Medicine Ball Partner Exercises

1. Lunge to Chest Pass: A dynamic move for a dynamic duo. Grab a medicine ball and face your partner, standing about 3-5 feet apart. Keeping the chest up, lunge forward, completing the movement with a crisp (and accurate!) chest pass to your partner. They’ll then catch it and head straight into their lunge-and-pass. Repeat for 10-12 reps each, or until Butterfingers tests your patience.

2. Single-Leg Chest Pass: Stand on one leg, about 4-6 feet from your partner. Keeping the core tight and the body stable, pass the rock back and forth using a basketball chest pass. Continue for 30-60 seconds. Switch legs. Be one move closer to J. Lin status.

3. Overhead Pass with Squat: Time to get up close and personal. Stand back-to-back with one partner holding a medicine ball overhead. The other will then reach up and grab it (klutzes take care!), followed by both buddies coming down into a low squat position. The partner with the ball will then roll it back between their legs for the other one to pick it up and start again. Continue for 10-12 reps, then switch!

4. Partner Floor Slams: This is one throw down you don’t want to miss. Badass #1 starts with a medicine ball overhead and slam it down to the ground so it bounces once before reaching Badass #2. With the core fully engaged (the power of the pass should come from the core as well), keep sending the ball back and forth for 10-15 reps each.

5. Partner Side Swing Pass: In a swing state of mind? Stand side-by-side, about five feet apart, in an athletic stance with the abdominals contracted. Keeping the arms straight, have partner #1 swing the ball from the outside of the body to the inside (pivoting the outside leg as you pivot), then toss the ball to partner #2. Repeat until you get the swing of things, and switch positions.

6. Partner Shuffle Drill: Bring it back to basketball camp. Facing your partner a few feet away, stand in a ready position with the knees slightly bent and core engaged. At “Go” shuffle for about 20 feet in one direction, while simultaneously tossing the medicine ball back and forth. Head back in the opposite direction to give both sides some love.

7. Sit-Ups Pass: Work the middle, times two. Start seated on the floor next to your partner, facing opposite directions, with knees bent. Holding the medicine ball to your chest, both recline to the floor, come back up, and pass the ball to your partner. Repeat for 10-15 reps, or until the core feels good and fired up.

8. V-Sit with Rotation and Pass: This one’s double trouble, for sure. Sitting on the floor about 1-2 feet away from your partner, with knees bent, hold the medicine ball to your chest with abs nice n’ tight. Next, both recline back a few inches and rotate one way and then the other (maintaining that rock hard core!). Return to starting position, and throw the ball to your partner. They’ll catch it and repeat the movement. Repeat for reps or time (90 seconds is no joke).

9. Kneeling Partner Twist: Partners in crime can hit the abs and obliques with this simple twofer move. Kneel back-to-back, and slowly twist to one side until you can hand off the ball to your partner. Then twist to the other side in order to retrieve the ball again (oh, hey there!). Continue for 60-90 seconds in one direction, then switch.

10. Hi-Low Twist: Start standing back-to-back, holding the medicine ball firmly in two hands. Twist toward your partner and raise the ball up high so you hand it off to them over your shoulder. They’ll grab it and do the same move, but meeting you down low on the other side. (Did we just become best friends? YUP!) Continue for 60-plus seconds in one direction — until you feel the heat in those arms, shoulders, and core — then switch directions.

Exersices:Judo Pushups

 

Begin in a pushup position but move your feet hip-width apart and forward, and raise your hips so your body almost forms an upside-down V. Lower the front of your body until your chin nears the floor. Then lower your hips as you raise your head and shoulders toward the ceiling. Now reverse the movement and return to the starting position.

 

Note on the Judo Pushups it is an ancient Indian exercise also mentioned in Yoga called : SURYA NAMASKAR.

SURYA = Sun
NAMASKAR = Bowing down in greeting someone.

“Suryanamaskar” and its not straight down and straight up its actually a circular movement, you go down and (almost nose touching the ground) and with the same pace stretch up, this exercise tones up every muscle in your body.  Strive for a full extension at both ends of the movement.  Most of the strain you will feel on the negative portion of the move.  Throughout the move you will be placing your body under tension.  It should be noted your not racing against anyone who is working out with you.  Do not sacrifice form for speed.  Be honest with yourself and do the full movements

 

Exersices:Body-Weight Squat

Body-Weight Squat

 

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Lower your body as far as you can by pushing your hips back and bending your knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Pause, and slowly stand back up.

