today I'm going to show you six seldomly
performed exercises they're going to
help you to patch up those weak links in
the big exercises that are making up the
foundation of your training program and
more importantly help you to see all new
gains from them what's up guys jeff
cavaliere athleanx.com so today I want
to show you six exercises that again you
probably aren't doing at least one of
them you should be doing every day and
that's a hint but they serve an
important complementary role to your
main foundational exercises because if
you're not doing them guys I feel that
you're leaving some gains on the table
because in every one of our bigger lifts
there's a tendency for the weak link in
that lift to hold back the overall
progress you'll see if I told you
however that these exercises I'm going
to show you are going to help you to
address those weak links I think you
want to listen so that being said I want
to break down the following exercises a
deadlift a squat and overhead press and
a way to pull up so let's start first
with the deadlift or when it comes to
the deadlift guys there's actually two
exercises that apply here because I feel
that there's two issues that we have and
just trying to get the bar off of the
ground and that is do you have adequate
leg drive through the ground to get the
bar going and secondly once you do do
you have adequate upper-body strength
and stability to keep the bar where it's
supposed to be especially on that proper
bar path tight to your body on the way
up and a lot of times we lack one or the
other if we were lacking let's say in
the upper body stability and strength
than what you want to do is this right
here and this is the chest supported row
now not only did I put this up on
Instagram a few days ago but I shared
then as well that this is something that
actually I struggle with a great deal
when I first started to lift a long time
ago I actually felt like I had the
ability to drive through the legs to
generate force into the ground so I
could get that bar go in the opposite
direction but I didn't have the ability
to keep that bar nice and tight because
the wheat this through my upper body and
shoulders allow the bar to drift down
and forward and away from me making the
lift a lot harder so what this does is
it demands that you learn how to pull
from a no momentum state without the
help of your legs and you can see I
practiced this a lot and I tried to get
myself a lot stronger on this so that I
could pull with no legs so that when I
got back into the position of a deadlift
and had the
my legs I'd be able to pull a lot more
now the next thing though is that some
people don't have the ability to
actually drive into the ground or as I
pointed out before in our deadlift
tutorial video they don't even know that
the legs are really supposed to be
driving that initial part of the
movement at least to the level of the
knees it's like a standing leg press so
you want to be able to train your body
to know that the leg drive is important
but when that's established how are you
going to do it with an exercise how are
you going to get better at that this is
where I like to break out the reverse
lunge or the dumbbell lunge in general
because what the lunge makes you do of
nothing else is it makes you learn how
to drive hard into the ground through
one foot at a time here the fact is I
like to do mine with a step back in
Reverse because what it does is it takes
the anterior stress off of my knee so
for somebody that has knee pain or
discomfort particularly from patellar
tendonitis the step backwards takes off
some of that strain but it doesn't
diminish the main benefit this exercise
provides and then it teaches you how to
push hard through that forward leg so
you can get all the momentum of your
body back up to a standing position now
again if you had taken this into a
forward lunge there's even more demands
when you step forward and have all of
your momentum plus the weight going
forward and now you've got a push to
drive back and get back up to a standing
position
you will learn quickly if you don't
already that you need to learn how to
push with great force through your legs
one at a time into the ground
so when you come back into the deadlift
and set up with both feet able to
contribute now and again with that tight
upper back you've got a great
combination here to help you to rip that
bar off the ground and get it going in
the right direction since you can
complete the lift next sticking with the
leg movements here we talked about the
squat and you guys have heard me talk
about before the value of the gluts when
it comes to performing the squat because
again the sticking point in a squat is
most likely going to be the bottom of
the lift because you're not half reppin
it you got to go down low enough to
actually not just see benefits from the
exercise but more importantly you need
to be able to activate the glutes set
them up to contribute to the lift put
them on a stretch the only way to put
them on stretch is to get deep enough
but when you're deep what's the
consequence a lot of times you can't get
out of the hole this is a great exercise
to help you do that this is a variation
of the glute-ham raise because we're not
actually completing it to the
we're doing the hamstring curl what
we're doing is we're pre loading the
glutes by putting us into relative hip
flexion here at the bottom of the lift
I'm waiting it if possible you may not
be able to if you can't you can go
without you can work your way up with
dumbbells the fact is you can overload
this exercise but with that pre-stretch
glute the main driver of getting me out
of that position into hip extension has
got to be the glutes you want to focus
here on initiating the contraction by
squeezing your butt cheeks together now
I know the low back is going to want to
contribute just like it would in the
bottom of a squat and that could become
a very faulty movement pattern when you
take it into your squat you want to
teach your body that like everything
else we start from the ground up we
derived our strength and force through
the ground first and it goes up the
kinetic chain
therefore the glutes are going to
encounter that force first and you want
to make sure that they're doing that so
you squeeze and initiate every single
repetition by the squeeze of the glutes
let the low back contribute after hold
in full extension and come down if you
do a few sets of these guys and start
working them into your routine you're
gonna have a stronger lower back but
more importantly you're going to be
neurologically wired to utilize your
glutes right at the moment that they're
needed the most
alright moving into the upper body one
of the foundational pressing exercises
you should be doing is an overhead press
now that being said we know there's some
variety and how we can perform that
exercise depending upon how much of the
lower body we want to involve and what
the purpose of our training is if you're
trying to be more powerful and explosive
you'd want to incorporate the lower body
because we know how much that can
contribute to generating force like we
just said from the ground up but we also
have the alternative to try to strict up
our form right to try not to get the
