I've talked quite a bit in the past about how much I like bottoms-up kettlebell exercises to get great "reflexive" firing of the rotator cuff and scapular stabilizers in a more unstable environment. I'm also a big fan of carrying variations - so it gets me pretty pumped up when I can combine the two!  With that in mind, today, I want to talk about the 1-arm Bottoms-up Kettlebell Carry.

This is an exercise that I really like to utilize with a lot of our baseball players early in the off-season, as it teaches them to relax the latissimus dorsi to allow proper scapular upward rotation to take place.  My two biggest cues are to "keep the biceps quiet" and "don't let the lower back arch."  If you do these two things, chances are that everything else will "click" just right.  Check out this video for a more detailed coaching tutorial:

I like to program 2-4 sets of 30-40yds on each arm. We'll often use this in place of a pressing exercise with our baseball guys, particularly in the early off-season when we're working to establish optimal scapular upward rotation after a long season.  Give it a shot for yourself and you'll find that it'll quickly be a great addition to your strength training programs, whether you're a throwing athlete or not!

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Today's guest post comes from CP Coach, Greg Robins.

Since this website first launched, Eric has gone to great lengths to focus on coaching cues you can use to fine-tune your technique on a number of strength exercises.  If you check out his YouTube page, you’ll be greeted with hundreds of videos, many with thorough instructions on now only the “how,” but also the why.

With that said, when I’m working with lifters in person, I always find myself stressing the “little” things to them. In reality, these “little” tips are a really BIG deal. They’re not something taught in the typical exercise science curriculum, nor are they something that crosses the mind of someone who hasn’t taught hundreds of people how to do an exercise. In fact, even people who have spent decades in the gym tend to pass over these sorts of things because they have just become second nature to them.

Taking the time to teach someone these things will set them up for continued success, as well as keep them from having to learn many small lessons the “hard way.”

The number one thing I stress to lifters is to not overlook the set-up. It’s imperative that lifters know how to get in place for an exercise before actually demonstrating the movement. I will usually reference the following phrase:

“Hard start, easy finish”

I’m not sure where I heard this phrase originally, but it has stuck with me for many years. It is obviously applicable to more than lifting weights, and a solid reminder that the harder we work at the start, the smoother the sailing thereafter.

In terms of exercise technique, the more stock you put into your set-up, the better your form and performance will be thereafter.

If you are a coach, MAKE IT A POINT to teach people where to set the pins on the squat rack, how to position the body, their feet, the bar, the weights, etc.  These small tips will make an enormous difference in shortening the learning curve and making exercises more effective as well as safer.

Below, I’ll discuss and demonstrate five set-up points for different lifts. These tips should help out with your own efforts in the gym, as well as with those you may be instructing.

1. Watch your foot position on Bulgarian split squats.

2. Make sure the pins are set correctly to allow you to “get tight” on back squats.

3. Teach the hip thrust from the finish position.

4. Don’t butcher the feet-elevated inverted row set-up.

5. Avoid these common rotary stability set-up mistakes.

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Today, we've got an outstanding guest post from Dave Dellanave, author of the awesome new resource, Off the Floor: A Manual for Deadlift Domination.

There is a lot of really fantastic deadlift information available on the internet. To be fair, there’s a lot of bad information, too, but that’s another post. The only downside is that it seems like every article falls into one of two camps: either it’s for raw beginners, or for advanced lifters. This is great if you’re just getting started, or tweaking your program to find a few more pounds, but if you’re just on the cusp of surpassing beginner status, it might leave you scratching your head.

Next to people simply lifting too much weight, the most common “mistake” I see from beginners is that they’re afraid to add weight to the bar or to shift to a better starting position. Usually these are people who have diligently put in a fair amount of practice reps, have been reading all the right authors online, and have a desire to do things properly. Whether for fear of injury, or simply because of the desire to do it “right,” they hesitate to make the leap. I’ll come back to what those changes might be in a moment.

My good friend Bret Contreras and I had a long conversation about this in a call we did for Off The Floor. Ultimately, the conclusion we came to on the call is that you’d do well to connect with a qualified coach and get an evaluation. That way, they can see how you move in general and how you deadlift, and hopefully give you the green light to add weight without further hesitation. If you’re not ready, they can tell you what to work on or fix to get there.

