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July 7, 2023

Deadlift vs. Romanian Deadlift: Learn the Best Way to Hit Your Posterior Chain

Filed under: Fitness,Training — Tags: , , , , — admin @ 3:57 am

When it’s time to target your posterior chain — glutes, hamstrings, and lower back — many lifters can be spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing effective exercises. Two of the most popular movements that end up in the spotlight are the classic deadlift and its slightly more focused twin, the Romanian deadlift (RDL).

Both of these exercises use a “hip hinge” movement to build muscle while developing the kind of practical, real-world strength that makes you the go-to person when your friends need help moving. Both exercises also have unique characteristics that could make each one an effective choice under certain conditions and training contexts.

person in gym bending forward with barbell in hands

Credit: YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV / Shutterstock

There is no “right” or “wrong” answer when it’s time to choose your deadlift. You simply need a better understanding of what these two hinging movements can offer. So if you’re in a certain “one deadlift rules the world” camp, your eyes are about to be opened to a new way of thinking about these powerful pulls.

Deadlift and Romanian Deadlift

Exercise Differences

For consistency’s sake throughout the article, “the deadlift” refers to the conventional deadlift, while the Romanian deadlift refers, clearly, to the Romanian deadlift variation. If you’re curious about sumo deadlifts, sorry, but they’re not part of this conversation. However, they do share many of the same characteristics as the conventional deadlift.

Muscle Activation

Both the deadlift and Romanian deadlift involve hip extension, your glutes and hamstrings are activated and trained effectively. However, the deadlift starts from the floor and involves a more significant knee bend aka knee flexion.

This factor alone makes a huge difference because it’s what gives you more leverage to lift more weight with the classic deadlift. This is also why it’s a preferred stance for competitive powerlifters.

Powerlifter performing deadlift in contest

Credit: Real Sports Photos / Shutterstock

The improved leverage increases quadriceps activation, making the deadlift one of the most comprehensive lower body exercises by involving the glutes, hamstrings, and quads as one unit. The relatively heavy load and overall stability requirements also increase the demands on your core and back muscles.

Contrastingly, the Romanian deadlift is performed without significant knee flexion. This limits your leverage while involving many of the same muscles — except for the quadriceps. This is why the RDL is often considered a primary hamstring exercise. (1)

Eccentric Emphasis

The Romanian deadlift starts from the top, while you are standing upright, and it focuses on controlling the lowering phase (eccentric). This controlled eccentric emphasis is what gives you relatively more control over the movement.

Generally speaking, many people do not control their eccentrics during conventional deadlifts. They typically lift the weight explosively before dropping the weight nearly as quickly. This drop is often (and unfortunately) accompanied by a celebratory scream after each successful lift regardless of gym etiquette.

This difference in the eccentric emphasis, or lack of, can make the cadence and overall effect of the exercises quite distinct. With the higher degree of eccentric control, Romanian deadlifts may be better for training muscular deceleration (crucial for athleticism) as well as hip and hamstring flexibility-related adaptations.

Range of Motion

In a deadlift, the added knee flexion reduces the necessary range of motion at hip extension — because you’re bending at your knees, you can lift the weight without bending significantly at your waist. This also limits the range of motion for your glutes and hamstrings, especially in their stretched position (at the bottom of the exercise).

The goal of a Romanian deadlift is to push your hips back and not perform any large degree of knee flexion. Combine this with the eccentric control mentioned earlier and you get a much longer range of motion with your glutes and hamstrings, especially in the stretched position which recent research is finding to be incredibly anabolic. (2)

Strength Potential

Between the two movements, the deadlift is often more popular because its nature and overall technique allow you to lift relatively heavier weights. That’s why it made the list as one of the three movements performed in competitive powerlifting.

For non-powerlifters, conventional deadlifts can simply feel invigorating and motivating because of the sheer strength-building potential they offer.

Long-haired person in gym holding barbell

Credit: BigBlueStudio / Shutterstock

Romanian deadlifts allow for less absolute load because of their mechanics. No knee flexion means fewer muscles involved and less loading potential. They’re still a potentially heavy exercise, but Romanian deadlift PRs are not bragged about nearly as often. When people ask how much you deadlift, it’s safe to assume they’re talking about conventional deadlifts from the floor.

Fatigue

This is one of the main differences that many people overlook. Not only is the level of fatigue different, but the type of fatigue is different between the two movements.

Because deadlifts involve more muscles and are often performed heavier, they’re generally more fatiguing. Whether you train with relatively higher reps or low reps, you can often count on feeling pretty beat up after doing deadlifts.

Especially as you get more advanced, one or two sets of deadlifts with a challenging weight or significant volume can leave you fried. This is often described as “systemic fatigue,” where your whole body is affected. Anecdotally, some people also tend to feel more joint stress with deadlifts.

