 0:27 get started with. And right off the bat, I 0:31 want to make this point. I see this way 0:33 too often with suspension training. 0:36 People go into a push-up, and rather than 0:38 the suspension trainer being in line 0:43 with their arms, they get out here. This 0:48 creates a force vector into flexion, 0:50 which causes them to need to use some of 0:54 those extensors and internal rotators of 0:56 their shoulder to maintain this in this 1:00 position. They're actually pulling down 1:03 against this. I have noted that this can 1:06 cause problems over time and lead to 1:10 some tightness in potentially the 1:11 subscapularis, teres major, maybe even 1:15 teres minor and some shoulder issues 1:17 long-term. So, let's make sure we we stay 1:20 down here. Now beyond that, this is still 1:23 a push-up. We're still going to use the 1:24 same form cues, the same postural cues, 1:27 the same kinetic chain checkpoints we've 1:28 used for every other exercise we've ever 1:30 done. Melissa's head's going to be back 1:32 and her chin's tucked so that she has that 1:34 nice lordosis in her cervical spine. 1:36 She's going to be drawn in. I'm going to 1:39 have her tuck under a little bit, because 1:40 I know Melissa has a tendency to go into 1:43 an anterior pelvic tilt. I actually 1:45 want her to protract. 1:48 Another mistake I often see in push-ups 1:50 is people get a little little lazy in 1:52 their scapula and fall back into 1:54 retraction. I actually want protraction 1:55 at the end here. Quads locked out. She's 2:00 on the balls of her feet, so not on her 2:02 toes, but on the balls of her feet. Alright, 2:05 you ready? Let's see it. Good, and as 2:10 I'm kind of lining things up here, 2:13 guys, I also want to see her hands, 2:15 her forearms stay roughly parallel to 2:18 each other. Her hands are kind of even 2:20 with her elbows- she's not getting 2:22 crunched in here. One of the things I 2:23 do like about the True Fit is it's two 2:25 independent suspension trainers as 2:28 opposed to having a a pivot point that 2:30 would be right back here and pull her in. 2:33 I like having that ability to adjust 2:36 out this way. These are also little 2:38 softer straps. They don't leave marks on 2:41 people's skin and there's no big bulky 2:43 hinge. How does that feel? Good. You know 2:48 what I think when a client or a patient 2:50 says, "Good" to me? I'm thinking- not hard 2:53 enough. So, let's talk about how to 2:55 progress this exercise. Let's start with 2:57 our load progressions. Load 3:00 progressions are fairly simple. We just 3:02 need to figure out how to get Melissa's 3:05 body more horizontal. The more horizontal, 3:09 the longer the moment arm, the more force 3:13 is going to be on her arms. So what I 3:15 could do is just have her start by 3:16 getting her feet further back. Alright, 3:20 step out. 3:23 Go ahead and go. 3:25 That's as opposed to if she brought her 3:28 feet out a little bit, you guys can see 3:30 she's closer to vertical. The closer she 3:33 is to vertical, the less force. 3:38 If that wasn't enough, moving her 3:41 feet back wasn't enough, I could make 3:43 these longer. Making these longer will allow 3:49 her to get more horizontal. 3:58 Push all the way out for me- still not 4:02 thinking that's hard enough though. 4:04 So, the next thing I could do is- 4:06 she's kind of letting the the straps 4:11 fall away this way, let's go ahead and 4:14 flip her around so that the straps are 4:16 more up and down. This will get her even 4:19 closer to horizontal. I see 4:24 that's looking pretty tough. That's 4:27 looking pretty tough, and if all I wanted 4:28 to do is use a suspension trainer as the 4:31 unstable environment, that's as 4:33 unstable as I wanted to go, and I wanted to 4:35 progress load as far as I could, this 4:37 would be a good progression for her. I could 4:40 take this one step farther and actually 4:41 raise her feet up, getting her totally 4:45 horizontal, maybe putting her feet up on 4:46 a bench. That's something for you guys to 4:48 experiment with, definitely very tough. 4:51 Definitely be careful who you try that 4:53 progression with, obviously, because once 4:55 their feet are up, you don't want their 4:57 face to become the first thing that ends 4:59 up on the floor. So, now we get to try our 5:02 stability progressions. One of the 5:05 reasons I like suspension training is it 5:07 has brought some attention back to 5:10 stability training. Everybody loves power. 5:14 Everybody loves max strength. Everybody 5:17 loves power lifting and Olympic lifts. 5:20 They've become very popular right now, 5:21 but we can't forget about our stability 5:24 endurance and strength endurance 5:26 training. You can't lift more than you 5:28 can stabilize, and it seems like one of 5:30 the few modalities in that stability 5:34 endurance, strength endurance phase that 5:37 people get really excited about is 5:38 suspension training. The question just 5:41 becomes what progressions are we trying 5:44 to do? What adaptations are we trying 5:46 to get? It's important that we get a 5:48 little bit of practice getting people to 5:52 the stability progression that will lead 5:55 to an adaptation over a training period. 5:57 Melissa is going to help me 5:59 demonstrate not just load progressions 6:03 here which would just showed you, but now 6:04 we're going to start thinking about how 6:06 can I make this 6:08 as unstable as Melissa can handle. We 6:12 started with- let's just start with that 6:13 two-handed variation again. 