Upon thinking about this question more, I stand by my original answer, but I think with the visual aid of some stills stolen from YouTube, I can offer a good rule of thumb for when you can take the next step. First, let’s talk about the two big changes that people need to make when they transition from “beginner form” to more “advanced deadlifter form.”

The first big change is starting from a higher hip position. The way most people are taught to deadlift (and this is how I teach clients at my gym) is to start with the hips very low, chest and shoulders “high” relative to the hips and to “squat” the weight up for the initial portion of the lift, and then finish by extending the hips. This is good because it keeps the back in a nice neutral or slightly extended position throughout the hardest part of the lift on the back. This allows a beginner with a relatively weak back to strengthen it. If you look at the form of the very strongest deadlifters in the world, however (Bret did a great post on this with tons of still frames), you will see that every single one of them starts with a higher hip position. At some point you, too, are likely to need to make this change.

Here’s a guy who has (unsuccessfully) made the transition from a higher starting position. He loses position more and more throughout the lift. Luckily for him, he knows it’s bad so presumably he’ll drop the weight and work on getting stronger.

The second change is the actual addition of more weight to the bar. It sounds simple, but I have added 50 or more pounds to a person’s best deadlift in one training session in the past. As much as I’d like to take credit for that as “trainer mojo,” the reality is that they had never even come close to even approaching their limits in the past. Now, keep in mind, I’m not advocating that everyone go out and explore their outer limits — in fact, I am a staunch advocate of always working within your limits. However, if you could potentially lift 350 pounds and you’ve never lifted more than 250 pounds because you were hesitant, you don’t have to get even near your limit to lift 300.

Things start to feel different when you get closer to your limit, and that sometimes makes people uneasy. The fact is, the lift does change. A fantastic 2011 study by Swinton et al. tracked the path of the bar from the floor to lockout at weights ranging from 10 percent to 80 percent of one-rep max. In theory, the path of the bar is a straight line. In reality, there is about a 7-centimeter (nearly 3 inches) difference in the path from the lightest of weights to 80 percent of max, with the heavier weight drifting farther away. If that doesn’t seem like a lot, try deadlifting with the bar 3 inches away from your shins — on second thought, don’t do that and just take my word for it. Changing the bar path by that much changes everything about how the lift feels. And that’s not even 90 or 100 percent.

(Source: Swinton, PA et al. J Strength Cond Res. 2011 Jul;25(7):2000-9.)

These two changes are not independent of one another, either. At some point, to be able to lift more weight, you will need to make changes that put you in a more favorable position to lift bigger loads.

Here is someone who has clearly put in the time to hone his technique, but he needs to put more weight on the bar and possibly even start with a higher hip position. Either way, he’s ready for more weight.

So, how do you know when it’s time? Here are two questions you can use to make the call:

1. Can you maintain your back position throughout the lift up to the heaviest weights with which you’re comfortable? If your back rounds or arches more and more as you lift the weight, you need a stronger back. A lift at 80 or 90 percent of your current max should look the same as 40 percent of your max.  Nearly everyone has a phone with video capabilities now, so shoot a video from the side and compare. If your form is significantly changing as the weight rises, you’re adding too much weight. If your form doesn’t change – it’s time to put more weight on the bar.
2. Can you lift 1.5x your bodyweight (for men) or 1x your bodyweight (for women) with form that looks the same as half that? If so, you have probably laid enough of a strength foundation to move on to a more favorable starting position with higher hips. When you do so, keep in mind that you still want to keep a good, solid back position that doesn’t go anywhere near end range of motion in either flexion or extension.

Look, these heuristics aren’t perfect — remember I said your best bet is a good coach — but if that isn’t an option then you have a few guidelines to help you move forward. Work within your limits, respect them, and listen to the feedback your body gives you. If it hurts, don’t do it. But if you’ve built a solid base of strength, you can’t get any stronger without moving forward.

Looking for more insights like these on the deadlift - as well as a great program to help you improve your pull?  Be sure to check out Dave's new product, Off the Floor: A Manual for Deadlift Domination, which is on sale at a great price until Saturday at midnight. I've read it beginning to end, and it's fantastic.

