0:04 This is Brent and in this video we're going over 0:07 progressions for a very common movement pattern, the row, that many of us use for back. 0:11 We're going to use the suspension trainer to start developing a 0:14 progression that would fit perfectly in that stability endurance or strength 0:19 endurance phase of our training. I'm going to have my friend, Melissa, come out. 0:23 She's going to help me demonstrate. Now, before Melissa gets started here, one 0:26 thing that I think people forget a little bit when they start using a 0:30 suspension trainer is just because we put a new piece of equipment in our hand, 0:35 doesn't change optimal 0:37 form for the human body. So, Melissa is going to grab the True Fit here, she's going 0:44 to lean back, and the first thing we're going to notice is her posture looks good. 0:49 Her posture looks good, just as it would be for a weighted row, cable row, if she was 0:55 doing a cable chest press. It's generally the same posture, which is 1:00 head back, chin tucked, neck in alignment with the rest of her back. You notice 1:04 her shoulders are down and stable, she's drawn in, her pelvis is neutral. If she 1:10 had gone into an anterior pelvic tilt, I could say draw in, tuck under. Her 1:15 quads are nice and tight, knees nearly locked, and her feet are parallel to one 1:20 another and hip width. She's got that nice posture that we've used on every other 1:25 exercise by now, just like every other row that we've done. She's going to pull and 1:31 pinch her shoulder blades down and back. Let's see a few of those. 1:36 What you'll notice is Melissa's form looks good throughout. She's pinching those shoulder 1:43 blades but not doing this thing. This is this I am trying to pull too far, 1:49 compensation. We want to make sure that shoulder blades go down and back, not up and back. 1:55 Go ahead and relax for a second. And if I was Melissa's trainer, the first thing I 2:01 would notice is that's too easy. So now we have to start thinking about how we 2:06 progress this exercise, and there's a lot of ways to progress with a suspension 2:10 trainer. We could start with maybe one leg, so we'll go two legs to one leg. 2:20 One leg. 2:25 Just make sure on that leg that she's using, that that glute's tight, her hips 2:32 staying up and forward, she's not sagging at all. Does that make it a little 2:35 tougher? Do you want to switch legs? 2:36 Make sure you do both sides. Just because we're working on the back, 2:42 doesn't mean we can't gain a little stability in the hip, but you want to 2:44 work on both sides. 2:47 Relax for a second. Still looks too easy. So we got two legs, one leg. Could we 2:57 go two legs, one arm? You guys do have to be careful with this one, because, 3:03 obviously, when she goes from two arms to one arm with something like a suspension 3:07 trainer, she's also going to double the load. I might need to move her feet 3:11 back just a little bit. 3:17 You'll notice that the hard thing about this particular progression is people 3:22 want to do all sorts of rotating at the trunk. They have a hard time retracting 3:27 their scapulae. You've got to make sure that just because we went from 3:32 two arms to one arm, we don't let go of any of those form cues. We have to keep 3:37 just as strict, otherwise we've just gone too far in our progessions. Alright, relax for a 3:44 second. So we went from two legs to one leg, two arms to one arm. Could we go 3:50 one leg, one arm? We're going to try one of these cross-body patterns. Generally, 3:58 when I go one leg, one arm, I try to do contralateral limbs, so she's going to 4:03 use her left leg to stabilize, we're going to pull the right arm, and then vice 4:07 versa. When she goes to left arm, I'm going to use her right leg to stabilize. You guys 4:13 will find that this is real tough to maintain scapular retraction, real tough 4:18 to maintain square shoulders, square hips. Is that tough? 4:24 Aright, we're getting there. We're getting close. If I'm in a stability endurance or 4:29 strength endurance phase, my goal is to get her to fail in 12 to 20 repetitions 4:33 at a slow tempo. We're getting pretty close. I think she would be just about there. So 4:42 what can I do to even further progress this? Well, an easy progression 4:48 is to add an unstable environment. Be careful when you add unstable 4:54 environments, like an airex pad. We don't want her sliding, her feet sliding out 4:58 from underneath her. Let's go two legs, one arm on an airex pad. 5:10 Alright. 