Suspension Weight Transfer Push Up

The Suspension Weight Transfer Push Up is a full body exercise that combines strength and stability to increase power and strength. This exercise utilizes body weight in combination with core stability and balance to focus on strengthening the chest, shoulders, arms, back and core. It requires the use of an overhead structure – such as a TRX Suspension or Jungle Gym XT – allowing for dynamic movements and the ability to transfer upper body weight to the lower body and legs. This dynamic exercise engages the stabilizer muscles

Transcript

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This is Brent of the Brookbush Institute bringing you an advanced stability exercise for
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...blank
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the chest and
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shoulders using our True Fit Suspension Trainer. I'm going to have my friend, Melissa, come
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out. She's going to help me demonstrate this exercise, which is a weight transfer push
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up. It's kind of like mixing a push up with a unilateral fly that dynamically
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changes back and forth. It's a fun exercise, very challenging. First things to
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remember, guys, just because I put a suspension trainer in her hand does not
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change what form is supposed to look like for a push up. So, I'm going to have Melissa
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walk out. She's actually, for this exercise, going to descend halfway into
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that push up. But before I torture her by keeping her there, let's double check our
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check points. Her shoulders are down and protracted, right, so she has that
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nice stable position for a push up. Her head is back and chin is tucked. She's drawn
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in. If she had an anterior pelvic tilt, I could tell her to tuck under and squeeze
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her glutes to get her pelvis nice and stable. Her quads are nice and tight, and
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since this is a push up, she's actually going to get up on the balls of her feet
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so that she has a nice pivot point as she goes through this movement pattern.
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As we go further and further into this, increasing load, you have to be up on
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your toes. She's then going to descend halfway into her push up so her elbows
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are even with her torso. Now this is where the fun begins.
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She's going to try to reach out with this arm into a full fly, and what you guys
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will notice is that all of a sudden, now she's totally off balance. She has to use
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her trunk to help keep her from rotating. She has to use this side
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of her chest with a much longer lever arm much more than the other side. She's
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going to go for the other side again.
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Anti-rotation, much more chest and shoulder stability on this side. She can keep
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going back and forth here. I would definitely keep this in my stability
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endurance training program design, so 12 to 20 reps sets. and since we're going to
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take Melissa through a couple of progressions here, we're going to have her stop. Shake it off a
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little bit. Taking this up a notch, we can make this require more coordination by
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having her go from one side out, like this, which is more like an alternating
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pattern, to a reciprocal pattern where she's going from this position to this
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position without changing anything here. No rotation, this stays totally stable.
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If I put a martini on your back- we know how stupid martini glasses are
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how easily they spill- if we put a martini glass on your back, it wouldn't
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move. You ready? Hit it.
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She goes into that same position, elbows even with her torso, and then as this arm comes back, that arm goes out. And
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again. We can do those 12 to 20 repetitions, super tough at a slow tempo.
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She's definitely having to work hard. I don't know if you guys can see her shaking on
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camera, but I do. So, you have the weight transfer push up alternating arms, this
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is a little bit more of a reciprocal pattern with the arms. We're going to go ahead and have
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Melissa relax again. Let's take this up one more notch. Do you think you have one leg? Alright, so
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we're decreasing her base of support by more than 50% by putting her
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on one foot. This is where we're going to require some hip stability, a lot of core
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stability, and of course a ton of stability from her shoulder girdle.
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From here we can go into that reciprocal pattern, maybe? Almost. That might be a
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little bit reaching for Melissa, but she's doing an alright job. Make sure you
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guys do both legs. Right, so if you did your right leg, you'll want to make sure you
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do your left leg either the next set for a full set, or that halfway through your
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set you're switching legs, so that you are getting as much of a benefit on your
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right hip and that control of rotation as you are on your left hip. You could increase
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load on this. How do we increase load on a suspension trainer? We get
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her closer and closer to horizontal. I could make these straps longer, or I
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could have her bring her feet back. But I'm going to go ahead and warn on this
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particular exercise, that probably shouldn't be your first goal. Like I said,
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this is definitely one of those exercises that I would keep in my stability
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endurance training, that fairly high rep stability training that we do, because as
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the weight increases, this becomes a very long lever on the shoulder. I have
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had the unfortunate experience of having to treat individuals who have been hurt
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by flies. If you can't do 12 reps, you need to think about walking your feet
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forward, not walking your feet back to see if you can go into some horizontal
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version of the Iron Cross. I'm not sure that that's the goal of this exercise. Be
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careful, guys, there are other other exercises we can use to build strength.
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So, once again, going through our progressions- are you ready to go through all
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of them? We'll just do a couple reps in each.
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She's going to go halfway through. Notice both feet on the floor, notice her kinetic chain
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checkpoints are in line, and she's just going to reach one arm at a time. A little
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slower than that. From there she can go reciprocal. Right, so from here to here and
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back. She can bring both arms back together now. Let's go one leg- she can try alternating one leg.
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Squeeze this glute really hard, there you go.
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And then we can go reciprocal from there. If you guys didn't want to bring
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something like this into your strength training, you could try those strength
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stability supersets that are Phase 2 of the NASM OPT model, Maybe we could do
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bench before this, and then use this exercise to burn somebody out. I hope you
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guys enjoy this exercise a lot- very, very challenging. I look forward to hearing
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from you guys about what you think of this exercise, how it made you feel, maybe
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how sore your chest and shoulders were the next day. Let me know in the comments
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section of this video.