Athletic Variations to Common Exercises

Training like a bodybuilder will make your muscles look good, but it won’t make you move better. Isolating body parts is great for inflating those muscles, but it creates inefficiency and prevents fascia from gliding smoothly, potentially leading to injury. The goal is not more muscle, but more useful muscle.

Train the Body as One

Our entire body is connected through our fascia and in order to train athletically we must use our entire body during exercise. Most guys do the same bodybuilding/powerlifting routine for years and this leads to stiff joints and slow, inefficient bodies. If your goal is health or performance, train your entire body together as often as possible as you build muscle to maintain athleticism.

Heel-elevation

When walking, running, jumping, or moving athletically we want very little weight in the heels because heavy heels is slower and leads to common knee injuries. Keep weight in the toes to allow your body to use the lower body spiral. Athletic movement doesn't involve the heels, so avoid heavy heel contact during your exercise when possible.

When running, our lower body creates a bow using the strong IT band fascia. In order to use this strong fascia we need to keep the outer foot and toes as the primary contact points, not the heels.

Unfortunately, It’s common practice to place all the weight into the heels when lifting because this makes you more stable. Most coaches recommend the "tripod foot" with heavy heels and many coaches even elevate the heels during things like squats, but they don't realize they're making the feet and ankles weak and uncoordinated. For years I lifted with the conventional tripod foot, but when I started doing Muay Thai I realized my feet and ankles were unable to support my strong hip muscles and I couldn't move around how I wanted. Most guys have hip and upper body muscles that are too big and strong for the feet and ankles to control, and this leads to injury. It's one reason for why modern athletes have so many non-contact injuries: they have big, strong muscles but poor an inability to absorb force below the knee. Weight in the toes builds coordination and connection for the whole body to move athletically.

The first exercise to master is the drop-in as this trains the coordination of the lower limb and the ability to co-contract the front and back of the leg simultaneously. Practice this for 30 seconds per side a few sets per day until you start to feel strong standing on one foot with the heel elevated. This will improve how you walk and run and it's essential for keeping joints healthy as you age.

Use heel-elevated exercises like the heel-elevated squat or lunge. These videos explain the concept of co-contraction where we engage the muscles on both sides of the body to better utilize our fascial systems.

Elevating the heels is the simplest solution to increasing the athleticism and transfer of gym exercise to functional daily use. You can do this for all lower body exercises: squats, lunges, split squats, and deadlifts. It isn’t necessary to fully lift your heels off the ground. Just putting as much pressure into your toes as possible is a great place to start as this will improve engagement of all your muscles below the knees. After doing this for a few weeks, you’ll wonder why you ever lifted with disengaged feet!

Coiling Core

Side bending is the source of torso power. The spine and torso are the primary engine for movement: walking, running, jumping, throwing, punching, etc. Try throwing a baseball without first side-bending your torso - it just doesn’t work. In order to use the core athletically, we must learn the coiling core technique.

Start by learning how to coil your body by side bending to lengthen one side and shorten the other. Bring one side shoulder down and back as that same side hip moves up and forward to decrease the distance between the two. This side bend creates a rotation force by using the natural curves of the spine to create torque. This is how the torso generates force for crawling, walking, running, throwing, punching, and swinging.

Once you've become accustomed to how to coil, use exercises that include this coil like the cable rotation press and coiling cable row.

You can apply the coiling core technique to any exercise by adding a side-bend or rotation to exercises you're already doing. Get creative and learn to use this coiling core in all exercises to build torso strength and coordination.

Single Side Variation

Most exercises in the gym are bilateral - both sides work the same way at the same time - think chest press, squat, or deadlift. These exercises are great for building muscle size and strength, however, in daily life we rarely have this symmetrical set-up. Instead, we’re often in a split stance, pressing or pulling with one arm only, or carrying awkward or uneven loads. To move better in daily life, train mostly single side exercises.

Choose a lunge over a squat, a single-leg deadlift over a barbell deadlift, a single arm press over a bench press, and a half-kneeling cable row over a seated row if your goal is moving better. Training one side at a time will reduce the imbalances present in your body and improve your core strength and coordination.

Training one side at a time allows us to avoid common overuse and imbalance injuries and it requires greater core activation. Think of the movements you're currently doing and consider switching to single-side variations to train your fascial system and athleticism.

Conclusion

There’s nothing wrong with training like a bodybuilder or powerlifter, as these strategies are effective for building muscle and strength, but if that’s all you do it’s more likely for you to experience imbalance, chronic pain, and a loss of athleticism. The body is all connected, not isolated, yet most of the training in the gym for athletics or chronic pain relief is focused on isolation. Elevate your heels, coil your core, and train one side at a time to make better exercise selections that improve athleticism and coordination.

For a custom plan or individual private coaching, schedule a consultation today!