Strength | DEAN COULSON

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Maximal Strength, Strength

Why is the Posterior Chain Important?

The 7 Best Posterior Chain Exercises You Can Do

I have seen so many guys working out in gyms over the years and they all do the same things….

They work out the muscles they can see, the mirror muscles.

Now thats all well and good, but if you are going to do that you are gonna miss out on some big ass size and strength gains and probably cripple yourself with muscle imbalances and injuries.

You gotta work the posterior chain!

The posterior chain are the muscles that cover the back of your body – Upper, mid and lower back, glutes, hamstrings and calves.

They make up some of the largest muscle groups on your body and any exercise that works them will give you a huge advantage in strength and power.

Because they are overlooked they stay small and it shows. Strengthening these muscles not only gives you a bigger overall size and better strength development, but it also brings up lifts such as the squat and bench press.

Lets just say there are far too many guys n gals who skip a leg day because it is too damn hard!

Lets just see why this is important shall we?

Firstly in this modern world we live increasing sedentary lives, we sit down way too much, in front of the TV, to eat, to drive to work, then sit behind a desk at work. Damn basically most of the day!

Our posture becomes poor, we hunch forwards all day in these positions then we head to the gym to train the very same mirror muscles, the Chest, shoulders and arms, the very things that are tight and what puts the posterior muscles in an even weaker position.

This will eventually lead to imbalances, weaknesses and injuries.

The key to all of this is balance, with even more emphasis on the posterior muscles, in fact to redress the balance you should look at doing 2 posterior chain exercises to each anterior chain muscle.

So strengthening your posterior chain will improve your strength and all of your lifts, reduce the risk of injuries and will create a rock hard set of glutes.

Sounds like a win/win to me!

So here are my favourite top 7 exercises for the posterior Chain

1) Dead lifts

You cannot get away from the fact the the deadlift is probably THE best posterior chain exercise, it simply rocks! I love it and it kicks my ass regularly. There is simply nothing better than lifting a big weight off the floor especially with correct form. It nails so main muscles including the entire back, hamstrings and glutes as well as hitting the core muscles hard. Make sure you perform this correctly. Best way to tell is if those muscles aren’t hurting you with DOMS the next day, you are either doing it wrong or you already have imbalances that need addressing!

2) Hip Thrusts

This is a glute exercise and is excellent for improving strength, speed and power. Remember the glutes are key in many sports and they cannot be neglected. The Hip thrust hits them perfectly. If your glutes are underdeveloped, your speed, power and strength are all compromised.
You can improve, strength, size and appearance of you butt, increase sports performance such as speed and acceleration of your sprints. Increase squat and deadlifts and improve overall movement as weak glutes can influence mobility in your ankle, knee, hip, pelvis and lower back.

3) Glute Ham Raise

I GHR machine is something you rarely see in commercial gyms. In my opinion they are highly underrated and are a brilliant piece of kit and a great way to hit the glutes and hamstrings as well as your calves and lower back. you can even look at making your own and utilising your own body weight. This exercise will definitely increase your squat, deadlift allowing you to run faster and jump higher.

4) Hill Sprinting

Sprinting has always developed great glutes and hamstrings, assuming your glutes are switched on and working that is. Sitting on your butt all day is a sure fired way to tell your body to switch them off due to lack of use. This can result in other muscles taking on the the role, which can lead to imbalances and dysfunction. if in doubt, see a good physical therapist to make sure your body is firing on all cylinders.

Anyway I digress. Sprinting up a hill places great emphasis on your glutes and hamstrings, but unlike flat sprints lessens the chance of hamstring pulls as you cannot go all out up a hill. For more info on how to set up a hill sprinting session, see my post here

5) Kettlebell swings

Kettlebells are a fantastic tool for increased strength and conditioning and also happen to be great at hitting the posterior chain. The swing is a perfect example of this. Done with correct form they hit the glutes hard. You soon know if you are doing them right as your lower back will let you know if you don’t. It is important to know that the swing is instigated by a thrust from the hips, literally driving the arms forwards with the thighs. Lifting before the thrust will place the emphasis on the lower back. The other important thing is not to squat, you hip hinge backwards, slightly bending the legs then use the glutes to drive forwards and lock out with a squeeze.

6) Romanian Deadlifts

Ok its a dead lift, but I think it is different enough to be mentioned separately to the traditional version. Why? Because it hits parts of the posterior chain differently, by that I mean it places more emphasis on the hamstrings. What is key here is the execution, which can easily be screwed up. You also start this lift fully erect off a rack instead of from the floor. Other critical factors are proper alignment of the head and neck, chin tucked in and neck in neutral alignment, chest out, lower back in slight lordosis, knees bent at 15-20 degrees from the start and feet pointing forward but no more that 15 degrees out.