About the Author

David Dellanave is a lifter, coach, and owner of The Movement Minneapolis in the Twin Cities. He implements biofeedback techniques, teaching his clients, ranging from athletes to general population, to truly understand what their bodies are telling them. He writes articles to make you stronger, look better naked, and definitely deadlift more at http://www.dellanave.com/. You can follow him on Twitter at @ddn.

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In the fitness industry, for some reason, folks like to pigeonhole coaches into certain specialty roles. Over the years, I've been called the "mobility guy," "the baseball guy," and - most applicable to today's article - "the deadlift guy."  You see, I really enjoy picking heavy things up off the ground, and I've gotten pretty good at doing so. 

As a "deadlift guy" (whether I really identify with that label or not!), I've gotten a lot of inquiries over the years.  These questions relate to programming, technique, exercise selection, and a host of even more obscure topics (such as: "why does my iPhone always auto-correct 'deadlift' to 'deadliest;' doesn't anyone at Apple actually lift weights?").  In the process of answering loads of these questions and coaching thousands people on how to deadlift, I've picked up on some trends that explain why many people don't make deadlift progress.  Contrary to what you may assume, the deadlift is definitely a unique exercise that must be trained a bit differently than just about any other strength exercise.  With that in mind, here are my top five keys for long-term deadlift progress.

1. Don't have setbacks.

This could be said of all training goals, but the unfortunate truth is that a lot of people get hurt deadlifting.  This might be because of poor deadlift technique or inappropriate programming, but regardless of the true cause, it goes without saying that it's a big issue.

I learned this lesson early (age 21), as just a week after I pulled 400 for the first time, I felt a nice "pop" in my lower back during a warm-up set at 225.  It set me back a good 3-4 months, but was a blessing in disguise, as it scared me into grooving better technique, as opposed to just piling more and more strength on top of a dysfunctional pattern.  From there on out, I did a much better job of not only lifting with better technique, but also fluctuating my training stress within the strength training program and individual training sessions.

2. Recognize that your body may not be ready for specific deadlift variations.

I've pulled 660 with a conventional stance, 630 sumo, and 700 on the trap bar.  A big part of me being able to train all three lifts (and their variations) regularly was the fact that I'd built a good foundation of mobility and stability that enabled me to execute the lifts from a safe position.  Unfortunately, this isn't the case with everyone who deadlifts for the first time.  In fact, for many general population folks, the conventional deadlift might never be an option purely from a risk: reward standpoint, as they simply can't get into a safe starting position to start the lift.  For that reason, we start all our athletes and clients with the trap bar, progress to sumo deadlifts, and see where things stand.  Programming a conventional deadlift on Day 1 is like sending a 7th grader into a calculus class when he needs algebra first.

3. Train the deadlift frequently, but not necessarily with high volume.

It never ceases to amaze me how many lifters I encounter who say they want to improve the deadlift, yet answer "twice a month" when I ask them how often they train the lift!  For some reason, many folks in the powerlifting world latched on the idea that if you just trained the squat or good morning, it'd automatically carry over to the deadlift.  Sorry, that just isn't the case - at least not if you want to make optimal progress.

I'd estimate that I've trained the deadlift twice a week for 80% of my training career, and once a week for the other 20%.  It's almost always trained after the squat within the training session.  It may be lighter and for speed, or heavier for sets of 1-5 reps.

I can't say that I've ever spent much time above six reps, though.  I find that my percentages fall off quickly, and doing a lot of high rep work at 60% of my one-rep max doesn't really do much for me besides give me a raging headache. Seriously, every time I pull heavy for high reps; my head pounds for a good day - and I really don't feel like it gets me any closer to where I need to be.

Either train heavy or train to be fast off the floor, but don't train to be slow, and methodical by conserving your energy for 87-rep sets.

4. Upper back, upper back, upper back!

Buying shirts and suit jackets is a royal pain in the butt, as my upper back is considerably larger than my arms.  In fact, the size of my upper back is what inevitably forced me to go from the 165- to 181-pound weight class during my powerlifting days - in spite of the fact that I was trying to keep my weight down.  I think it speaks volumes for how important upper back strength is for the deadlift, as my pulls were improving considerably faster than my squats over this time period. To give you a feel for how accidentally disproportionate deadlifting has made me over the years, take note of this recent picture. In looking at my traps, one would think that all I need to do is develop an underbite, and then I could have a prosperous career as a troll underneath a bridge, demanding tolls from unsuspecting passersby.