 

A Circuit Training For the Whole Body In Just 15 Minutes

The beauty of this circuit is that it can be done pretty much anywhere, in 15 minutes, with nothing more than your body weight.  It hits the slow twitch muscles that build endurance.

300 muscles – in three moves

Do 10 reps of each exercise, and complete as many circuits as you can in 15 minutes. Rest briefly when you need to, and resume working until the time is up. As your conditioning improves, increase reps or decrease the amount of rest.

Body-Weight Squat

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Lower your body as far as you can by pushing your hips back and bending your knees until your thighs are parallel to the floor. Pause, and slowly stand back up.

Judo Pushup

Begin in a pushup position but move your feet hip-width apart and forward, and raise your hips so your body almost forms an upside-down V. Lower the front of your body until your chin nears the floor. Then lower your hips as you raise your head and shoulders toward the ceiling. Now reverse the movement and return to the starting position.

Note on the Judo Pushups it is an ancient Indian exercise also mentioned in Yoga called : SURYA NAMASKAR.

SURYA = Sun
NAMASKAR = Bowing down in greeting someone.

“Suryanamaskar” and its not straight down and straight up its actually a circular movement, you go down and (almost nose touching the ground) and with the same pace stretch up, this exercise tones up every muscle in your body.  Strive for a full extension at both ends of the movement.  Most of the strain you will feel on the negative portion of the move.  Throughout the move you will be placing your body under tension.  It should be noted your not racing against anyone who is working out with you.  Do not sacrifice form for speed.  Be honest with yourself and do the full movements.

 

Sprinter Sit Up

Lie on your back with your legs straight and arms at your sides, keeping your elbows bent at 90 degrees. As you sit up, twist your upper body to the left and bring your left knee toward your right elbow while you swing your left arm back. Lower your body to the starting position, and repeat to your right. That’s 1 rep.

Find it on “train my fingers for battle”

 

You Don’t Need A Gym To Be Strong And Fit: Body Weight Exersices

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Few men believe it, but you don’t need barbells, dumbbells, or machines to build muscle; in fact, weight-training equipment often inhibits the process. That’s because it requires you to be in a specific location, which might explain why more men consider themselves runners than lifters. After all, running is the most accessible form of exercise anywhere you go, there’s your gym. But learn a little bit about physics and the same can hold true for your muscle workout.

Consider the pull-up: It’s the standard by which all body-weight exercises are measured. And even the most hard-core lifters will agree that there’s no better muscle builder for the upper body with or without weights. The reason for its effectiveness: It takes full advantage of the scientific laws of motion and leverage, placing your body in a position that forces your back and arms to lift your entire body weight. Call it applied science at its finest.

Now imagine if all body-weight exercises were as challenging as the pull-up. You’d be able to build muscle anywhere, anytime at home, on the road, or even in a public park. Physical science makes it possible. So with that said… the Five Laws of Body-Weight Training:

Law #1: The longer your body, the weaker you become.

The Science: By increasing the distance between the point of force (your target muscles) and the end of the object you’re trying to lift (your body), you decrease your mechanical advantage. Think of it this way: An empty barbell is easy to lift off the floor if you grab it in the middle. But try moving a few inches in one direction and it instantly seems heavier even though its weight hasn’t changed. The same is true of your body: Lengthen it and every exercise you do becomes harder.

Apply it:Raise your hands above your head so your arms are straight and in line with your body during a lunge, squat, crunch, or situp. If that’s too hard, split the distance by placing your hands behind your head.

Law #2: The farther you move, the more muscle you work.

The Science: In physics, “mechanical work” is equal to force (or weight) times distance. And since your muscles and bones function together as simple machines they form class 1, 2, and 3 levers the same formula applies to your body. It’s the most basic of principles: Do more work, build more muscle. Of course, in a weight-free workout, you can’t increase force (unless you gain weight). But you can boost your work output by moving a greater distance during each repetition.

