- You guys getting those chicken legs?
- One, two, three, four.
I can see the muscle growing already.
[laughs]
[music]
- We're here at the Red Bulls facility to work out.
Gonna get me some leg strength.
[music]
- We're here with Adam,
strength and conditioning coach for the Red Bulls.
So, I'm curious Adam,
what would you do for sort of a pro level
athlete to get him to focus on his legs,
to get his power and strength up a little bit?
- We kind of focus on four things,
power, strength, stability, mobility.
We'll kind of go through that as I
take you through today.
- You'll be glad to know I don't have any of those things.
[laughs]
- [Adam] First off, we're gonna start with power.
Power exercise you can do this anywhere.
Gym, at home, outside.
Very simple, hands on hips, squat down, chest back.
Jump up.
- Nobody looks cool doing that.
- Nobody looks cool doing it.
- How am I landing?
Like in a squat?
- In a squat position, yes.
Try to decelerate naturally.
Good, not bad.
- It's as awkward, it's as uncomfortable as it looks.
How many of these am I doing?
- Do three by five, or so.
15, no more than five reps.
Three sets, five reps.
Then you'll transition from that into
a [murmurs], so you're just jumping naturally.
Act as if there's a hoop up there you want to jump,
so right here.
- Okay.
- Okay?
- Am I still doing hands on hips?
- No hands on hips.
Trying to jump as high as you can.
[laughs]
You're getting there, you're getting there, good.
Try to make the transition from here
to here as fast as possible.
There you go.
Good, very good.
So these are just helping with power development,
so by doing the non-counter movement jump
we're focusing on being able to accelerate from a
standing position.
- Okay.
- When you're doing a regular jump,
it's basically, you use a lot of stored energy.
There's not much stored energy here.
Trying to get that energy to work for you,
rather than against you.
- You hear how out of breath I am from like, six jumps?
[laughs]
[music]
- So, next thing will be a split squat.
So, now we're working on lower body strength.
We're building more of the quads
and the glutes with this exercise.
So, step back, going to try to drop my
back knee straight down to the ground.
Chest up, okay?
And then extend from that position.
All right?
We'll usually hit anywhere from three to four sets
of this of six to eight reps.
- Okay. You did six to eight reps both legs?
- Correct.
Good.
- I've always wondered when you're doing,
where are you supposed to be looking?
At your chest?
- Straight ahead is fine.
Basically you want to keep a neutral had position.
Good.
Very good.
So, we'll do a lateral squat for growing strength, okay?
So, we start off pretty wide stance, okay?
Toes facing forward.
And then you'll just sink to one side,
keeping the opposite leg straight, okay?
So, we'll hit eight reps here.
Three sets of eights.
- So that's working inside here?
- Correct.
- Okay.
[music]
You're more sitting back than...?
- Correct, good.
Bring out, come out a little bit wider,
then point that toe directly forward.
Good.
Try to let this knee come out too far.
Good.
So, you'll hit eight to the left and eight to the right.
- This feels like one of those exercises,
feels like small movements,
but tomorrow morning when you wake up,
it's going to hurt like hell.
[laughs]
- Good.
- So, feeling it like right here, that's right?
- Correct.
Then a progression from this would be an actual lunge,
where you're stepping out each time
and coming back.
- Give it a try.
So I'd step out and ...
- Yep.
- I've gotta keep that straight though, right?
- Yep, exactly.
Feel the difference?
- Yeah.
- Then next we'll do the RDL.
So, this will combine strength and stability.
So, you can do this double leg or single leg.
We're going to do it single leg,
just because it will aim the stability focus for guys.
You can't do it single leg, start out double leg.
Basically, we're just taking a bow with dumbbells.
Sticking your butt way out, chest up, okay?
- Cool.
- So you'll hit anywhere from three to four sets of that,
six to eight reps, okay?
And then, once you're good with this,
you'll progress it to single leg, okay?
Gotta keep the leg straight.
- And what are you working there?
- Hip dominant hamstring.
- Okay.
- So, you're gonna feel this a lot in your glute
and hamstring.
- Okay.
- So you'll feel more of a stretch than anything,
you'll feel it the next day in the pelvis.
- Yeah.
- So this is the movement that is going to create
a lot of soreness if you're not used to doing it.
- Where am I hold these, like here?
- Just right down here, right by your side.
Then think of....that's a squat right there,
that's almost a dead lift.
So you're gonna want to hinge there.
Good, just like you're taking a bath, works better.
- I haven't taken a bath in a long time.
[laughs]
Yeah you can feel it in the back of the hamstrings for sure.
So, try one leg here.
- Now you can try one leg.
Same thing, good.
Straight leg, very good.
Bring it back.
And in between reps you can bring your feet back
to starting position and then go again
and as a third progression just stay on one foot
the entire time.
- That's the real pro level shit, right there.
- Exactly, exactly.
Very good.
You can try the other side.
- It's like a balance...
- You'll probably notice that one side
is better than the other.
- Yes.
- That's natural.
- Hence why it's stability, right?
Is this stability?
- It is.
It's stability and strength.
So you're working on the strength of the hamstring
but you're also working on stability of the lower leg.
- All right.
- Good.
- Now we're going to focus on knee flexion,
which is the other focus of the hamstring.
So we'll start off here,
if you don't have a roller like this,
you could use a slide board or towel on a slick floor.
So this is called the reverse leg curl,
so I'll start off by driving my elbows into the ground,
hips up flexing my glute, okay?
I'll roll out and roll back up using my hamstrings
to do so, okay?
Make sure your core is engaged, glutes are flexed.
All right?
Here we'll do typically three sets of eight, or so.
- This is the glamorous life style being a
top tier MLS players.
- That's right.
So hold on, start off down.
- Okay, good?
- Driving your elbows down, really focus on it,
flex your core, now bridge up.
Flex your glute, now roll out, roll back in.
Good.
- How many of these?
- Eight.
- And so this is working?
- Hamstring and glute.
- I'll feel this one the most.
- Yes, especially if you haven't done it,
this is a step up from a leg curl machine
and this going from this we like to do a lot of
nordic leg curls.
Good, that's good.
- That was definitely eight.
We'll I got it now, I'm ready to be a pro.
[laughs]
That's all I need, those four exercises
you can kick for MLS, right?
- Almost, we're almost there.
So, next thing we're going to do is calf strength.
We'll keep it basic, just a double leg calf raise, okay?
But instead of just going up and down bouncing, okay.
You'll pause at the top for two seconds
and slowly lower down, one, two, three, four.
Pause again at the bottom for two,
then back up for four.
One, two, three, four.
That works more on our tendons than it does our actual
muscle so we like to utilize time and retention
for calf strength.
- How interesting.
- And it creates a lot more tension in the muscle,
so it's not so much localized on your achilles
and everything.
- Yeah, because I feel like most people you see
in a gym are just like this.
- Right.
- That's interesting that the slower you go,
it makes sense, the slower you go
and the more it actually [murmurs] the tension
works hard.
- Right.
Typically we'll hit about 12 reps,
of two to three sets of 12 reps.
Which gives us...
- I'll give it a shot.
- Hold it and one, two, three, four.
Good.
One, two, three, four.
Good.
It's a small range of motion
that's hard to control over four seconds,
but it definitely makes a difference.
- You guys getting those chicken legs?
- One, two, three, four.
I can see the muscle growing already.
[laughs]
One, two, three, four.
- There's only room to grow.
- That's right.
[music]