lower body to contribute but here's the
thing our bodies are pretty damn smart
as soon as you put yourself on your feet
they're gonna find ways to rely on
ground reaction forces to accomplish
what it is we're trying to do so what we
could do if we're trying to get
ourselves to be even stronger in this
exercise is set our ass down literally
on the ground like you see me here and
as II press the Z press is one in which
our legs are literally removed from the
equation here they're actually just out
in front of us not contributing to the
force generation of the lift now we have
to use the strength of our shoulders to
get this barbell up it's another one of
those chest supported row nomal
mentum type setups where we're demanding
that the fossils that we believe are
maybe being kind of compromised by the
more quick to participate lower-body
and we're making them do all the work so
if you're finding that you're not
lifting as much on the overhead presses
you feel you probably should be you're
probably not as strong as you think you
are directly where you need the strength
the most and that's where this exercise
comes in perfectly so when it comes to
the upper-body pulling exercises a
foundational movement for you at least
one of them should be the way to pull-up
and we've talked about the benefits of
this movement many many times before
however it's how you address your
weaknesses in trying to get stronger
this exercise that's probably holding
you back some because the area that
you're going to want to work more so
than the areas that you can see moving
should be the areas that you cannot see
at all and that is this foundational
strength and stability of your shoulder
blade because as I've talked about here
before guys the glenohumeral joint is
actually an interesting joint it's got a
lot of mobility to be able to allow our
arms to get into a whole lot of
positions from all the way down here to
all the way up over our head obviously
valuable when it comes to performing a
pull-up we also know that the shoulders
itself have a lot of strength capacity
ie on the overhead press to allow us to
do some things when we move them through
space obviously the lats as well but
it's the strength of the scapular
stability that is going to ultimately
undermine your ability to do a way to
pull up if they're not strong enough why
because as I've used this analogy guys
many many times before if you tried to
jump as high as you possibly could and
you tried to do it off of this hard
surface here or off of a lot of sand I
can tell you right now you're not
jumping higher off of the sand than you
are here and that is because the base
where you're trying to generate force
from is moving it's giving its weak not
like this firm floor so if you wanted to
do something for yourself that's going
to help you to get better at the pull-up
you do these these are weighted skat
pulls all you're trying to do here guys
is do a straight pull up in other words
your elbows are not bending you're just
allowing the weight of your body to pull
your shoulders into upward rotation and
then you're trying to drive them down
and back by doing nothing but pulling
down with those lower traps really
trying to squeeze and strengthen the
stability of those scapula from the
bottom up and the movement here is
actually very very
very small and maybe you can't handle
weight that's fine I can tell you if
you're incredibly weak in this area even
a body weight variation of this is going
to be challenging and if you're
somewhere in between guys there's
nothing stopping you from going over to
a lat pulldown machine and using the
weight that's sort of in between the two
with the same mechanics and idea in mind
you want to try to initiate that pull
straight down through the scapula learn
to stabilize them because once they're
stable once you have that stable base
once you've gotten rid of the sand
you've replaced it with a stable base
now you want to generate force go for it
you're gonna be able to do a lot more
things you need to find out a lot more
reps when it comes to the way to pull-up
and finally I don't know how I feel
about this exercise because I feel like
it shouldn't be one of those that's a
surprise to you because if you've
watched this channel for any length of
time you're gonna realize Jeff he kind
of likes face pulls as a matter of fact
they make their way into this video
another time for a very good reason if
you could think of one exercise that was
complimentary that was an accessory
movement that you'd want to include that
could benefit all of your lips in fact
all the lists we talked about here what
would it be you know the answer would be
the faceful you can see me doing it here
and the variation that I'm showing you
here is where I add the additional press
to the top because it requires
additional stability of those mid
scapular and lower staff for their
muscles to perform this the correct way
there's not an exercise you're going to
perform that won't benefit from this
movement and getting stronger on this
movement this is not meant to be done
with just five pounds you're supposed to
get stronger at this movement the fact
is you'll be doing it frequently so you
won't have to necessarily worry about
frequent jumps in weight just go for an
overall progression in the weight that
you're using try to get stronger here
how can it help we'll think about it is
this going to help you and your pull-ups
of course is this going to help you with
stability on the deadlift of course is
this going to help you with maintain the
tightness in your upper body throughout
the squat of course is this going to
help you to perform an overhead press
with proper mechanics of course is this
going to help it on a bench press to
maintain tightness to your upper body on
the exercise of course guys the face
pull is one of the best exercises you
can do do not forget about it and start
including it after all of your workouts
like I asked you to do before so there
you have it guys there are some
additional lifts that I believe you
should be doing especially if you're
finding yourself struggling to break
through some plateaus on your bigger
foundational lifts you can't keep
banging your head against
the wall guys there's a saying that says
if you keep doing what you're doing
you're gonna keep getting what you're
getting you want to have some strategy
to allow you to break through and I
believe these exercises give you a
strategy to break through in a powerful
way they're addressing those weaknesses
in the kinetic chain that are likely
holding you back and if we can
strengthen the weakest link we're gonna
make you strong all the way through if
you're looking for programs guys that
address these weak links and build them
into everything we do so that we can
minimize how often they appear and how
significant they are when they do appear
head to athleanx.com and get our
training programs in the meantime I've
found the video helpful leave your
comments and thumbs up below
let me know what else well I'm gonna
cover I'll do my best to do that for you
and if you haven't already done so guys
please click subscribe and turn on your
notifications so you never miss a new
video when I publish one hi guys we're
back here again in just a few days see
you
[Music]
you