Very simply, having a strong upper back enables you to control the bar, as opposed to it controlling you.  It's obviously of great importance to getting the shoulder blades back at the top of the lift, but it's also essential to making sure that the bar doesn't drift away from you, which would effectively increase the distance between the weight and the axis of rotation (hips).  Letting the bar drift away from you doesn't just decrease the likelihood of you completing the lift; it also raises the stress on your spine, increasing your likelihood of injury.  Having a strong upper back helps to spare your lower back.

You'll find the best carryover from rowing variations, farmer's walks, and rack pulls. However, vertical pulling variations (chin-ups, etc) can still have a beneficial effect.  I also always responded well to doing heavy single-leg work, as it challenged my grip and upper back while I was still training the lower half.

5. Have a plan.

It's easy to build a solid deadlift, but taking a "decent" amount of success and expecting it to automatically translate to really big time deadlift numbers is a recipe for disaster, as what you do to get to a 315 deadlift is going to be dramatically different from what you do to try to pull 500.  Very simply, you need a plan.

To that end, if you're looking for a good deadlift development program, I'd encourage you to check out The Specialization Success Guide. Whether you want to pack some poundage on your deadlift or just pick up some heavy stuff to look, feel, and move better, this is a great resource that I'd encourage you to check out.

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In part 1 of this article, I talked a lot about the financial portion of starting a training facility.  If you missed it, definitely give it a read before you move forward with this article, as this second installment won't mean much if you have no money when you start up!

With part 2, I'll focus more on the actual decisions we made with respect to planning our staff, business model, and actual gym space. We'll pick it up with point #4, as Part 1 included the first three.  What's funny about these points is that I can distinctly remember sitting down for dinner at Applebee's with my business partner, Pete, and discussing them.  We wrote our notes on a napkin.

4. We started small.

Cressey Sports Performance 1.0 could have been politely described as a dungeon.  This is actually the view on the second day.

It was very rough on the eyes, so we had to put in a lot of renovations in the first few weeks to make it more aesthetically appealing.

Still, in spite of what we invested on this side of things, it still wasn’t what I’d consider a showcase location. Rather, it was our "test facility."  We had to make sure that our business model was sustainable and profitable before writing checks our butts couldn't cash.  In other words, we made a good decision by starting small.

That first facility was only 3,300 square feet.  The rent and utilities were very reasonable, and it allowed us to get profitable quickly.  Just as importantly, it helped to give the perception of "busyness" that you want in order to create good energy in the gym.  Had we gone to 10,000 square feet right off the bat, we would have dug ourselves a much deeper hole – and I question whether we would have been able to establish a great training environment early on. Rather, it might have felt like a personal training studio – which doesn’t exactly get young athletes excited.  While we longed for a larger facility, we resisted the urge - and instead opted to satisfy our temptations by getting panoramic shots of our ~1,500 square foot weight room to make it seem really big to us.

Only nine months later, we moved three miles east to CSP 2.0.  It was 6,600 square feet.

Then, 18 months later, we knocked down a wall to bump it up to 7,600 square feet by taking on some new office space.

Finally, 2.5 years later, we essentially doubled our space again, going to our current 15,000+ square-foot space.

The other hidden benefit of gradually increasing your space is that you can get away with making facility design mistakes along the way, as you simply commit them to heart and then work them into your next expansion.  You don't get that luxury if you start at 25,000 square feet, especially since you're usually more worried about paying rent than managing the "flow" of the facility and optimizing the client experience.

The moral of the story is to start small and give yourself room to grow. This might mean you need to sign shorter-term leases to allow for these adjustments, or just seek out a building that you know has room into which you can expand.

5. We purchased equipment our clients needed, not just stuff we thought would be fun to have.

This is a basic lesson, but an important one nonetheless.  We all (hopefully) learn the difference between "need" and "want" at a young age.  However, the ability to make this differentiation often escapes fitness entrepreneurs when they plan their new facilities and are perusing equipment catalogs and websites.  Don't buy stuff you want to train yourself; buy stuff you need to train your clients.

Just like 25,000 square feet isn't necessary if you only have five clients, a $10,000 machine probably isn't necessary - especially right off the bat. You probably don't need a leg curl - let alone four different varieties of leg curls.  It's much easier to add items later than it is to have to continually look at (and pay off) an unnecessary piece of equipment you never use.

