Using resistance bands to train split squats or single leg bench squats is so easy and like with other RBT exercises, doesn’t require you to carry around 30lbs of weight.
This weeks RBT Live Training Episode not only shows you how to do split squats or single leg squats with bands but shows you how to adapt to those special clients and friends who were not blessed with the tall genes…
Enjoy this weeks Training episode of RBT Live and make sure you let me know what you thought of my special addition. Look forward to hearing from you on the comment section.
Have a great Halloween weekend and crank out some Band Split squats for me.
Reactive Training.. Powerful Results
Dave Schmitz
PS.. If you are interested in learning about how to train your entire body with bands using the split stance, you may want to check out Resistance Bands Unleashed DVD Series or if you don’t have bands yet.. The Total Fitness Package will set you up with everything you need. It is all about getting reactively stronger and reactive fit with resistance bands.
If you have not watched this video please do so before you continue reading. I do not know Mr. Boyle personally but I have read many of his writings. I respect him for his unwillingness to never settle for what is but always analyzing what could be. He simply never stops learning and trying to teach others.
Mike’s theory on Single legs squat drove home why I find the staggered stance to be so effective at teaching people how to integrate their lower torso with their upper torso which when all is said and done is how this body was designed to work.
Mike’s states that the low back is the limiting factor not the glutes when it comes to bilateral squats. Subsquently by going into a split stance the lower extremities, especially gluts and quads, are more effectively trained. I would say it is not just a low back but globally a trunk limiting factor.
If we are able to assist the trunk (specifically the lower abs) to stabilize the low back (specifically L5-S1) than we create less of a force leak at that point and allow the weight or vertical vector force to be dealt with using the lower torso.
Keeping the transition area of L5-S1 stable is what allows us to transfer force production to the lower torso when the load is coming from the top - down
I thought it would easier to show you than tell you so.. Here you go.
See you tomorrow to discuss why the scapula and shoulder love the split stance as well.
Over 90% of us will suffer a low back injury of some kind at some point in our lives.
95% of the time that injury will be the result of poor deceleration control. What can we do to protect and decrease the chance of injuring our low back?? Well first let me tell you what won’t work.
Doing 1000’s of sit-ups every week
Doing leg raises with our low back coming off the ground on every rep
Do those silly side crunches a hundred miles a minute
Grabbing a hold of some pulley system and horsing down doing kneeling crunches
Doing the latest ab machine shown on the latest info commercial
Doing only floor planks
I can pretty much guarantee if you do the above listed training techniques or exercises, you are all but assured of suffering if not creating a low back injury.
The ab’s like any other muscles are reactors. They respond to driver of primarily gravity, ground reaction and momentum. If you do not train the ab’s to be reactors, when called upon to protect your low back from venturing to far in the ROM, they will not respond effectively or quick enough to prevent a low back injury.
It is very easy to tweak an exercise to become a trunk reaction exercise. You can create ground reaction or increase momentum or both. Gravity can also be increased by adjusting the resistance or direction of the resistance. Here are 5 easy ways to make most exercises a trunk reaction exercise.
1. Overload the body to one side by doing unilateral training. Especially with vertical or horizontal force vectors
2. Create multiple force vectors. Bands in conjunction with any dead weight objects can accomplish this
3. Add a step with the exercise which immediately brings in ground reaction forces and additional momentum for your trunk to deal with.
4. Adding in the a rotational plane will immediately activate the trunk since the obliques and transverse abdominus have strong rotational biases
5. Performing the step and lift movement in an integrated fashion with an emphasis on getting off the loading phase as fast as possible.
Is your head spinning yet??
Well what if told you I could incorporate all five of these training options with 1 exercise??
Now realize this exercise is not for the person who has not incorporated some low level trunk stabilization first. However, if you have done your pre-trunk training, than I have a great trunk blasting, delt building, heart pumping workout that will teach your trunk how to react with power.
Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Enjoy this week’s RBT Live… Building a powerful 6 pack
Training beyond the Contraction
Dave Schmitz
PS.. Looking for other great trunk reaction ideas?? Resistance bands Unleashed DVD Series will show you how to unleash the power of Reactive Trunk Training.
As I started to train more with resistance bands it soon became apparent to me that bands were not just a strength training tool but could also be a muscle activation tool.
Resistance bands flat versus tubular structural charateristics allowed me to attach bands to our body in many places. Anytime you attach a band to the body, be it at the hip, the trunk, the wrist or the lower leg, you immediately create a tactile sensation that wakes up the muscles associated to that region.
For instances, if I attached a band around the hips and face away from the band attachment, I immediately heighten the awareness of gluteal muscles because of the posterior force vector being applied to the anterior hip .
This can be very helpful if you are trying to improve hip extension which we all know is a key functional movement when it comes to creating horizontal or vector explosiveness of the body.
Now by applying another dead weight training tool that also enhance hip extension, you can train with multiple vectors and really compliment the deadweight movement. This is what I refer to as multi-vector training.
Multi-vector training can serve to enhance function in 2 ways:
1. By complimenting the movement and activating key muscles to become more active in the movement.
2. By creating vectors that oppose each other and cause the body to become more unstable or overloaded to one side.
I will address #2 in the near future but for today we want to use it to compliment a movement.
Today RBT Live is all about using bands to in multi-vector training set up to increase hip extension with the kettlebell swing.
I hope you enjoy this week RBT Live “Kettlebell - Band Multi-vector Training to enhance hip explosiveness”
If you are looking for more ways to incorporate multi-vector training you may want to check out ResistanceBandsUnleashed DVD series. It will provide you over 50 plus ways to implement bands independently or inconjunction with other training tools.
