Ironically some of the most effective exercises are the ones that go by overlooked.
Today I am going to show you the best exercises you are not doing, and why you need to start
doing it today.
[Music Intro]
What's up guys?
Jeff Cavaliere AthleanX.com
Today I want to show you the best exercises you are probably not doing.
That is, unless you are already on Team Athlean, and you have the Athlean-X training system,
because you will know that one of the most integral exercises in the program is the Inverted
Row.
Now why do I favor the Inverted Row?
Because we are using our own body-weight completely against gravity.
Working our back and our arms, and not putting our low back in danger of being susceptible
to being injured, right?
If we do a row regularly, standing up and pulling the weight towards us, the slightest
bit of bad form or fatigue that leads to bad form, can cause low-back problems.
So are bent-over rows bad?
No not at all.
But I want to show you an alternative here and why I think it is the most overlooked.
Now we have the Inverted Row, we get underneath the bar, OK?
Straight up here, chest is out, pull all the way up obviously using a lot of our back muscles
in between the rhomboids and scapula, pulling everything together and then down slow, right?
Negative against gravity.
That would be the Inverted Row.
But what is great about it is we can invert some science behind our strength; it is what
we always try to do here, at Athlean-X.
We can work strength curves into what we do.
So what do I mean by strength curves?
We know that we have more strength, or should have more strength, on an eccentric part of
an exercise, on the lowering than you do on the concentric, where you have to pull yourself
up to the bar.
So if we are looking at a bench press, this would be the harder part.
We have less strength going this way, than we do to resist.
If you want to try that, you can just put 225 on the bar, try to push that up, or, let
somebody else push it for you.
You just try to control it.
You are going to have more strength on the way down.
So how to we compensate with that in the Inverted Row?
Feet underneath our knees, right under here,helps us push up but now we can hop straight out
and try to control that.
In, pull-up, pop it out, resist out.
[Repeats motion]
Now I always like to say you are never at a final level with Athlean-X.
You can always challenge yourself because there are always things we can do with our
body to make the challenge more difficult.
If you want to keep getting better, if you want to look better and better every time
you hit the gym, you have to build in these challenges, right?
So what we have next is, a one-arm variation of that.
We can take ourselves right here,other arm off the bar down on the side, one hand up,
reach all the way up as high as you can.
Now all the work is being done by that side.
The core has to be able to stabilize, come straight down, up and reach.
Now all the work is being done by that left side.
That is a lot of work, because even though I have unweighted some of my body, I still
have to do a lot to get myself up.
Again, you can get up and walk yourself out and then come down eccentrically.
Up, walk yourself out and then come down.
You can really really challenge yourself, it is like doing a one arm pull-up.
Finally, if you want to make this even harder, you put a dumbbell here and do the same exact
thing.
Now as I come up, forget about the fact that I am pushing up with this side, working the
chest a little bit.
Really what I am doing is taking 20 lbs, putting that on my own body weight, and making me
lift that much more.
Once again up to the bar, head back, shoulders, push it up and then down.
Up and then down.
One more, so I just took you from the basic to the complex in 3 moves.
This is what we talk about when I say, Athlean-X puts the science behind the strength.
You integrate strength curves, you can make any exercise that you think looks easy to
be very difficult quickly.
That is the whole point.
You want to be able to grow within your program and that is what we try to do here at Athlean-X:
constantly challenge you.
If you are an athlete that I was training, I couldn't get away with just giving you an
exercise and letting you master it, and then say "Oh well, he mastered it."
No.
My job as a coach is to come back with something more challenging.
Make you shake your head like "Oh My G-d, I don't know if I can do that!"
And then challenge your body and mind to come back stronger.
Then what I want you to do is having something else waiting to do the same thing.
That is how you make progress, guys, and that is what Athlean-X is all about.
We will be back here again next week.
Some big news about the R/x supplements.
In the meantime, enjoy your weekend guys, start integrating some of this.
If you are not doing it already, like I said, one of the best exercises that you are not
doing.
If you want to start doing it, then grab the Athlean-X training program.
I will see you guys back here next week.