I've trained Mark Wahlberg for 13 years now, got him ready for several movies including
Pain & Gain, Shooter, The Fighter...
At the end of the day, Mark's gotta be able to move like a cat.
And still wield heavy ass guns.
And in order to do that, he's gotta be athletic as heck.
So we work out in a two-day split, meaning that we have a day A regimen, and a day B regimen.
So let's say on Monday we do upper body pushing and lower body pulling – then on day B,
our focus is on the flip side.
So now I have upper body pulling, and then lower body pushing.
Now when we talk about form for Mark, a lot of what we deal with is Upper Cross Syndrome,
a lot of that little slouch that all of us are developing, whether it's from
the sedentary lifestyle or the texting, right?
But addressing that and getting into the right form is absolutely what we're geared for.
Why we use this particular exercise is the chaos that you have to control.
The fact that he has to hold that band apart really accentuates the muscles that have to
be on to stay tall.
Absolutely press this lower back to the ground to keep these ribs down and tucked, engaging
that interior core, and tying it in with that breathing.
This is one of our big bang-for-your-buck warmup exercises for the post-year chain.
Absolutely be focused on good breath – in the nose, out the mouth when you breathe – to the low back.
Okay? Don't let that breath get stuck here.
When we start getting to any pushing motions, a big thing that can happen is that posture
turns into this:
It's important to get the core part of the
pushing complex – which is why the power play and the movement itself is so important here.
Now, as Chad sets up for his pushup, I have him in perfect plank position, I'm gonna get
him to – bring your chin over this fence – there you go.
So now I have a direct line – wrist under the shoulder.
You don't want to be anywhere else except for right on top of that wrist.
So go ahead – drop into that pushup, Chad, by falling forward – notice that forward
fall creates that 90 degree bend in the arm.
Super important tip.
Once we've worked on our breath, worked on that posture –
we round off our warmup with some VersaClimber.
You may not have a VersaClimber handy in your gym – you can still work on your cross body patterning.
Here's a couple of exercises that I love if you don't have VersaClimber.
Chad's doing this bear crawl in a figure 8 pattern.
So he's gonna be crawling around these few points in a figure 8.
Notice I can put an object here on Chad's back, and that keeps him more mindful of controlling
that rotation, that rocking back and forth, because that's what this is all about, right?
Core control, posture control, breath control.
Chad's gonna get into position, elevate his knees above the ground – and here he's
gonna split up his body left and right side, focus on this side, bring the knee to the forearm.
Now that we finished our warmup and our body's ready to go, let's do day A.
Chad's gonna squeeze his lower back to the ground before pushing the bar up.
As he pushes the bar up, he's gonna in-control drop one leg and hover the ground.
There's a lot of core tension – you'll recognize this position from that Superman hold,
and then reset by dropping bar, and getting back into that 90-90 dead bug.
Opposite leg goes next time with that press.
Chad's gonna pull back into tension here – pull into that big tension – he's gonna kick
that left leg back, hinge at his hips, and drop towards the tension,
and then he's just gonna pull and stand right back up.
After those two, I always throw in a corrective exercise, so we'll farmers walk a figure 8 pattern
for about – anywhere from 15 feet to 100 yards.
Now getting into the second half of day A, we're still working on those two patterns,
but we're just taking the other side of that.
We did unilateral on the lower body pull last time, so we're gonna go bilateral
on the lower body pull this time.
This is a half-kneeling position.
When we get into a half-kneeling position, we're really helping the body to understand
a little bit of a different base.
Getting the hips to split really helps to accentuate that posture because the core is more active.
Now you're into your corrective exercise, and what we're gonna do today is our power-play figure 4.
If you want to you can be on a Bosu – a figure 4 pattern is a big stretch for your hip.
We've done all this work on the pieces and patterns – now let's play some music with the body.
This is metabolic work.
So if you're at the end of your 30 seconds and you're not feeling that [panting] and the heart's
not thumping, then you want to maybe you want to pick up that rope that is a little thicker,
or a little longer.
My favorite finisher is the sled push.
Why?
Number 1 because it's super challenging – and number 2 it's super corrective in nature.