Romanian deadlifts are typically performed with relatively lighter weights, so they trigger less joint stress and are less systemically fatiguing. This makes Romanian deadlifts generally easier to recover from. However, they can produce more fatigue and muscle soreness in the local muscles specifically involved in the exercise.

Romanian deadlifts also involve lots of eccentric stretching. This type of stress through a longer range of motion inflicts a higher degree of muscle damage. After you’ve pushed yourself with Romanian deadlifts, you can feel a clear difference where your glutes and hamstrings may even feel like they’re tearing. This causes your glutes and hamstrings to be more sore.

Exercise Similarities

Both exercises have differences that can be a factor, depending on your goal. However, they also share fundamental similarities and crossover. Most people in the gym, aside from competitive powerlifters, would likely not notice a drastic difference in long-term progress if they were to substitute one for the other.

Hip Hinges

The deadlift and Romanian deadlift are both “hip hinges” — your body primarily moves by bending at the hips. This action trains many muscles throughout your body by coordinating strength, force transfer, and stability from your lower to upper body.

Bald person in gym doing barbell deadlift

Credit: UfaBiaPhoto / Shutterstock

This comprehensive effect allows you to build strength, muscle, and athleticism. Fulfilling these roles is often more important than some of their unique differences.

Posterior Chain Development

Your glutes and hamstrings, along with your low back, are all targeted with both the deadlift and Romanian deadlift. In other words, these exercises develop that backside many people are after.

You need some sort of basic hip hinge in your training program to efficiently target those eye-catching glute and hamstring muscles, while also strengthening your low back.

Building a powerful posterior chain has also been shown to help maintain strength and potentially decrease the general risk of injury and incidence of back pain. (3)

How to Do the Deadlift

The deadlift is often considered one of the foundational lifts that every beginner in the gym should learn. While that may or may not be true, the deadlift (as a hip hinge) remains a fundamental movement pattern that targets a variety of muscles from your hamstrings to your upper back.

This makes it an efficient and effective exercise for several goals, and mastering this exercise should likely be on the to-do list for the majority of gym-goers.

  • Stand before a bar with your feet hip-width apart and the bar lined up over the middle of your feet. Grab the bar with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Adjust slightly to get your shins close to the bar.
  • Bend at your hips and knees, lowering yourself down while maintaining a neutral spine. Your shoulders should be slightly in front of the bar and your gaze should be focused on a spot on the floor a few feet in front of the bar.
  • Engage your core and lat muscles to stabilize your spine. Grip the bar hard, take a deep breath, and brace your core. Drive through your legs, while extending (straightening) your hips and knees simultaneously.
  • Keep your chest up. The barbell should move in a vertical path, staying in contact with your legs as you stand up.
  • Drive through your heels until you reach a fully upright position. At the top of the movement, squeeze your glutes to achieve a strong lockout. Your hips and knees should be fully extended.
  • To lower the bar, hinge at your hips, push your hips back, and bend your knees slightly. Avoid rounding your back or letting the barbell drift away from your legs. Lower with control — don’t simply drop the bar.
  • Once the barbell is back on the ground, take a moment to reset your starting position before beginning the next repetition.

How to Do the Romanian Deadlift

The Romanian deadlift may have a reputation as being more “for muscle” rather than “for strength,” but that’s not really accurate. The increased glute and hamstring recruitment can definitely benefit muscle-building, but you can still gradually work up to relatively heavy weights in the lift if you choose to train for strength.

Alternatively, some lifters focus on the longer range of motion and increased stretching offered by the Romanian deadlift. In any case, it’s a versatile exercise that can be a key player in any workout routine.

  • Grasp a barbell using an overhand grip, with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Stand with your feet hip-width apart, allowing the bar to rest against your upper thighs. Either begin with the bar in a rack or deadlift the bar into position.
  • Engage your core. Push your glutes backward and hinge at your hips to begin the movement. Keep a slight bend in your knees but avoid excessive knee flexion. Maintain a straight back as you move.
  • Lower the barbell along the front of your thighs. Continue descending until you feel a stretch in your hamstrings. Avoid rounding your back during the descent.
  • To find the bottom position, if mobility allows, aim for your torso to reach almost parallel to the ground with the barbell somewhere between your knees and ankles.
  • To return upright, drive your hips forward and squeeze your glutes. Keep your back straight and focus on feeling your hamstrings and glutes lift the weight. As you stand up, maintain control and avoid any jerking motions.

When to Program the Deadlift vs. Romanian Deadlift

For most people, the most effective way to program these exercises is to simply switch from using the conventional deadlift to the Romanian deadlift. The Romanian deadlift is superior for building lean muscle on your glutes and hamstrings, which is often a higher priority than lifting heavy weights.