Looking for an easy and exciting way to crank up your interval cardio training in your bootcamp??I have just the resistance band training solution and it doesn’t matter who, what or where.
Partner Interval running in bands is one of the safest, easiest, and most cost effective ways to get a great running cardio workout.You don’t need a huge space, people typically love the challenge and its super easy to teach.However as I continue to speak to fitness professionals about band running they have a few issues and fear about implementing band running.I thought I would help address these issues.
Band running is unsafe
That is totally not the case.As a matter of fact, partner band running is all acceleration with essentially no deceleration impact.Since deceleration is what most often leads to injuries, you will immediately find out that campers do better with band running and will often prefer it over regular body weight running.
Not everyone can run
I have yet to find someone in my adult fitness boot camps who cannot do some form of band running (shuffle, backpedal, forward running) or power walking.In most cases inability to run comes from lack of hip deceleration control which overtime will stress joint surfaces.With band running the body is actually unweighted which in turn makes ground contact forces on the joints less. As a result your clients along with their joints will love you for introducing them to band running.
You need a lot of space to run
I have done Partner band workouts in cafeterias, hallways, small weight rooms as well as in the basement of my own home.With partner band running the work is really in the start and making sure you emphasis quick bursts, high knees and fast arms.Repeating this for 8-10 reps or over a 1-2 minute period creates incredible heart rates and workloads.
You need a lot of bands to run with
To do partner band running you need 1 band per 2 people, assuming you have the right size of band, that’s approximately a $20 investment divided by 2…$10 per person and done over 40 camps means you spend about 10₵ per camp.
Granted body weight running is free but it’s boring as heck and you need space unless you do shuttle runs which requires a lot deceleration work than band running.
I was recently at a Bootcamp Fitness Professional seminar and had the opportunity to run about 20 fitness professionals through a little partner band interval cardio work using a 50-10 Workout muse soundtrack found bootcamp dynamite.
Think about this.
Could your clients do that??
Is your space bigger than the little 20 foot by 20 foot area I had??
Can you afford a $20 t0 $25 band to get a great cardio workout for your clients??
I want to know what you think.Make sure you comment below and tell me about your experiences with partner band running or shoot me your questions on how you can set up your bootcamp for partner band running.
Or …… If you are interested in getting your hands on over 40 more partner based band workouts, take a look at picking up your own copy of the Partner Band Training DVD
Repeat sets are one of the Partner Band Training options I will often implement within my bootcamp setting.
It provides me a way to effectively manipulate the workout in 3 different ways
1. Allows me to push clients into using heavier bands to train with. The powerlifting community taught me this concept of using several low rep sets to increase work volume with heavier loads. Most people can do 2-5 reps vs. concerning themselves with 8-10 reps.
2. Repeat sets is an easier way to bring new campers into partner band training without the initial concern with holding. All the new camper has to be concerned with is performing the exercise which I as an instructor can easily monitor. It also teaches stabilization in between sets which preps them for partner holding.
3. It allows you to do more total body exercises or teach more advanced variations of exercises to specific groups. Example being.. split squats with or without an overhead press. High pulls with or without a step.
Heres a simple Repeat Set Partner Band Training Workout
Push Press
Split Squat Left
High Pull
Split Squat Right
Squat Pull
Repeat sets are an outstanding way to get bootcampers rocking with a bigger band.
Let me know what you think
Training Beyond the Contraction
Dave Schmitz
Repeat sets is just one of several Partner Band Training concepts available on the new Partner Band Training DVD and manual. For more information on how to get Partner band training started click HERE!!
When I was in my meat-head training 20’s and 30’s we did something call super sets. Essentially this was where you blasted an isolated muscle group until you couldn’t lift the resistance anymore, than you immediately dropped the weight and kept on going.
Than when you couldn’t lift that weight, you dropped again and blasted it again.
Can you say over training!!!
Well obviously I know longer do that but the concept of changing resistances fast for different exercise was something that did make some sense. Especially when your not the same strength for lower and upper body exercise which is often the case in my resistance band boot camp.
With this set up camper can easily change resistances if needed and if you want to push it you can do that as well.
Here is how you can do a quick multi band workout without any attachments.
If your wondering what strength of bands you need, my recommendation is you look at the Medium or Large single band package. I don’t usually recommend single bands but I know that for some they want to find out what the resistances are like before they order a lot more bands.
No problem. That is why I created the single band packages. So check it out and try my Multi resistance band workout set up. Its a real blaster
Well it will go down in history as the first ever Reactive RBT Certification but definitely not the last.
9 Outstanding Fitness Professionals took part and left armed and ready to make Reactive Resistance Band Training a secret weapon in their fitness business arsenal.
There were alot of great memories and highlights from the certification which I will share with you this week and next. It was obvious that as the weekend proceeded, that this was not a sit down, listen me talk type of weekend. Instead it was talk a little, feel and try alot.
Starting with an early Saturday morning RBT Bootcamp.
Circuit 1 I think got everyones attention and immediately Jacked up their ne4rvous system.
High Pulls
Front Squats
Overhead press
Hammer Curl
Push up
Deadlift
Bentover Row
RDL
We used a simple 20s on 10 s off Tabatas x 8 sets
Across the board, they were amazed at how much effort it took to move a simple 41 inch band fast. It became very apparent they did not need to spend a lot to get alot of clients working hard.
I will share more again soon.
Make sure you check out the new RBT Shopping Cart that I launched on Friday at the Certification.
Awesome deals and great packages to fit everyones needs.
Dave Schmitz
