Get the most out of your workout

A lot of people don’t realize their potential when it comes to strength. Many times you may miss a rep or you may feel that the weight you want to put on the bar is just outside your limits. In some cases that may be true. You just aren’t there yet. But ask yourself this. Is your warm up sufficient and are you activating the right muscles to boost the potential of a given movement? If there a better technique you could be utilizing to allow you to add more weight? The following are a few techniques and drills that you can do to “turn on the lights” in regards to certain muscles to help give you that boost in a desired movement.

Boost Your Chin up/Pull up

The first thing to bring up about this humbling exercise is that it is a movement for the back and not specifically the arms. This would indicate that you should start the initial pull with arms fully extended as opposed to the ever so popular 90 degree start. The start is key as it will allow the trainee to develop strong retraction and depression of the scapular region. This scapular cue is also the same as the bench press which is why it can be a great supplemental movement.

With that being said, the strength of the scapulothoracic region is paramount to allowing you to get the most out of your vertical pulling exercises. These muscles include the middle and lower fibers of the trapezius, along with the rhomboids, and lats. There are several ways to strengthen and activate these muscles for increased potential of this movement. Here are a few movements you could add to your warm up are workout in order to do so.

Activate

Wall slides

(activation of lower trap)

Isometric Holds

(reinforces scapular retraction/depression)

I's and T's

(activation of lower and mid trap)

Strengthen

Prone Row to External Rotation

(Forces retraction and depression w/ load)

Band Pull Apart

(Direct strengthening of rhomboids)

X Pull Down

(Strengthen Scapular retraction and depression)

Boost Your Squat/Bench

Many general fitness people will blindly walk into a gym and step up into a rack and just go right into their first set immediately setting themselves up for failure. For those who already have a solid warm up of mobility and activation there is an acute adjustment you can make to boost performance.

Keeping the peak contraction principle in mind it is known that the highest requirements for force are at the deepest point of knee bend. This is also the position where your stretch reflex is required to produce a strong concentric contraction to propel you out of the hole. This also is the case for bench press. Pressing the weight off the chest will require the highest amount of force. Here are a couple of pre-workout exercises that can immediately increase the potentiation of the stretch reflex. One thing to keep in mind is not to fatigue during these movements. a few sets of 3-5 with at least 3 minute rest would be ideal

BW Squat Jumps

(Be sure to go full range of motion)

Depth Jumps for those qualified

(Reduce contact with ground AMAP)

Plyo Push up

(Absorb force and initiate press as fast as possible)

Lying Med ball Press

(Do on a bench so that ideal elbow position and set-up can be achieved)

Boost your Cable Hold

A very popular and extremely beneficial core exercise for anti rotation and stabilization is the cable hold. There is really no way to strengthen this movement besides progressing to it and then actually performing the movement itself but there can arise some benefits from making sure you use a good set up.

Most instructions will tell you to bring the band/cable to your chest, press out and hold. This is not bad, but personally I have come across problems with the breaking up of the movement and my arms not allowing me to hold position without the weight dragging me back toward the stack. Personally I like one synchronous movement which allows my core to do the work for my arms. This also gives you a high contraction immediately in preventing recoil of the weight.

There is never a substitute for hard work and just getting after the exercise itself. But, if any one of these drills are foreign or missing from your program hopefully they can serve as great supplementary exercises to help progress your physical preparedness to higher levels!