7) Bulgarian Split Squats

Man I love to hate these. I hate them when I do them, but love the results they give and since it is all about the results, they get a mention here. Bulgarian split squats are an excellent exercise. The key to these is the set up position and determining how far you need to stand from the bench/box or whatever you are using to balance your rear foot on. Too far forwards or back can cause pain in the knee or groin. It takes some trial and error to get it right.

Starting out I would recommend body weight and from the bottom position to help develop the correct movement pattern. From there you can use a dumbbell in a goblet hold, then a dumbbell in each hand. You can even use kettlebells, weight vest, chains or even a barbell. The options are many, but progress sensibly 🙂

So there you have it. The posterior chain is immense in strength development, but it is also important to remember that you have to train all muscles to prevent imbalances and injury. It should never be neglected, in fact it should be embraced. So next time you are at the gym make sure you stick some of these posterior chain exercises in 🙂

For help on any aspect of your training feel free to get in touch at dean@assert-fitness.co.uk. we run personalised training programs online and would love to help you.

to your strength and health

Dean

Maximal Strength, Strength

7 Kick Ass Core Exercises You Should Be Doing!!

Today I want to bust some myths about working your abs and doing endless crunches.

Everyone these days seems to want a six pack and think endless crunches and sit ups will get you there. Lets get one thing straight, unless you change your diet and your training you ain’t gonna see them.

You need to strip away the body fat because guess what? every one has a six pack, it is just covered over and the only way to see it is to strip back the fat and put some hard work in.

Once you are nailing your nutrition, you can enhance their look through proper exercise selection.

So forget about endless crunches, the best way is to focus on strength and stability. If this area isn’t stable you are going to end up with a whole host of potential issues including muscle imbalances and lower back pain.

The following exercises will definitely give you a rock hard midsection….

Ab Wheel Rollouts – A simple exercise with minimal equipment. A Power wheel is good for this or you can buy a cheap wheel from a sports store, you can even use 2 dumbbells or even a barbell. This is a great exercise to hit the midsection. from your knees or standing place the wheel out on the ground in front of you and whilst bracing your abs roll forwards as far as you can, you are looking get your head in between your arms, pause and roll back. The key hear is to roll back and curl your abs tight, don’t try keep your back straight on the way back. To make it harder, work from a standing position.
L-Sit – Commonly performed by male gymnasts, so you know that these are going to work. Support yourself in the top position of a dip or from a dead hang on a pull up station. Bend both knees 90 degrees and raise your thighs until they are parallel with the floor. As this gets easier work your way toward extending your legs. Hold this position for up to 30 seconds per set. Or start from the floor by sitting with your legs out in front, keeping your back straight, arms on the floor either side of your body, engage the core muscles and try taking your legs off the floor. Progress this by using stools and benches of equal height, bar dips or even suspension straps. Anyone who has seen a male gymnast perform this exercise knows this will give you rock solid abs. I like performing this whilst doing chin ups, a great bang for buck exercise. If you’re not strong enough to do this on rings you can use dip bars or even two benches or stools of equal height.
Deadlift – The major muscles of the midsection work damn hard when picking heavy weight off the floor. Legendary powerlifting coach Louis Simmons constantly talked about the importance of strong obliques in locking out a deadlift.
Suspended Pushup – There is always core engagement when performing push ups if done correctly, but using suspension straps, such as rings, trx or a zTrainer increases this greatly by adding an unstable element to the equation. Set up the straps so that the handles are a foot of the ground. Using a 12″ box for your feet, get into push up position. Always remember to squeeze your glutes and abs to create stability through the core when performing any push up. Do not let your hips sag or stick your butt in the air on this one!
Farmers Walk – Pick a distance of anywhere between 20-50 metres/yards, grab a pair of dumbbells, kettlebells or farmers walk equipment and walk. Make sure your posture is solid, chest up and shoulder back, head looking forwards.
One Arm Overhead Press – Unilateral overhead movements are great for working the midsection hard, this exercise will work your obliques hard! Make sure you pause a few seconds on lockout to take full advantage. Grab a dumbbell or kettlebell and simply press it straight overhead.
One Arm Flat Dumbbell Press – The key to this is stability. Take a flat bench and lay down offsetting your midsection to counter balance using one dumbbell in your hand. The non-working arm should be out to the side to counter balance. Make sure your feet are planted solidly, Bring the dumbbell down and forcibly explode upwards. Do a few heavy sets and you will really feel the midsection working hard.

