What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today is going to be one of those very helpful videos, I hope, and not just for the beginner
lifter.
But for every lifter.
The advanced lifter, maybe, more particularly because we get so set in our ways that we
forget the cues that make things that much easier when we're trying to focus on what
we're doing in the gym.
So I wanted to put together the seven most essential things you need to focus on – cues
– that will allow you to do each thing that you're doing in the gym better.
So the first thing, I don’t have to go any further than lifting the sternum.
That's the cue I always use.
Why do we say that?
Because thoracic extension, the ability to get up and out – in other words, not in
this rounded shoulder position – but fully extended so we become more mobile, because
without it we're not mobile.
We get locked in place here.
The best cue is not 'pull your shoulder blades back' because the wrong cue, like that, is
just going to make me pull like this.
Focus on squeezing my shoulder blades, but it's done nothing to help me extend through
the thoracic spine.
But if I lift my sternum right here, this area right there, if I can pull that and try
to get it level with the ground – because it's usually facing down, and forward if we're
in bad posture like this – that is going to lift me into good extension, and also set
my shoulder blades in the right spot.
So as you can see, the right cue can actually help us a lot.
Which brings us to other cues.
The second one here.
Anytime we're doing pulling exercises elbows will guide the way.
Pull with your elbows.
Nothing else.
So if I'm going to do a lat pulldown here I don’t pull with my hands.
I don’t think about my hands.
We think about where our hands are and we use those as our guide.
That's the wrong thing to do.
If I think about my hands the very first thing I might do is this, and pull down with my
wrists, leading with the hands.
If we want the lats to do the work, the back to do the work in these pulling movements,
then we want to pull with the elbows.
So I use my hands as hooks and I use my elbow – literally visualizing right here, what
is my elbow doing?
I'm pulling down with the elbows, okay?
Here, down with the elbows.
They're driving down.
It happens on every, single pulling exercise.
If I were to go and grab a dumbbell to do a one-armed row, if you don’t pull with
your elbows you tend to look like this.
You see guys doing this all the time, right?
Elbows not even getting into extension behind the body and doing, basically, a hammer curl
with the dumbbell.
If I were to keep that quiet and then lead instead with the elbow back that way, now
we're working the back, and the bigger muscles that we're focusing on in the first place.
So all pulling exercises, no matter what plane you're in, leading with the elbows is key.
The next thing you want to focus on is ankles.
What's the best cue you can get with your ankles?
Especially if you're somebody that has problems when you squat.
Knee pain when you squat.
For me, with extremely flat feet – not fat feet.
They're kind of skinny.
But flat feet – look at these flippers, guys.
There's nothing under here.
I have no arch whatsoever.
It's actually one of the big contributors to why I have such bad knees.
I was just born with these things.
I've got to blame my parents, but the fact of the matter is, the flatness in the arch
basically makes my tibia fall inward, and rotate in this way.
So it sets up this valgus here at the knee.
All this stress inside the knee.
So when I try to squat in there – obviously this is an exaggeration of that – but you're
basically driving all this force in this awkward direction.
So what you're supposed to do, the best cue you can ever do if you're having any type
of knee pain, is start at the bottom.
Start at the ground because everything starts from the ground and moves up.
Keep your toes in contact with the ground.
So push as hard as you can through your big toe.
If you push with your big toe the rest of your toes will transmit that force also.
But then, push out with your ankles.
Push your ankles here, out.
Here, out.
Then drive through with the big toe.
Now you can see what we've down is, we've fixed the mechanics here of the tibia.
So now it's going down nice, and in line with our foot instead of caving in that way.
So if you're going to do any type of motion, whether it be deadlift, or squat, or anything
– thrusters, anything we're going to have to bend – keep the big toes down, push out
with the ankles, and you'll feel that resistance.
Next we can work on stabilizing through our torso.
Bracing through our torso.
Again, we can do it right here with a deadlift.
It could be an overhead press.
You've probably heard the term where you need to get 'tight' through your torso.
People always talk about engaging the lats.
Straight arm pull down.
I've even covered this in a video before how a straight arm push down here will get the
lats to fire up and provide rigidity and stillness, and stability to your torso when you're doing
something like a deadlift.
But there's one extra level to that.
When I'm here and I pull down with my lats imagine doing a straight arm push down.
Here, pull down.
Now from here, squeeze the chest, okay?
Squeeze across.
You're just doing a squeeze of the chest as if you're doing this.
Obviously, you can't go anywhere because your arms are fixed on a bar.
So down, squeeze the chest.
Now you've created a nice rigidity through the trunk here that you can do your deadlift.
