What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
We interrupt our regularly scheduled ATHLEANX video for this public service announcement.
Today we're going to talk about how to operate dumbbells safely.
You see, this is a crisis affecting gyms all of American in gyms across the country.
As a matter of fact, gyms across the world.
You see, even if you're an advanced lifter you're going to find something helpful in
this video because people get this wrong.
I'm going to share a quick story with you.
The other day I was in Las Vegas on a quick, little vacation.
I'm in the hotel gym because I seem to somehow always find myself – even on vacation – in
the hotel gym.
Of course, never really a lot of company in there, not a lot of people working out in
Vegas.
But I'm in there with one other guy.
He grabs the dumbbells and he goes, and sits down on the bench and he does what he was
probably taught somewhere else.
I know there are other people that teach this method of getting the dumbbells in position,
but a lot of people ask this question: "Jeff, what's the best way to get dumbbells in position
and do a bench-press?"
Well, this is what he did: instead of going back he went and he kicked both legs up, back,
gets into position to bench.
That's what would have been good if it had happened, but that's not what happened.
This is what happened instead.
He kicks them up, here, and he falls like that.
So now that's not what we're looking to do.
So what we need to do is make sure we can get square on the bench when we do that because
when you try to rock back that way, in a direction that you can't even see that's downright dangerous,
okay?
There's a much better way to do it, but it even starts before that.
It starts with how you get the dumbbells from the rack to the bench.
When you look at that a lot of people will ask the question "What's the best way to do
that?"
Again, this might seem remedial, but it's not.
If you had to go – you have a couple options.
You can grab the dumbbells, walk them in place, get in front of the bench, come down here,
sit, and now you're ready to go.
But if you're doing something really heavy, if your dumbbells that you're using are at
that side of the rack- the heavier dumbbells – you're going to walk them all the way
back you're basically doing a mini-farmer's carry to get into position.
You're possibly fatiguing your forearms already before you even hit the main focus of you
worked that day, which would be a bench-press.
So I don’t really like that approach.
I like to get them over here and then worry about doing the exercise.
So the second thing you could do is you could get them over, and then put them on the bench.
Now you're ready to go.
You're ready to get yourself into your set.
When you do it this way, now you've got to do that little dance.
The little pivot over here, the little two step, get yourself into position, and sometimes
there's not even a lot of room in front of the bench, and there you're in position.
What you could do instead is what I'm going to show you here.
This is the best thing.
It's basically taking advantage of your biggest strength, and that is the deadlift; your ability
to deadlift heavier weights off the floor.
Again, this is going to pertain to most of your heavier weights.
When I get them in place I'm going to bring them right here and put them down in front
of the bench.
Now turn the dumbbells so that they're facing you.
Put your feet under the dumbbells.
Cover your laces as you would in a deadlift.
Now let's say, again, I've got heavy weights.
I'll demonstrate this in a second on heavier weights, but the fact is you come down, you
hip hinge down here, bend down, you grab the weights this way, you're going to deadlift
to the level of your knee, and sit back.
So no matter how heavy the weights are they're going to become instantly more manageable
that way.
A lot of times people will be limited by what they press because of what they can't carry,
or manipulate and get into position to bench.
So now we've already got ourselves here.
Great.
Now how are we going to get back?
We're not going to do that double leg roll back thing again.
What we're going to do is, we're going to lift them one at a time.
So we kick high, as hard as we can.
We kick it right to the shoulder until the dumbbell makes contact with the shoulder,
in here, and then that comes down, and then in here, and then we lower ourselves back
down that way.
So now, in this position you do your set and let's say now you've got to get out of that.
How are you going to get out of this position?
Well, what you do is, you press up to the top, last rep.
Push, push, push, push, push.
Turn the dumbbells, bring your knees back up.
Now I said there's a difference in the direction that you're heading.
If I'm going that way and I can see that way I can just put them on my knees and then just
let it take me that direction, and I'm going to see where I'm going.
Different than flying backward with no idea where you're going.
But sometimes this doesn’t always happen and we can't get ourselves out of the bench.
So if we're down here and we're pressing, and then we fail and we're down in this position,
what do you have to do?
Unfortunately in this case, you're going to have to bail on the weight.
I see people bail all kinds of ways.
There's one way I think is good.
If I bail this way – like this – and I drop out, all that stress on my anterior shoulder
is not a good thing.
There's a lot of stress and strain being put on the anterior shoulder.
Now a lot of times you do it very ballistically.
You come down and then, boom!
You drop them.
That could be a dangerous thing.
The next thing is, they come here and they drop them this way.
Down.
That's a really harsh thing for your AC joint in your shoulder up here.
When you go into this quick, internal rotation that's a lot of force being directed right
here through the AC joint that could actually pop one in a single repetition that way.
So again, that's not a great option.
So what you'd want to do is, when you bail, if you're down here and you're stuck you still
want to try to get going in that direction a little bit.
So if I could do the rock where I could bring my feet up and then come forward just a little
bit, and then drop from here, now what I've done is, I'm not getting all that extreme
internal rotation.
I was basically able to almost get into a hammer curl position that I could then just
drop them from there.
So that is what you'd want to do.
Now, one other thing too, when people get the dumbbells and they're going to go pick
them up – I see people do this, too.
They go here, and then they lean over, then they're going to bench, and grab one and pick
it up.
This is like rotation and loaded flexion, which is a mechanism – a popular mechanism
– for low back, or lumbar disc issues.
So again, maybe not when you're lifting 20lbs here, but when you're lifting something more
significant like this, to here, and this, to here is not going to be the best option
for you.
So we can apply this to heavier weights, too.
If it doesn’t work on heavier weights then what I'm talking about here is all bullshit.
But it does work.
So what we do is, we go over here, we grab our heavier weights.
We grab some 100s, and get them in position, and I'm going to put them down here, and I'm
going to do what I said.
I'm going to get them squared off here, squared off here, put my feet underneath them where
they cover the laces, and then I'm going to get in position.
I'll get them in here, I'll kick them up, and I'll go back.
So we're here.
We're just going to, again, hands down, deadlift down, come into this position here, head up,
right to the knees.
Again, it makes the weight feel a lot lighter.
From here, kick up, kick up, push up, up, up.
We do whatever the set is, we turn them, get your knees up, let it ride your knees back
down.
It's so easy to get out of there again and put them down.
So guys, again, there are some tips for even the more advanced people because I see so
called "advanced trainers" teaching that backward, double, dumbbell tuck thing – whatever it
is – and it's not a good idea.
So I think it's a good refresher for everybody and I know there are beginners that literally
don’t know how to do this the right way.
As you see, there's a lot of different ways you could do it, but there is a better way
to do it.
More efficient and a little bit more build for longevity and safety when you're in the
gym.
Guys, we don’t overlook any of the details.
Even the small stuff like this.
That's what ATHLEANX is all about.
Putting the science back into strength from little things to the big things.
Making sure we overlook nothing to make sure you get the best results from following what
it is that we talk about.
If you're looking for a complete training program that's over at 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.
I do this because this is a request that we got from you, out there, watching my videos.
I'm happy to cover anything else you want me to clarify.
All right, guys.
See you soon.