Apply it: Each of the following three methods increases the distance your body has to travel from start to finish, increasing not only the total amount of work you do, but also the amount of work you do in the most challenging portion of the exercise.

Hard: Move the floor farther away. For many body-weight exercises lunges, pushups, situps your range of motion ends at the floor. The solution: Try placing your front or back foot on a step when doing lunges; position your hands on books or your feet on a chair when doing pushups; and place a rolled-up towel under the arch in your lower back when doing situps.

Harder: Add on a quarter. From the starting position of a pushup, squat, or lunge, lower yourself into the down position. But instead of pushing your body all the way up, raise it only a quarter of the way. Then lower yourself again before pushing your body all the way up. That counts as one repetition.

Hardest: Try mini-repetitions. Instead of pushing your body all the way up from the down position, do five smaller reps in which you raise and lower your body about an inch each time. After the fifth mini-repetition, push yourself up till your arms are straight. That counts as one repetition.

Law #3: As elastic energy decreases, muscle involvement increases.

The Science: When you lower your body during any exercise, you build up “elastic energy” in your muscles. Just like in a coiled spring, that elasticity allows you to “bounce” back to the starting position, reducing the work your muscles have to do. Eliminate the bounce and you’ll force your body to recruit more muscle fibers to get you moving again. How? Pause for 4 seconds in the down position of an exercise. That’s the amount of time it takes to discharge all the elastic energy of a muscle.

Apply it: Use the 4-second pause in any exercise. And give yourself an extra challenge by adding an explosive component, forcefully pushing your body off the floor into the air as high as you can during a pushup, lunge, or squat. Because you’re generating maximum force without any help from elastic energy, you’ll activate the greatest number of muscle fibers possible.

Law #4: Moving in two directions is better than moving in one.

The Science: Human movement occurs on three different geometric planes:
the sagittal plane, for front-to-back and up-and-down movements,
the frontal plane, for side-to-side movements,
the transverse plane, for rotational movements.

Most weight-lifting movements the bench press, squat, curl, lunge, and chinup, to name a few are performed on the sagittal plane; the balance of exercises for instance, the lateral lunge and side bend occur almost entirely on the frontal plane. This means that most men rarely train their bodies on the transverse plane, despite using rotation constantly in everyday life, as well as in every sport. Case in point: walking. It’s subtle, but your hips rotate with every step; in fact, watch a sprinter from behind and you’ll see that his hips rotate almost 90 degrees. By adding a rotational component to any exercise, you’ll automatically work more muscle since you’ll fully engage your core, as well as the original target muscles and simultaneously build a better-performing body.

Apply it: Simply twist your torso to the right or left in exercises such as the lunge, situp, and pushup. You can also rotate your hips during movements such as the reverse crunch.

Law #5: The less contact your body has with the floor, the more your muscles must compensate.

The Science: The smaller the percentage of an object’s surface area that’s touching a solid base, the less stable that object is. That’s why SUVs are prone to rolling, and tall transmission towers need guy wires. Fortunately, humans have a built-in stabilization system: muscles. And by forcing that internal support system to kick in by making your body less stable you’ll make any exercise harder, while activating dozens more muscles.

Apply it:Hold one foot in the air during virtually any exercise, including pushups, squats, and deadlifts. You can also do pushups on your fingertips or your fists.

Navy SEAL Fitness Test Breakdown

Swim 500 Yards

Maximum time allowed is 12 minutes, 30 seconds — but to be competitive, you should swim the distance in at least 8 to 9 minutes, utilizing only the Combat Swimmer Stroke, sidestroke, or breast stroke.

Push-ups

Minimum number is 42 in 2 minutes, but you should shoot for at least 100 for an average score. Do not pace yourself. Push as many push-ups out as fast as you can, but do not neglect proper form or the SEAL instructor will not count them. (Rest 2 minutes, then move on to the next exercise.)

Sit-ups

Minimum number is 52 in 2 minutes, but you should strive for at least 100 in 2 minutes for an average score. PACE yourself! (Rest 2 minutes.)

Pull-ups

The minimum is eight pull-ups with no time limit, but you cannot touch the ground or let go of the bar. You should be able to do 15 to 20 to be competitive.  (Rest 10 minutes).