Again, pulling down, and across.
Just like that.
Which brings me to the next cue, and it applies to deadlifts.
It applies to step ups.
It applies to lunging.
It applies to any lower body movement where you are trying to finish the move.
You have to finish into full hip extension.
We just covered this in a video not long ago.
So what is the cue there?
Squeeze your ass.
It doesn’t get any easier than that.
Focus on actually doing it because if you think it's going to happen it's not going
to happen.
It has to actually be consciously thought of for you to finish into full hip extension.
So we can go back to the deadlift again.
When I'm here, as I pointed out in that video, what people will do is, they get to the top
and they do this.
That's not full hip extension.
If I actually squeeze my glutes from here; boom.
I just went about another 5-10 degrees.
More importantly, maximally activated my glutes for stability of the hips.
Again, down, hinge, up, boom.
Squeeze through.
I'm actually squeezing my glutes at the top, as I mentioned in the step up.
If I go here – you see it all the time.
People come up here, they step up.
First of all, they're tucked under here, and then when they come up they look like this,
never finishing.
Never finishing over here.
So if you actively squeeze your glutes – up, and squeeze – drive this knee forward, but
squeeze on that side.
Now you're finishing.
Then when you're at the bottom, squeeze.
If I squeeze this look what happened.
It got me into extension.
It made my glute fully active.
So I'm more stable down here, I'm more stable here, I'm going to be able to handle more
weight, and I'm going to be able to do this exercise better in the long run.
Now, the next one.
I talked about hinging over there on the deadlift.
Hide your hands.
That's my cue if you want to hinge properly.
The ability to hinge is going to setup the proper mechanics in any movement that you're
lowering body down, toward the ground.
So squats and deadlifts, and even here in lunging.
So what does 'hide my hands' mean?
Hiding my hands means, the creases of your hips, that run like this.
Take your hands – again, this is something I covered in another video here, too.
But it falls into one of our seven best things you can do.
Here, and here.
Take your fingers right on those creases.
Now hide them.
Tuck them in between the thigh – the upper thigh – and the lower abdomen.
I do that by hinging at the hips.
I don’t do that by bending my knees.
I do that by hinging at the hips.
When I do that, now when I go down they're hidden.
They're in there.
You can't see them.
I can't see them.
I can only feel that they're in those creases.
Boom.
Like that.
Here, and I've got a proper hip hinge as I go down.
Again, no matter what movement I'm doing.
Lastly, squeeze the dumbbells.
Squeeze the bar.
Squeeze whatever it is you're using.
Even if you're using here, the pulldown again.
You lead with your elbows, but you squeeze with the hands.
Don’t pull down with hands on this thing, but squeeze.
Why?
Because we can activate so many other stabilizer muscles just by squeezing through the hands
and then letting the force transmit all the way through our arm.
Remember, it's a kinetic chain whether you start down at the ground, and derive some
force down there, that gets transmitted up your body.
Or if you're going the other end of the chain, you're grabbing here.
Illicit the force transmitted up through your body.
It changes the mechanics of the lift.
It activates stabilizer muscles that makes it easier for you to perform an upper body
lift safely.
So even for a – I don’t know.
I'm doing a one-armed press.
If I squeeze here actively, I'm trying to squeeze the life out of the dumbbell, I've
transmitted more stability through my arm then it would be if I'm just lazily holding
onto this dumbbell.
You can feel the difference instantly.
I'll give you a little side benefit of it.
When you do squeeze here you might notice that you just don’t have a good, strong
grip one day.
Not a lot of force going through there.
That could be an indicator that neurologically you're a little bit burned out.
Today may not be your day in the gym.
So if you start seeing that right off the bat, it could be a good idea for you to back
it up a little bit – in terms of the weight you're using, today's maybe not the day for
PRs – but focus more on the quality of the lift and getting more out of it that way.
So, lots of different benefits from there.
Those, guys, are – one big run on sentence there – are the seven things that you can
do pre-lift, during a lift that are going to help you immensely in getting more out
of everything you do.
Again, I don’t care how advanced you are.
I don’t care if you're a beginner.
Start thinking about the cues you can do on every, single lift so you can get more out
of them.
It's about the accumulation of using good lifting technique, over many bouts and sessions
that winds up getting you the best results in the long run.
If you're looking for a program that puts the science back in strength, tries to help
you to understand what it is you're doing so you get the most out of everything you
do; head to ATHLEANX.com.
In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up
below.
Let me know what you want to see in a future video and I'll do my best to cover it.
All right, guys.
See you soon.