6:19 Alright, so we see this is fairly stable 6:21 for Melissa. If I wasn't going to 6:23 increase load, but I was actually looking 6:25 to increase her stability and 6:27 neuromuscular control, I'm going to have to 6:29 find a way to make this less stable. Why 6:32 don't we try one foot? I have to warn you 6:37 guys, unlike the row progression, if 6:39 you've already watched that video, these 6:41 little changes in this exercise 6:44 progress really far, really fast. So, 6:48 two legs to one leg is a huge progression on 6:51 a suspension trainer. How many of you 6:55 guys have ever wanted to try a single 6:58 arm push-up? I think that's 7:02 coming next. I think that's coming next. 7:05 The nice thing about a suspension 7:06 trainer though is -think about what I 7:08 was saying about load. The more 7:10 horizontal you are, the more load. The 7:13 more vertical you are, the less load. So, 7:15 you can actually start off fairly 7:19 vertical, fairly vertical and work on 7:24 your one-arm push-up with a fairly small 7:26 percentage of your body weight. And what 7:29 I like about this is you'll notice 7:32 huge, huge forces trying to keep you from 7:37 rotating, or trying to make you rotate. It 7:40 takes a lot of core stability just to do 7:43 some single arm stuff even at an almost 7:47 vertical trajectory. Pretty tough? 7:51 You want to try one arm, one leg? No. I have 7:57 to admit, guys, we have tried one arm, one 7:58 leg, but Melissa and I were both fooling 8:00 around before we took this video, and neither 8:02 one of us could even come close to one 8:05 arm, one leg. So, my challenge to you: if 8:07 you can do one arm, one leg suspension 8:13 push-ups, even fairly close to vertical, I 8:16 want to see you. Can you just throw that 8:18 on your iPhone, throw that on your iPad 8:20 throw that on your Android device, throw 8:22 it up on YouTube, send it to me on 8:24 Facebook, post it on Facebook on my page? 8:26 I would love to see that, because that 8:28 progression is crazy. Now, a real 8:32 progression- let's just go 8:34 back and show one more thing we can do 8:36 here. We're going to get these pretty close 8:38 to even. We could, of course, add our 8:41 Airex pad. So, just going from two foot 8:45 to one foot unstable, or even two feet 8:50 unstable with one arm is going to be a 8:54 pretty big progression. So, Melissa 8:57 is going to try one foot on the Airex 8:58 pad using both arms. It's really, really tough, 9:04 and I'm kind of wondering if we might 9:06 have surpassed her ability here. Well, 9:09 maybe not. Remember, guys, you 9:13 want to keep somebody with perfect 9:15 posture for 12 to 20 repetitions at a 9:19 slow tempo when we're working in that 9:21 stability endurance or strength 9:22 endurance phase, and they have to remain, 9:25 they have to have perfect form throughout 9:27 the entire rep range throughout the 9:29 entire set. That actually looks pretty 9:32 good for Melissa. That's pretty intense. 9:35 You want to try two feet one arm? This is 9:40 going to be tough. This is going to be 9:41 really tough, especially if she brings 9:43 your feet pretty close together. Oh, good 9:48 call. I would think that the biggest 9:50 mistake here is progressing too 9:53 fast on this one arm variation and not 9:55 using a full range of motion, or allowing 9:58 some rotation to happen at the core and 10:00 pelvis, which we also don't want. So, let's 10:04 back this all up. Alright, go ahead and 10:06 relax, Melissa. Let's back this up and 10:08 organize this. We had all of our 10:11 variations in load progressions, so don't 10:13 forget that the more horizontal somebody 10:16 is, chances are the more load on their 10:19 arms. The more vertical they are, the less 10:22 load. We talked about some ways of easily 10:24 changing that, like moving the feet back 10:26 to make somebody more horizontal, or 10:29 making the the True Fit straps here 10:32 longer, or flipping somebody around so 10:35 that the True Fit straps are totally 10:38 vertical and then their bodies more 10:40 horizontal, and then of course we talked 10:41 about that last 10:42 load progression of bringing some of 10:43 these feet up and making them totally 10:45 horizontal. Then we had all of our 10:47 stability progressions. A little 10:49 warning when it comes to your pushing 10:51 progressions: the jumps are a little 10:54 larger than some of our other suspension 10:57 exercises. So when we go from two feet to 10:59 one foot on a push motion like this, it's 11:02 a big jump, and it's going to be very 11:04 challenging to go from two feet, two arms 11:07 to two feet, one arm- huge challenge. But 11:11 if you've ever wanted to work on your 11:13 single arm push-up, suspension training 11:15 is one of those things where you can 11:17 take the percentage of your own 11:20 body weight that you using and bring it 11:22 way down. And then, of course, we talked 11:24 about adding the Airex pad. As I've 11:26 talked about in several other videos and 11:28 talked about earlier in this video, guys, 11:30 don't forget to practice your stability 11:33 endurance, strength endurance training. 11:35 You can't lift more than you can 11:37 stabilize, and I think a lot of people 11:38 skip this phase of training, that 12 to 11:41 20 reps where we work on coordination 11:44 and more complex exercises, because they 11:47 think it's not exciting. But really, the 11:50 only person keeping it from being 11:51 exciting is us as professionals. We have 11:54 to practice. We have to come up with new 11:56 ideas. We have to come up with new 11:58 routines to challenge our athletes, to 12:01 challenge our clients, to challenge our 12:03 patients so they'll stick with this, keep 12:07 working on stability, and hopefully over time 12:10 reduce their risk of injury, increasing 12:13 their neuromuscular control. I hope you 12:14 guys enjoy these progressions. I hope 12:16 they are a huge challenge. I hope to 12:17 get a few videos of the single arm, 12:19 single leg push-up. That would be awesome. 12:22 Send those to me on Facebook. I'll talk 12:24 with you guys soon. 12:33