1.5-mile run

Wearing boots and pants, the maximum time allowed for this one is 11 minutes, 30 seconds, but you should be able to cover the distance in 9 to 10 minutes to be competitive. Pace yourself: do not start off too fast on the first lap.

Strength Training: Benefits for Endurance Athletes

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Reposted by Trifuel

The topic of strength training in endurance sports is always a controversial one, with some coaches avoiding it at all costs and others praising it as the key to success. ironguides coach Alun “Woody” Woodward explains why and how strength training can be an extremely effective tool for endurance athletes.

The topic of strength training in endurance sports is always a controversial one, with some coaches avoiding it at all costs and others praising it as the key to success. Over the past few years strength training has really started to make a big comeback; almost every magazine dedicated to endurance sports will have a section on strength training. Articles in this section always relay the same message: functional exercises are the only type of strength work that will benefit endurance athletes.

Functional exercises are essentially movements that follow the movement patterns used in sport—they don’t work muscles in isolation. These typical articles predominantly look at exercises that involve the legs such as dead lifts, squats, split squats, one legged squats, and so on.

While these exercises are great, they are also extremely demanding and require a lot of recovery, which can significantly impact our sport-specific work.

This approach, I believe, is looking at strength training in the wrong way. Yes, we need strong legs to perform our sport but we must consider what we, as endurance athletes, need exactly from strength training in order to improve our performance.

The key things I am looking for when designing a strength program are:

• Stressing the central nervous system to stimulate hormone release.
• Improving core strength.
• Recruiting muscle fibres.

These are the 3 main benefits of a strength program; I will go through each one in this article and show how it will bolster your training.

1 – STRESSING THE CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

When we perform strength training with heavy weights that force us to use a large amount of muscle mass and we also add an element of balance to activate our core, then we stress our central nervous system.

The load we have placed on the body is above normal, safe levels and the body does not like this. As a result, it tries to get stronger, which it does by releasing growth hormone and targeting strength in ALL the muscles activated.

This has numerous benefits for an endurance athlete, including that core strength is increased which I will go into more below.

The key, however, is the hormone release; our bodies are ruled by hormones. The more growth hormone we have circulating in our body, the more we can maintain or build muscle mass and burn fat. Reducing body fat is a great way to improve endurance performance.

Most athletes, though, will straight away fear lifting heavy weights, as we fear building muscle, and the associated weight gain. In reality, endurance athletes like us are never in such an anabolic (i.e. build-up) state that we’d be able to do this.

As endurance athletes, we use the increase in anabolic hormone production to counteract the negative catabolic (breakdown) effect of hard endurance training and to keep our bodies healthy and balanced.

Conventional wisdom tells us that endurance training will make us healthy and lean but the reality is that this alone is not the key. Watch any big-city marathon or major ironman event to see a fair proportion of athletes competing with excess body fat, despite extreme and hard endurance training.

The reason that larger endurance athletes remain heavy is almost always that the body is not balanced; adding some heavy conditioning training to their program would help them get leaner and improve body composition, and so performance.

Exercises

While leg exercises may be the most effective for stimulating hormone response, they are also very damaging and can affect our endurance training consistency, as I mentioned above. I prefer exercises that focus on the upper body and core. My favourite exercises are:

• Standing Military Press – Perform 3 x 5 reps at a weight you feel you would fail after 7 reps.
• Chin Ups – Perform 5 sets to one chin up before failure would occur.
• Bench Press – Perform 3x 5 reps at a weight you feel you would fail after 7 reps
• Renegade Rows – 5 x 5 slow and controlled repetitions.

Next time you’re feeling drained and are really suffering in training, go to the gym to perform a routine such as the above—you will be amazed at how energized you feel the next day.

2 – IMPROVING CORE STRENGTH

Core strength has been a major topic for a while now and we have seen many fitness inventions come to the market claiming to increase core strength. Many people believe that core strength is about doing 100s of sit ups, crunches and balancing on gym balls—while, in fact, the opposite is true.

True core strength is the ability of the core muscles to hold your body in a strong stance protecting your spine and allowing your major muscles to work more effectively in performing their task. If we have a strong core, we will move very efficiently and so save energy for any given activity—this is the key to performance in endurance events.