These are 7 of my favourite core exercises, I find that they are much more functional than doing sit ups and crunches.

Give those a try and let me know how they work out for you. I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results. If you have any questions post them below or hit me up on Twitter.

To your Strength and Health

Dean Coulson

Conditioning, Power, Strength

Time under tension, the Tempo Factor

Hi Guys

Just wanted to talk to you today about a training principle, which not many people use. Now I don’t know if that is because they have not heard of it, or that it is challenging and they would rather now use it because it is too hard.

You are missing out if you don’t apply this to your training arsenal. It is simple to use, but can be very challenging!

What I am talking about is tempo training. When going for maximum recruitment of muscle fibres, nothing else comes close to slowing that shit down and really working the muscles.

I use this principle with my clients to really make them work, but also to understand that by slowing down you actually get more out. You don’t always have to go full tilt!

Time under Tension

By working exercises slower in a tempo you are keeping the muscles under tension for longer.

The result is that the body has to recruit more and more muscle fibres to perform the exercise and your body has to adapt accordingly.

It also helps with movement patterns and muscle memory. By slowing everything down you actually focus on the muscles worked and make a deeper connection with your brain, which is very important.

If you are using this protocol with weights you will most probably have to drop the poundages to what you are used to. Control becomes paramount and is much kinder on your joints!

Neural Efficiency

When you do any exercise, your brain wants to perform it as efficiently as possible. It wants to be neurally efficient. It wants to use the least amount of nerve recruitment and the least amount of energy to perform a movement.

This is why when you perform a new exercise e.g. a squat, It is important that you get the movement pattern correct. It takes about 300-400 reps of an exercise performed correctly for it to be ingrained in your head. But if you perform it incorrectly it can take up to 4000 reps to undo the pattern before you can correct it!

This is why it is majorly important that you get it right at the start!

You can use this in a number of ways, from bodyweight training to lifting dumbbells, barbells, kettlebells etc.

You can also change and vary the tempo depending on the training session goal or who is using it.

For example. a perfectly valid temp is 4-0-1-0, using this with a squat:

4 seconds – Eccentric (lowering)

0 seconds – no pause at the bottom

1 second – Concentric (rising)

0 second – No Pause at the top

This allows the muscles to be working under tension and no rest for the entire duration of the exercise.

You can change it by adding in pauses slowing down other parts. The combinations are endless and you can determine them by knowing what you want to achieve.

4-1-2-1

3-0-1-0

5-0-2-0

2-1-4-1

the list goes on and on.

The training…

Here is a training session I did today using minimal equipment, I used the 5-0-1-0 tempo on odd rounds and 1-0-5-0 tempo on even rounds to fully utilise this protocol on eccentric and concentric parts. Each exercise was done for time, in this case 40 seconds work and 20 seconds rest.

You can also do it for reps too, there are infinite possibilities. Make sure it is balls to the wall challenging. You must make it difficult!

I went for a number of rounds in this case 6. The number of rounds you do depends on your fitness levels. I also went for 45-60 seconds rest in between rounds, you can adjust that again by your fitness level.

Depth Push Ups

Db Split Squat (Left) Db Split Squat (Right)

DB Renegade Rows

DB Squat (Tempo) to press (explosive)

Burpees

Adding burpees at the end really taxes your conditioning.

If you have no equipment you could just drop everything and simply go for

Push Ups

Split squat (left)

split squat (Right)

renegade rows

Squats

Burpees/squat jumps/ high knee sprints.

Have a play around with it and let me know what you think.

Yours in strength and health

Dean

Martial Arts, Maximal Strength, Mental Strength, Strength

Full Body Functional Strength Workout

Great training session coming up for you today.

As I said in my last email I like to switched things up and it is about time I dragged my arse back to where it should be, back in beast mode.

4 sessions down for the week, with yesterday being a kettlebell session with one of my PT clients, world champion kick boxer and all round gent Kenn Forrest.

I am training Kenn for his next fight at Clash of the Titans, an event organised by the UK’s leading martial arts magazine, martial arts illustrated. It attracts fighters from all corners of the UK and is always a great rumble.

Kenn is a true warrior in every sense of the word, a heart of a lion, with warrior like killer instincts on the mat. The guy towers above me at super heavyweight and kicks with the speed of a light weight, an awesome combination.

This guy will nail it next week, no pressure mate 😉

Anyway, back to today’s training.

Today is all about hitting the muscle explosively and then immediately going for hypertrophy.

Working in exercise pairs the first exercise is going for explosive power with no more than 5 reps, paired with a second exercise which is body weight only and doubling the reps of the first exercise doubling the reps.