As an interesting frame of reference, in our last facility expansion, we added about 7,500 square feet, but only two pieces of equipment: an extra set of farmer's walk handles and a Prowler.  We just needed more space.

Remember that it's your expertise and the training culture and environment you create - not equipment bells and whistles - that brings people back.

6. We selected a sustainable niche.

I've written at length in the past about how we found and developed the baseball "niche" and expanded our business in this avenue.  One of the key points I made what that we made a point of picking a population segment that was sustainable.  You can't pick farmers in New York City and expect to thrive, nor would you be able to train surfers in Ohio.  There are cultural, geographical, scarcity, financial, and logistical factors one has to consider in making this specialization decision.

Our "niche" came about somewhat by accident, but our development of it was absolutely, positively no accident.  In fact, our approach to baseball training and growing our business in this regard is incredibly calculated.  Believe it or not, by popular demand, we added a one-hour business development presentation from my business partner, Pete Dupuis, as part of our Elite Baseball Mentorships - and he received insanely positive reviews.

7. We complemented ourselves instead of replicating ourselves.

I've written about this in the past, so this will be brief. If you're going into business, don't just pick business partners and initial employees because they are "just like you."  Pick people whose skillsets complement yours.  If you don't, your entire staff is going to be standing around with hammers looking to smash nails when you really need a screwdriver. 

As a quick example, my goal on a daily basis is to do zero administrative business tasks; we have a business director and office manager who handle these responsibilities so that I can best leverage my strengths.

8. We established a good network.

Your network may consist of professionals to whom you refer clients (physical therapists, massage therapists, pitching and hitting instructors), or those to whom you look for business advice (accountant, equipment supply company, business consultant).  These are all relationships you can establish before your business is up and running, as they are important and must be trusted resources before you have already backed yourself into a corner where you're too busy to critically evaluate their role with respect to your business.  Essentially, my recommendation is to not just establish a network, but be meticulous early on in making sure these individuals are a good fit for your business. If you don't do this up-front leg work, these individuals can make your business look very bad at a time (start-up) when you need to look very good.

Closing Thoughts

I hope that these last five points have complemented the three from part 1 nicely in order to give you a more comprehensive perspective from which to draw when starting up a fitness business.  As you can probably tell, there are a lot of incorrect paths you can pursue if you don't critically evaluate important decisions in the planning stages.  For more insights on this front, I'd encourage you to sign up for our Business Building Mentorship that's taking place September 22-24. For the first time, it'll be offered in a 100% online format. You can learn more HERE.

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Those of you who have followed along with my "Exercise of the Week" series probably can tell by now that I'm a fan of "big bang for your buck" exercises.  This isn't just limited to multi-joint strength exercises like deadlifts, bench presses, lunges, squats, overhead presses, chin-ups, and rows, though.  Rather, it can also apply to mobility exercises because - let's face it - single-joint warm-ups are boring and take too long.  Here's one mobility warm-up drill we'll use to improve thoracic mobility and pec length while opening up the hips.  Simultaneously, you're training the anterior core to resist excessive lumbar extension (arching at the lower back).

For the throwers out there reading this post, be sure to avoid really cranking those elbows back; chances are you already have plenty of range-of-motion.  Just focus more on resisting the excessive arching of the lumbar spine.

Looking for more great mobility drills like this?  Check out Assess and Correct: Breaking Barriers to Unlock Performance.

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Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading.  We've got more of a baseball focus this week.

Teres Major: An Important Muscle that is Often Overlooked in Throwers - Here's an awesome post from Mike Reinold with both an anatomical and functional basis.

Our Turn to Learn: A Baseball Tradition Reconsidered - I'm quickly becoming a big fan of Gabe Kapler's guest blogs on WEEI.com.  In this piece, he talks about how American baseball could steal some great lessons from the Japanese approach to batting practice.

7 Ways to Stand Out at a Camp - This was a good piece in New England Baseball Journal about how kids can stand out at college baseball camps. I think the body language point is the best one.

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Today's guest post comes from Cressey Performance coach, Greg Robins.  Be sure to check out his new website, which just went live.