If we watch videos of the greats in our sport, such as Craig Alexander, we notice that their movement looks so easy and relaxed despite the speed and effort they are putting out. This is all due to a strong core and, essentially, movement efficiency.

As endurance athletes we look at the likes of Alexander, Chrissie Wellington, and the great runner Haile Gebrselassie, and we believe that their huge training volume is the key to their success. We may focus on Gebrselassie running 200km a week but we don’t recognize the other work he is doing—the time he spends in the gym to ensure he can maintain his great technique when tired.

Wellington has commented many times on the strength and core conditioning work she does in the gym with Dave Scott and how important it has been to her continued development.

So what exercises are core strength exercises? Well, they are the same exercises I outlined above. The military press is one of my absolute favourite exercises because you need your full abdominal muscles and glutes to be tight and activated to perform it. You will notice after a few reps that it’s not really the shoulders that are giving out, it’s your core that starts shaking first!

Push ups are a great core exercise, again as you need your full abdominals activated. Most athletes, on completing push ups after a layoff, will notice stomach pain the next day, rather than chest and shoulder soreness.

Pull ups also are an amazing core exercise. It has been said that 90% of the population, and also many top athletes, are unable to do these. That’s because you need good body position to be able to get into position for the correct muscles to work to lift up the body and the only way to get into this position is by having an extremely strong core.

I do not believe in separate core routines as I think they should be part of the strength program. As endurance athletes we do not have the time to be in the gym four or five times a week so we should get everything we need with two visits per week.

I suggest going through the above routine once a week, and once a week I like to throw in kettlebell work with some body weight exercises. I like a set which I call the 50’s challenge

• 50 pull ups – rest as needed to complete
• 50 kettlebell swings – start with double arm and progress to single arm
• 50 push up walk outs – from a push up position walk hands forwards and then back
• 50 kettlebell clean and press OR 50 kettlebell snatches
• 50 push ups

3- RECRUITING MUSCLE FIBRES

This is a key area where we can improve endurance performance. When we perform endurance exercise we tend to use a very, very small proportion of our muscle fibres. Typically we use as little as 20% of our quads, for example, when riding and we always use these same fibres every session. As a result, our other muscle fibres are not used to working and when our working fibres get fatigued, the body has nowhere to go and so we slow down.

One area of training that is coming to the fore now is working to improve muscle recruitment. Renato Canova, coach to top Kenyan runners, uses 100-metre max speed hill sprints at the end of easy runs in order to do this, In our ironguides programs we use ALL OUT sprints in the pool and on the bike regularly to do the same, i.e. using a larger proportion of our muscle fibres. By regularly training these muscles, the body has somewhere to go when our normal endurance-trained fibres start to fail.

While sport-specific work is good, I believe we can get an amazing training effect for these fibres in the gym by using isolated muscle machines! While most strength coaches try to avoid these machines at all costs, I think they do have their place in our training programs.

An example is the leg extension machine that isolates the quadriceps. This machine will have an endurance athlete in a lot of pain very quickly as the isolated movement and weight means all muscle fibres are activated straight away and after 8-10 repeats, your legs will be screaming! To get the most out of these exercises, it is important to make the weight heavy so that you can perform around 10-12 repeats before failure. Do not lift so much weight that you fail after 3-5 reps as this will place too much stress on your knee joint. The only machines I use for this work are the leg curl and leg extension.

Summary

Strength training can be an extremely effective tool in your endurance training. Just remember to lift heavy and be specific in what you’re looking to achieve, whether it be specific recovery work, core strength or muscle recruitment training.

Enjoy your training!

4 Ways to Spot Your Weaknesses

If you were a Hollywood celeb or star athlete, you wouldn’t have to think about your workout. You could pay big money to hire a world-class trainer to do that for you.

But if you’re like most of us, you are the person in charge of your lifting plan – choosing your exercises, setting goals for sets and reps, and figuring out how to cram it all into the limited free time you have to hit the gym. So how do you design a workout that best meets your needs?

Thankfully, it’s easier than you think. The following series of simple moves will help you determine your strengths and weaknesses. Once you know the areas where your body is powerful (and where it needs work), you can choose exercises to help you reach your fitness goals.

It’s important to understand how well your body performs the most basic of motions: bodyweight squats, pushups, overhead reaches and lunges.

