Expert Panel Responds: Weather, Equipment, Time Restrictions

4.  Name your top 5 bodyweight mobility exercises and your top 5 bodyweight strength exercises. – Bobby

TIM MORRILL, Strength and Conditioning

Mobility:
3 Way SLDL
5 Piece Squat
Side Squat
90 Degree Squat
Wall Slide

Strength:
Pistol Squat
Saigon Squat
Distance Burpee
Push Up
Implement Free KB Get Up

TYLER KINLEY, Captain of Seattle Sockeye

Mobility:
1. Spiderman lunge
2-5. This hurdle series
Strength:
1. Single leg squats (pistols) – use bosu ball when they become easy
2. Explosive pushups (try to clap between pushups)
3. Knees to elbows – I like to incorporate a bit of a pullup instead of just hanging.
4. Single and Double Leg Bounding
5. Sprinting. If I had only one bodyweight exercise I could do to train my entire body, it would be sprints at 100% effort.

MELISSA WITMER, Kinesiology

Mobility:
1.  5 point lunge series
2.  Sumo squats
3.  Airplanes
4.  Bent over T-spine rotation
5.  Zombie kicks

Strength:
1.  Lunges, lunges, and more lunges: split stance, diagonal, backward, forward.  The order they’re listed is a good order for progression.
2.  Cook hip lift (this also falls in the mobility category)
3.  Single leg squat and touch
4.  Single leg pistol squat (this is pretty advanced.  The squat and touch is a better place to start)
5.  Feet elevated pushups.

LESLIE WU, Mobile Health

Mobility:
1. RKC arm bar
2. Anything thoracic spine
3. Shoulderstand squats
4. Upward facing dog
5. Z hip circles

Strength:
1. FTW squats
2. RFESS (in a bathroom, foot on wall or pipe, in a gym, foot on an elevated barbell squat rack)–progress to single-leg jumping RFESS as you might do with a TRX
3. Hip cook lift
4. Bodyweight inverted row (in a gym, hands on BB in squat rack)
5. Tactical push-up

5. Whats a good, 15 minute, core circuit? – Geoff

TIM MORRILL, Strength and Conditioning

There is no reason to do “core” for 15 minutes in a circuit fashion. Remember, we are athletes not body builders.  On the other hand, we could consider an Air Squat, a Kettlebell Swing, a Kettlebell Turkish Get Up and a Pull Up all “core” exercises. Looking at it from this point angle a good circuit would be. 30,20,10,5…
-Air Squat x 30
-Kettlebell Swing x 20
-Turkish Get Up x 10 (5 each side)
-Pull Up x 5
Repeat for 15 minutes.

TYLER KINLEY, Captain of Seattle Sockeye

15 minutes is a long, long core circuit in my opinion. Try this:
– 20 Lateral situps (10 each side, normal situp but knees on ground to one side/the other)
– 15 leg hugs (on back with legs straight & off ground and arms straight above head but off ground, bring knees to chest and hug to chest with arms, that is 1)
– 20 Bicycles
– 10 Jacknifes (start same as leg hugs, but touch fingers to toes as high off ground above you as possible, like a folding jacknife)
– 16 Trunk Twist (on back, arms out to sides, feet straight up in air, tiwst trunk such that feet touch ground to your sides softly, then return up and touch to other side, each touch is 1)
– 20 Crunches
– 10 Jacknifes
– 10 leg hugs
– 10 Crunches
– 12 Jacknifes
Do this as quickly as possible, see if you can cut down the time. It’s hard.

MELISSA WITMER, Kinesiology

To create a core circuit choose 3-5 exercises trying to work in different planes of motion.  Go through the circuit three times with no rest between exercises or sets.  I choose at least one isometric exercises and  one rotational or anti-rotational exercise.  I don’t have a favorite or a standard core circuit.  I like to mix it up.  Here are some guidelines for putting together a balanced core circuit.  Exercises are listed in order of increasing difficulty.  To figure out how many reps, stop when your form gets sloppy.  Adding 2 reps to the exercises or 5 seconds to the isometrics each week is a reasonable progression.