5:12 Let's go one foot, one arm on an airex pad. 5:24 And you notice Melissa keeps her form. Well, almost. We're starting to break down 5:31 a little bit here. Good, relax for a second. So, I do think the fitness 5:37 professional population, the athletic 5:40 training professional population, those of us who work on strength and 5:44 conditioning, we do need a little bit more practice on the stability and 5:49 strength side. We need more practice creating good routines. If I was working 5:53 with Melissa, I think I would have stopped at the progression of single arm, 5:58 single leg in a stable environment. I could see good form, but it was 6:05 challenging, and I think she could maintain that good form for the 12 to 20 6:10 reps I was looking to achieve to increase endurance in that phase. Now, we 6:17 do have load progressions, so I couldn back off or increase in load 6:22 depending on how advanced my athlete was. Melissa's going to help me demonstrate that real 6:27 quick. So, just starting off with the handles the length they are now, 6:33 if she moves her feet closer to where I have these hanging, she gets more 6:40 horizontal. I 6:42 increase the perpendicular length from my lever here, it'll actually be more force 6:48 she has to generate to do that row. And you can see she's shaking a little 6:53 bit. That's tough. If I wanted to go even further, but her feet are all the way 7:00 against a bar, or they're all the way against a wall, let's say I had this hanging 7:04 off a wall clip, what I could do is just make these longer. I could get her even more 7:14 horizontal. Good luck. 7:25 That's tough stuff right there. 7:31 If I wanted to go even further, I could go completely horizontal. What we're 7:37 actually going to do here is we're going to start with these a little bit shorter, 7:46 but I'm going to put her feet up on something. 7:52 In this case, we're skipping a progression here, guys, I would usually 7:55 use a bench first, but rolling a bench into the shot was just a little awkward so 8:00 we're going to use a stability ball instead here. You ready? Do your best. I'm going to have 8:07 you hang down first, so almost sit down on your butt. I want you to put one heel up here. 8:16 It helps to get the ball in a position where your heel's in the center 8:22 of the ball so that you have a little bit of control with your legs on where 8:25 you're putting that ball. Your feet don't have to be perfectly together either. 8:28 Now, pull up into position, 8:31 get nice and flat, squeeze your butt, draw in, try to get those feet 8:38 straight for me. 8:39 Good. Alright, let's try a couple of those. We can see- Do you want to give it one more shot? 8:48 Give you a rest? We can see this is a little bit beyond where Melissa's at, but 8:53 some of those other progressions from a strength standpoint, if I needed to 8:57 increase the way to get our reps down, let's say she could do more than the 20 reps I was 9:02 looking for, we could see maybe moving her feet in would work, or making the 9:07 True Fit a little longer here would work. 9:10 This is a tough progression, guys, this might be one of those challenges I put 9:15 out: Let's see who can do 20 reps horizontal with their feet on a ball 9:21 with two independent suspension trainers here. We're just going to try to get a 9:28 couple. I'll give the ball a little bit of stability here. Head back, really try to 9:34 retract those scapulae. 9:35 Pull, pull, pull, pull, pull, down slow, down slow. One more. Good. 9:41 Relax. Alright, guys, there you go. 9:47 Tons of progressions, stability progressions: two feet, one foot; two arms, 9:53 one arm. We did one arm, one foot together, so there's five progressions right there. 9:58 Then we added unstable environments, like an airex pad, so then you can go back to 10:03 two feet unstable, one foot unstable. Then we talked about our load 10:07 progressions. Try to keep in mind where your fulcrum is. The more 10:13 horizontal you get, the harder the exercise is going to be from a load 10:19 perspective. Moving the feet in, making the straps of the True Fit longer, or as 10:27 you saw in this last progression, which was just mean, going totally horizontal are 10:33 all ways for you to progress this particular exercise. And as we mentioned 10:38 towards the beginning of the video, this is the type of practice you all need, we 10:43 all need as an industry to make our stability endurance, or strength 10:49 endurance training just as exciting just, as challenging as the max strength 10:55 training, the power training that's become so popular. 10:59 Don't forget, you can't lift more than you can stabilize. I look forward to 11:04 talking to you guys soon.