Self-Assessments: Your Starting Point

Whether you’re a seasoned workout warrior or gym newbie, it’s important to understand how well your body performs the most basic of motions: bodyweight squats, pushups, overhead reaches and lunges.

These moves will tell you a lot about how stable and how mobile you are. If you’re stable, you’re in control. If you’re mobile, you have the range of motion to perform exercises with proper form. If you’re wobbly, shaky or just can’t fathom how your hips could ever sink into a squat, you’ve just discovered an area for improvement.

Assessment 1: Bodyweight Squat

The Test: Stand facing a wall with your legs a little more than shoulder width apart. Descend into a squat. Keep your torso upright, with your knees tracking over your toes. If you fall forward or your knees buckle inward, you’ve got a problem. Either your ankles, hips or upper back don’t have enough flexibility to perform the squat, or your core doesn’t have the strength to remain upright.

The Fix: To address mobility issues in your lower body, you want to open up your hips with exercises such as striders. You can also improve flexibility in your upper back by performing thoracic extensions on a foam roller. Lastly, you should do some planks to strengthen your core.

Striders: Start in a pushup position with your legs, glutes and upper back tight. Lift your right leg and bring your right foot to the outside or your right hand. Return to the starting position and repeat on the left side. Keep your entire body in a straight line during the movement – don’t let your hips drop. Perform up to three sets of eight to 12 repetitions for each leg.

Thoracic Extensions: Lie with a foam roller underneath your back about halfway between your shoulders and hips. Your hips should touch the ground. Tuck your chin but do not stretch your neck, and keep your hips pressed against the ground as you extend over the foam roller as far as you can. Then bring your chin back upward, as if you were doing crunches. Perform two sets of eight to 12 extensions.

Plank: Start either on your hands in a typical pushup position or on your forearms if you find the pushup position too challenging. Tense all of the muscles in your body, including your back, core, glutes and lower legs. Hold this position for one to two minutes. Do up to four sets.

 

 

 

 

Assessment 2: Pushups

The Test: Set up in the top of a pushup with your arms locked. Lower yourself with control, tucking your elbows in toward your sides. Bend your elbows to 90 degrees, then reverse the movement and drive back upwards to the starting position. Perform 10 repetitions, paying particular attention to the following: Does your back remain straight? Were your shoulders wobbly? Did your elbows flare outward? If so, your triceps are weak or you don’t have proper engagement in your core and back to perform the exercise.

The Fix: If the problem was in your core, the fix is simple – add planks to your workout. If the instability felt rooted in your shoulders, try face pulls, which strengthen the shoulder retractors and external rotators. And if your elbows flared outward, dumbbell military presses will help.

Face Pulls: At a cable resistance machine, position a two-handled rope at the highest setting. Grab each end of the rope with an overhand grip and take a step back so that you feel tension on the rope. Your feet can be together or you can use a split-leg stance. Keep your posture straight as you pull each end of the rope in straight line toward your face. Use a lower weight for this exercise and focus on form. Do up to three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions.

Dumbbell Military Press: Stand with a dumbbell in each hand, held at shoulder height. Engage your torso so that your abs, lats and even legs are all supporting you as you push both dumbbells upwards. Your arms should be fully extended at the top. Lower the weights back to your shoulders and repeat. Perform up to four sets of six to12 reps.

 

 

 

 

Assessment 3: Overhead Reach

The Test: Stand upright with your feet parallel and positioned about shoulder width apart. Your hands should be at your sides with your palms facing inward. Engage your core – don’t let your ribs flare out — and lift your arms forward, drawing a half-circle in front of you until your hands are over your head, your arms are straight and your thumbs are pointing behind you. Keep your back straight, and don’t let your lower back hyperextend. If you are unable to reach fully overhead, it’s an indication of poor upper back mobility, a weak core and even potential issues in your hips.

The Fix: This assessment goes hand in hand with the squat assessment, and tells you a lot about your shoulder mobility and posture overall. Many lifters have internally rotated or slouched shoulder posture, which the overhead reach will point out immediately. If your shoulder flexibility is less than you’d like, address it with shoulder stretches on a squat rack. For mobility problems in your back, try some foam roller work. Lastly, use squat-to-stands to fix any issues in your hips.

