Honestly I am re-writing my blog as I was shocked that within minutes of uploading this week’s training video that there was a flurry of discussion on it! Obviously I hit a nerve with the training video so let’s hit it!
That is why I wanted to challenge the sudden excitement surrounding an exercise that might be highly overrated, or is it? The medicine ball slam seemed to become very popular in many training programs as a means to replicate the training of sledgehammers that didn’t seem to be very practical for many general population settings. Sledgehammer training has gained almost amazing popularity as being a “hardcore” tool for fighters for many years.
The truth of the matter is the best part of sledgehammer training is grip, rotational power, and conditioning. However, by simplifying down to the medicine ball slam we lose two out of those three attributes. The medicine ball slam becomes a really explosive sit-up. Funny, because when you tell people you are doing to do a ton of explosive sit-ups they look at you with a expression of “really?” Is that the best or most productive time to train the core, metabolic systems, and a lot more?!
The best part is that the medicine ball slam is losing even more as people are so concerned with the downward force they begin to lose the extension overhead making this a even less useful drill. But then think about it, we talk about posture, corrective exercise, and muscle balance, but again we do such exercises that counter much of this work as we don’t make the lifting and extension part of the movement into a progressive and dynamic system.
How many athletes have hurt themselves “throwing” something downwards rather trying to lift and extend an opponent or object? Should we have a progressive system of actually teaching people how to perform such drills as the movement creates high peak forces? These are rationale questions that I would ask of most training programs, but when it comes to something like medicine ball slams we throw that all out the window!
“Sure it is a fun exercise, but the last thing I want to do with my patients or athletes is introduce them into high volume flexion exercises because we are often working so hard to reverse such bad motor patterns and postures.”-Jessica Bento, Physical Therapist
Let’s see what might be a better alternative, the Ultimate Sandbag band resisted good morning. Sure, I am positive some people will roll their eyes and say, “of course you would promote your sandbag!”, ah, but I take a different look at how we do things. Most people do exercises and try to rationalize them later, I like to create exercises that solve our training needs. So, what makes this drill stand out?
Right off the bat holding the weight in the Zercher position actively integrates the postural muscles of the upper back and the entire core to resist the flexion of the weight pulling the body forward. The placement of the load also reduces the unnecessary stress to the low back and allows us to progress people through a series of drills teaching them important components of the lift.
Utilizing the band makes the lifter push into the ground with their feet rather than lifting with their low backs. At the top of the lift it teaches the value of bracing the trunk and clenching the glutes, two really vital aspects of protecting the low back in dynamic lifts.
In this series we can work not only in load or speed, but range of motion as well really challenging the lifter to stabilize in more extreme ranges of motions, something that happens in sport a lot! Enough talking though, get to work and see how powerful this series really is and how it may be the perfect compliment or replacement for those medicine ball slams!
Then there are the chops which are an exciting progression to these hinging progressions. The chops are ideal because they bring in attributes of acceleration and deceleration in both aspects of the lift and can improve the mobility in the thoracic spine and shoulders. Best of all we can create complexity and more sport-specific movements by introducing rotational training which is how most sporting actions occur.
The Most Overrated Exercise is a post from: Sandbag Training
Related posts:
- Best Exercise Done WRONG! If I asked you, is doing an exercise wrong is…
- The Sandbag Exercise You Can’t Miss There is no doubt I am great at talking,…
- Russian Champion Fitness Lessons I’m a bit disappointed, no, A LOT disappointed with the…
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Henkin Fitness Systems