Reverse band bench presses and squats are becoming more and more common inclusions in strength training programs these days, as accommodating resistances – bands and chains, in particularly – have really surged in popularity.  With that in mind, I wanted to use today’s article to provide some tips on when to use reverse bands in your training, and also demonstrate how to set them up – even if you just have a regular ‘ol squat rack.

I must admit, I am not incredibly well versed on why or when people have traditionally trained with methods that allow you to “overload.” Overloading, in my eyes, is most commonly a way to get your body adjusted to heavier weights. This is done with either the help of spotters, or more commonly by using bands and chains. In the context of today’s theme, I would like to consider overloading in the context of using a reverse band set-up. 

Reverse bands should be rigged to be lax at the top of a lift, and tight at the bottom. By doing so, we unload a certain number of pounds at the bottom of a lift, and have the weight gradually increase as we move the bar and the bands lose tension.  By using this set-up, the bands are the most taut in the bottom position, meaning you’ll use the least amount of weight at the point in the strength curve when you’re the weakest.  Conversely, they’ll have very little tension at the top, where you’re stronger.

While there are many different ways to utilize reverse band set-ups, I’ll simply share my experiences with them. Let me preface the following by saying that we do not use them on a deadlift, only the squat and bench press.

1. Use reverse bands to build confidence.

First, reverse bands can serve as an excellent training TOOL. The confidence in knowing the weight will unload towards the bottom, gives you the opportunity to practice lowering weights at high speeds in order to maximize the reactive strength you have via the stretch shortening cycle.

This is most advantageous with the squat, but works with the bench press as well. The confidence in handling heavy weights will have great mental carry-over into the lifts when the bands are missing.

2. Use reverse bands for hypertrophy.

Hypertrophy is primarily the result of increased volume. Each time I have seen significant muscle gains in myself, or my clients, it has come at a time when the appropriate increases of volume occurred.

Reverse bands will allow you to add some smart volume to a program geared towards maximizing muscle gains. The reason is two-fold.

First, the overloading nature of reverse bands will allow you to handle more total tonnage. Second, the bands also play a part in stabilizing the weight for you. Therefore, I find you can train it more often, either in a single session or a program as a whole.

3. Use reverse bands for scheduled deloads.

One area I have found myself using reverse bands more often is during my “back-off” weeks. The bands make it possible to “feel” heavier weights, without it being overly strenuous on your system. This strategy works well in a few scenarios.

First off, if you are someone who trains sub-maximally, then heavy work with the reverse bands makes sense. It produces significantly less volume, and allows you to continually remember what it feels like being under a heavy loads.

Second, my training partner Jamie Smith recently commented on how our somewhat spontaneous usage of the bands in recent deloads was actually perfect for our training cycle. We train in “blocks” that move from periods of lower intensity to periods of higher intensity. Sometimes, the jump from one block to another can be pretty high (in terms of actual weight on the bar). By bridging the gap during deloads with reverse band set-ups, we both felt more prepared going into our next training block.

With these approaches in mind, here are some video tutorials on how to set up for reverse band bench presses and squats, respectively:

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The deadlift from a deficit is a strength exercise that has gained some popularity in recent years, and it's popping up in more resistance training programs.  Unfortunately, it's an exercise that sounds a lot better on the internet than it plays out in the real world.  I have a lot of one-time consultations at Cressey Sports Performance with people who have a history of lower back pain after deadlifts, and not surprisingly, a lot of them have attempted the deficit deadlift when they have no business performing it, as the risk-reward ratio is far too high.

To that end, in our Functional Stability Training of the Lower Body resource, I devoted a segment of my deadlift presentation to the topic.  Here's a free preview:

To view the rest of the presentation (and eight others), be sure to check out Functional Stability Training of the Lower Body.

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Here's this week's list of recommended strength and conditioning reading:

Elite Training Mentorship - In our August update, I have an in-service called "7 Ways to Progress a Push-up," as well as two new exercise demonstrations and an article.  Add in great content from Mike Robertson, Vaughn Bethell, Tyler English, Dave Schmitz, and the Smarter Group Training guys, and you've got loads of new valuable training information waiting for you.

Lessons in Coaching - This article from Mike Robertson should be "must-read" material for all new strength and conditioning coaches and personal trainers.

7 Squat Dilemmas Solved - This squat article from Bret Contreras is a great complement to the excellent piece Dean Somerset wrote for T-Nation a few weeks ago.

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