Pick one exercise from at least three categories:
1.  Isometric Option:  plank, side planks, or stir the pot
2.  Oblique option:  side plank, oblique bridge, oblique bridge with leg raise
3.  Rotational:  russion twist, diagonal plate raise, cable chops
4.  Anti-rotational:  Pallov press, half kneeling stability reverse chop
5.  Lower abs:  reverse crunch, V-ups, captain’s chair

LESLIE WU, Mobile Health

Here’s one with inspiration from Jim Schmitz and Coach Dos’s Cardio Strength Training.

a) Barbell Overhead Squat (low-reps, low-weight, impeccable form).

b) Hang-position wide-grip barbell power snatch / Split Snatch Right Leg / Split Snatch Left Leg (2 reps each lift in succession = 1 set, rest after all 3 lifts completed, 2 sets.)

c) 3×6-8 reps of the following complex (90-120s rest, start with very light weight): [More advanced complexes in Coach Dos’s book]
Alternating lunge with barbell overhead, Good morning, Barbell rollout

d) In whatever time you have left, do Hip cook lifts, quadruped progressions (bird-dog), hanging leg raises, side planks, TRX atomic pushup plus pike, barbell or Swiss ball rollouts, barbell front squats

You probably don’t want to do this after any other lifting =)

You’ll note that this is more than just training your abs. Mark Verstegen of Athlete’s Performance helped to popularize “core training” over the last ten+ years and he now talks about “pillar strength” which includes the larger trunk. It’s important to consider the whole “chain-link fence” formed by your shoulders and hips, the “four knots” in traditional Chinese martial arts, which form your core / pillar. Furthermore, many collegiate strength coaches today focus specifically on anti-flexion and anti-rotational training for the core, which is why you see overhead squats and split snatches in the “core circuit”

For more information, read Mark Verstegen’s books on Core Performance, Mike Boyle’s Advances in Functional Training, and Stuart McGill’s Ultimate Back Fitness and Performance. If you’d rather focus on getting cut for looksies, read Dave Draper’s Brother Iron, Sister Steel.

6. I’ve found that stretching to increase flexibility is a good activity for my off days or when the weather locks me inside. What stretches should I focus on that will help to increase my power and agility on the field? – Kevin

TIM MORRILL, Strength and Conditioning

Go to home depot, buy a 4 inch in diameter piece of PVC pipe, wrap it in duct tape.  Now you have a “foam roller”.  Use this to unglue your business.  Once you have rolled for a bit you can stretch.  Roll before you static stretch.  Use a band of jump rope to stretch your hips in every way possible, front side (quads) back side (glut max/ hamstring group), inside (groin and adductors), outside (glut med and tfl).

Think about hitting all 4 corners and just play, don’t take our advice, just play and see what’s tight and hang out there. Explore.  This is how you learn your body. Create your own stretches addressing your individual tight spots.

TYLER KINLEY, Captain of Seattle Sockeye

Any stretch that will limber up your hips, quads, hamstrings, groin, IT band, glutes, etc.– all of the muscles from your waist down to your knees– is best.  Whenever those muscles are tight, any time one muscle contracts, the tightness of its opposing muscle will detract from its full power. Limbering up these muscles on off days is a great idea and will also help in injury prevention.

I like to stand, face forward, and slowly inch my feet farther and farther apart until I can feel a stretch. Then I take deep breaths and allow myself and my bodyweight to stretch further, and will adjust my positioning to stretch slightly different areas. Then, I’ll slowly turn my upper body to face on side while still deep in the stretch, still holding myself off the ground. Then after some time of stretching, I’ll let my back knee touch the ground and again stretch. Then I’ll return to facing forward, and go to the other side. Finally, I will stretch my quads and glutes to balance out.

MELISSA WITMER, Kinesiology

I prefer joint mobility work to muscle flexibility work.   I’m pretty sure I haven’t done any static stretching in over a year.  I will occasionally strike a yoga pose or two if my hips or shoulders start feeling jammed up.  Any of the triangle/warrior variety are good.  I am positive that the other panelists will have better advice on this topic.

I stretch when I feel like it but I move all my joints through a  full range of motion every day.  Even on my days off I like to go through a dynamic warmup.  I have finally started to incorporate some soft tissue work like foam rolling and self massage into my routine.  I would choose this over static stretching also.

LESLIE WU, Mobile Health

Hip flexor stretches are a good place to start. I’ve started doing these with arms supported by a barbell on a low squat rack position, one knee up and the other on the ground.

Downward-facing dog pumps (both pumps explained here).

Other than hip flexors, it’s not clear if/how flexibility work will help your power or agility, but many believe that you should have a passing ASLR (active straight leg raise), and I’ve found that it’s very easy to overfocus on posterior hamstring vs lateral hamstring flexibility. Try instead a few minutes of foam roller and some targeted mobility work (hips / t-spine / ankle), and then get stronger, working on your RFD (rate of force development).

Clean yourself off, your mind was just blown. Thanks to everyone who wrote in and to our awesome panelists for taking the time to provide some amazing training tips. Please post follow-up questions to the comments. We’ve encouraged our panelists to respond there.