Do warm up sets first to get things moving, remember you should always perform a thorough warm up including joint mobility and muscle activation before training ALWAYS! it should be an integral part of each session you do.

To give you an idea of weight, you want to pick a weight you could do 6 reps for and do one less to help save your central nervous system. The second exercise double the first rep count and is done 30 seconds later.

Once you have found the weight, you want to perform each pair 3 times. Each time you complete the pair rest for 45-60 seconds and go again.

a1) Db chest Press

a2) Push ups

b1) Pull ups

b2) inverted strap rows

c1) db military press

c2) Pike push ups

d1) dbl kb box squat

d2) Pistol squats

e1) Hanging leg raise

e2) Ab wheel rollout

I got an awesome buzz from this, grinding it out and working with intensity is key, stick to the timed rest to get the most out of it

Click Here to Download the work out

let me know how you got on.

To you strength and health

Dean

Conditioning, Endurance, General Physical Preparedness, Mental Strength, Strength

The Dirty Dozen – Conditioning Program

I find strength and conditioning has no bounds other than the imagination of the person creating it. Yes it helps if you have experience in this field as I do, but it doesn’t have to be complicated.

This session will help you increase your strength endurance or functional strength and conditioning. it will also improve your general physical preparedness, or the ability to recover quickly after periods of intense exercise, whether that be high intensity interval training or resistance training.

The premise of this training session is a simple one.

Select 12 exercises and perform each one for 12 reps… Simple

But when does simple equate to easy 🙂

You can perform this anywhere, if you haven’t got access to a gym then get creative and use body weight. there is always a way.

I have performed this outside in temperatures below freezing and in gyms. it doesn’t matter where.

This principles of this session were actually devised by somebody else, so I take no credit them other than the effort I used to perform it. It is always good to learn from others, whether it is another idea of how to apply what you know or something completely different.

My friend from across the pond, Joe Hashey knows a thing or two about designing programs and being a bit off the wall in his training methods, so when I saw his idea for the dirty dozen training protocol as I pondered on a training session a few weeks back I thought that I had to give it a go.

So pick 12 exercises and perform 12 reps of each exercise, sounds easy right?

Well you would be wrong, the first time I tried this it kicked my ass, I was completely gassed. Lucky for me my general physical preparedness (GPP) is at a level where I can recover quickly between rounds. After 4 though I had had enough.

The program is designed to alternate between strength and conditioning exercises. Of course it isn’t an out and out max strength program and lends itself more to conditioning and strength endurance, but it makes for one hell of a training session. As Joe says, “it is more a method of training and is designed to be short, flexible with the equipment available and what you want to get out of it”.

Which Level?

Your fitness level will define the amount of rest you take. By splitting it up into 3 levels of difficulty it allows you to have your rest defined in advance so you know when to grasp some extra air.

Beginner

Pick 12 exercises, perform 2, rest 20 seconds and move onto the next 2 until the 12 are complete

1) Strength

2) Conditioning

REST 20 seconds and repeat 6 more times

Intermediate

Pick 12 exercises, perform 4, rest 20 seconds and move onto the next 4 until the 12 are complete

1) Strength

2) Conditioning

3) Strength

4) Conditioning

REST 20 seconds and repeat 3 more times

Advanced

Pick 12 exercises, perform 6, rest 20 seconds and move onto the next 6 until the 12 are complete

1) Strength

2) Conditioning

3) Strength

4) Conditioning

5) Strength

6) Conditioning

REST 20 seconds and repeat 1 more time

At the end of the 12 exercises, Rest for 60-90 seconds and repeat for 3-6 rounds depending on your fitness level. Make sure you push hard!!

My Dirty Dozen

I fired in an intermediate session with the following exercises, I have got a shiny new weight vest and decided this was the day I was gonna christen it. I am not sure that was the brightest idea but there you go 🙂

All the exercises were done wearing the vest:

Alternating Dumbbell Shoulder Press
Squat
Inverted strap row
Lunge jumps

REST 20 seconds

Pushups
Burpees
Alternating Dumbbell Rows
Squat jumps

REST 20 Seconds

Dumbbell squat thrust to RDL
Med Ball Slam
Dumbbell Curls
Full Jack knife (V sits ) sit ups

REST 60-90 seconds and repeat for 4 rounds

Man that weight vest made a BIG difference, it totally pushed me to my limit. Remember you can make this method up with any 12 exercises that you want.

Give it a go, post up the exercises and rest and rounds, make it a challenge!

Be strong, stay healthy

Dean

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