Bringing "Function" Back To Functional Training
The Perform Better Summit season is in full effect and I can’t tell you how excited we are to be part of it for almost a decade! Every year I get just as many ideas from other presenters and attendees as I do in presenting. One thing that stood out to me was the importance of educating people on what functional training really means.
That is why during my presentations this year I have been speaking about the “Glute Truth” trying to show how our everyday movement patterns and usage of our body should influence what we do in the gym. We like to think that our strength training is “functional” but far too many times we don’t realize how the body moves in life and how it is designed to move.
This month’s Metabolic Stability is dedicated to just that! Coach Anderson breaks down why and how we use our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training to progress movement and think about what we do in life! I’ll be showing you how progressing your kettlebell clean is so important in teaching qualities we tend to overlook because we still don’t believe that simplicity can yield powerful results!
DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Shucking
When Coach Anderson first came to me with this idea of Ultimate Sandbag Training Shucking I really had no idea what he was talking about. Coming from a wrestling background though he pulled some parallels that this was a move done against an opponent on the mat. More than replicating the movement, he was thinking about how reactive our strength needs to be and multi-dimensional.
Ultimate Sandbag Training Shucking is a beautiful and accessible way to build frontal plane strength and challenging our clients to own their plank position in other patterns of movement. The progressions Coach Anderson goes through shows how we can use the same loaded Ultimate Sandbag and focus on other attributes of strength to make it increasingly more challenging. Super helpful for those running classes or team formats!
DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Rotational Cleans
Rotation is like the final frontier of movement. Due to the complexity of the footwork it can take time really helping people understand rotation doesn’t happen at our low backs, but rather, our feet and hips. It is the footwork that allows us to spare our low backs and you will see, we so often perform this pattern badly in real life. Rarely has anyone thrown out their low back picking up a pencil because of the load of the pencil, but rather moving poorly.
Coach Anderson breaks down how to move properly and demonstrates how important this movement skill is in what we do in every day life. The Ultimate Sandbag not only makes this a great pattern to move in, but creating tension at the handles and the instability of the Ultimate Sandbag allows us to perform this lift safely and progressively.
Kettlebell Cleans
I agree with Coach Anderson, who calls kettlebell cleans the “linchpin” of kettlebell and functional training. He is referring to the concept of learning one thing opens the door to so much more. While we typically think of kettlebells with swings, the cleans have a HUGE impact upon how we can build and progress functional training in their own right and we could make an argument that they should proceed swings.
As in our DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training series we have way more ways to build and challenge the kettlebell clean than JUST going heavier. I will break down how you can make the kettlebell clean so much more powerful and accessible to your clients. It will become one of your favorite exercises so quickly!
Josh Henkin, CSCS is creator of the DVRT Ultimate Sandbag Training system and has been a kettlebell instructor since 2003. His work has had him teach at world class fitness events and teach his DVRT program in over 13 countries worldwide. Don’t miss the upcoming DVRT programs in New York and so much more HERE