Shoulder Stretches: Find a squat rack or power cage, bend your arm 90 degrees at your elbow and place your forearm against one of the racks. Turn your torso away from your arm. Keep your trunk in a neutral position with your shoulders and hips parallel as you turn. You should feel a stretch in the front of your shoulders and across your chest. Repeat on the other side. Hold each stretch for 10 to 15 seconds. Do three to four sets.

Foam Roller: Roll back and forth on the foam roller, working out any tightness in your middle to upper back. Roll for 30 to 60 seconds, and do up to three sets. Then turn to your side, keeping the foam roller perpendicular to your torso, and roll out your triceps and lats. Move slowly and deliberately, taking deep breaths whenever you feel discomfort. Repeat the routine on your other side.

Squat-to-Stands: Grab the tops of your toes while trying to keep your back as straight as possible. Squat down, driving your knees toward the outside of your arms. Continue to hold on to the tops of your feet as you extend your hips back up. When you feel tension in your hamstrings or glutes, lower yourself back down. Repeat this pattern for up to two sets of eight to 12 repetitions.

 

 

 

 

Assessment 4: Lunges

The Test: Start by standing upright and take a step forward with your right leg. Plant your right foot squarely on the ground, shifting most of your weight into your right heel.

Lower your body, keeping your torso erect until both your back leg and front leg are bent at 90 degree angles. Your back foot should be up on your toes, and your left knee should just barely be touching the floor. Stay in control as you step forward with your left foot, bringing it directly alongside your right leg. Repeat on the other side. Throughout the routine, your hands can either be at your sides or pressed together in front of your chest.

If you have a tendency to shift side to side, or your front knee is falling forward of your toes, it indicates immobile hips or ankles.

The Fix: Work on the mobility of your ankles with a simple ankle mobility drill.

Ankle Mobility Wall Drill: Stand about one foot away from a wall with your feet flat. Keep your heels down, and drive your right knee forward, trying to touch the wall. Repeat on the other side. Perform eight to 12 repetitions for up to three sets.

Hip Thrusts: Your instability on lunges could be an indication of a weakness in your posterior chain — the backside muscles including your glutes and hamstrings. Because of immobility and misalignment in your hips, your glutes typically don’t work the way they should, which negatively affects your stability. Performing hip thrusts will reactivate your glutes and provide a dynamic stretch on your hips flexors on the front side of your hip.

Lie face up with your upper back on a flat bench and your feet flat on the floor. Keeping your torso and head in a straight line, lower your hips toward the floor. Then reverse the movement by powerfully contracting the glutes and thrusting your hips upward, extending your hips until your knees, hips and torso are in a straight line.

Read more: http://www.livestrong.com/article/553653-4-ways-to-spot-your-weaknesses/#ixzz1ksRNACHv

Upper Body Strength Test

This upper body strength test should be performed to help you see how your current training program is helping you achieve your desired goal – namely to increase upper body strength.

Men should aim to do the upper body test, with a full press-up and women either box or 3/4 press-ups. If you need to use another method, if you don’t have the strength to perform a full press up, this will influence your scoring.

Remember to always perform this test, working within your own limits, and record both the method that you used, and the number of repetitions that you achieved in 1 minute.

Always warm up your upper body muscles and give them a good stretch prior to performing this test, it may only be a 1 minute workout but you will certainly feel sore the following day if you forget to stretch.

As you become fitter you may decide to change your press up style, for example go from a 3/4 press up to a full press up, however you will clearly do less repetitions when you make the exercise harder.

If possible try and get someone to count the repetitions for you, making sure that only the good reps count – its easy as you become tired not to lower down as far as your first rep.

Focus on keeping good form throughout, there is nothing wrong with stopping for a few seconds to shake the arms out before continuing.

MEN	POOR	AVG	GOOD	EXCEL’T
18 – 35	< 17	18 / 29	30 / 39	40 +
35 – 50	<12	13 / 20	21 / 30	31 +
50+	<8	9 / 15	16 / 22	23 +

WOMEN	POOR	AVG	GOOD	EXCEL’T
18 – 35	<12	13 / 19	20 / 29	30 +
35 – 50	<10	11 /16	17 / 24	25 +
50+	<8	9 / 13	14 / 20	21 +