In general, if you’re looking to build the highest level of strength and you want a more comprehensive exercise that recruits the maximum number of muscles, consider programming the deadlift.

However, the Romanian deadlift is the better choice for a posterior chain hypertrophy exercise. It takes the glutes and hamstrings through a longer range of motion with a muscle-building stretch.

Both are demanding compound exercises that should be programmed early in your leg day, ideally as your first or second exercise. To reduce cumulative stress and fatigue on supporting muscles, avoid programming anything too demanding on the lower back in the next workout, like back squats or direct back extensions.

Pick Your Heavy Hinges

The deadlift and Romanian deadlift are both highly effective hip hinges that will get you strong and build plenty muscle. While this might sound oversimplified, it’s not entirely wrong to think of the deadlift as a “high leverage lift that cuts range of motion to move big weights” while the Romanian deadlift is a “more controlled, long range of motion muscle-builder for the glutes and hamstrings.” You can’t go wrong with either, but one might edge forward depending on your specific needs.

References

  1. Martín-Fuentes, I., Oliva-Lozano, J. M., & Muyor, J. M. (2020). Electromyographic activity in deadlift exercise and its variants. A systematic review. PloS one, 15(2), e0229507. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0229507
  2. Nunes, J. P., Schoenfeld, B. J., Nakamura, M., Ribeiro, A. S., Cunha, P. M., & Cyrino, E. S. (2020). Does stretch training induce muscle hypertrophy in humans? A review of the literature. Clinical physiology and functional imaging, 40(3), 148–156. https://doi.org/10.1111/cpf.12622
  3. Tataryn, N., Simas, V., Catterall, T., Furness, J., & Keogh, J. W. L. (2021). Posterior-Chain Resistance Training Compared to General Exercise and Walking Programmes for the Treatment of Chronic Low Back Pain in the General Population: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports medicine – open7(1), 17. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40798-021-00306-w

Featured Image: 4 PM production / Shutterstock

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May 16, 2021

5 Essential Exercises for the Powerful Runner

When it comes to improving running performance, runners usually fall into one of two camps:

  1. Those who just run more
  2. Read 5 Essential Exercises for the Powerful Runner at its original source Breaking Muscle:

    https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/5-essential-exercises-for-the-powerful-runner

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February 11, 2021

I Was Wrong

When strung together, we should say these three words with our tail between our legs and a strong shimmy to our confidence. I’m not going to get on my high horse and go through some Pinterest list of virtuous bullet points on how personal growth starts here and how courage is found in these moments, blah blah blah.

My reason for writing this is because I have been wrong a lot.

I know what it feels like to be a young coach/trainer who has one of these epic moments where the thought, “Ohhh shit, I think I’ve screwed up,” races up your spine like an alarm going off at a firehouse.

And in that bone-chilling moment, you see your career, your approach, and your entire belief structure go flashing before your eyes.

It’s a gut punch, for sure, but one that comes with a ton of upside.

I hope you can set your ego aside and admit that some of your tried and trues might be what is holding you and your clientele back.

Toes Up

My career started in the springtime of 1999. I was a card-carrying meathead by the dictionary definition of the word.

I loved the weight room, started my collegiate strength and conditioning career, and could not have been happier. I thought beginning work at 4 am was terrific. Less sleep meant I could be in the gym longer. When I shut down training at 7 or 8 pm, it was perfect.

I didn’t want a relationship or a family anyway. I was that guy.

One of the coaching cues that we used for years was toes up! Toes up in our squats, or deadlifts, basically any closed-chain exercise.

The intention was a good one (sort of), in that we were trying to get the lifters to shift their weight back. We knew that much of the posterior chain appears online when the heels are dug-in.

It was the day and age when all problems were blamed on posterior chain issues.

“Do you have chronic migraines?”

“It’s because your posterior chain is weak.”

“Breaking up with your wife?”

“It’s posterior chain issues.”

“Do you have erectile dysfunction, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic nosebleeds, sleepwalking or severe acne?”

“A steady diet of RDL’s should fix it all.” – Yeah, so we preached.

And we preached it. And then something funny started to happen. We were getting a lot of low back issues, particularly when squatting. These ailments were also during the last few years where political correctness wasn’t a thing.

We blamed every injury or chronic problem on the kid’s lack of toughness or inherent softness.

Then, seven years into my career, I heard a friend of mine give a talk at a kettlebell course I attended on the big toe and how it has a direct neurological relationship with the glutes:

  1. The big toe
  2. Knuckle down
  3. Glutes come on

Wait, what?

The glutes are part of the posterior chain, but it’s like the most posterior of the posterior chain.

Oh shit, I think I’ve screwed this up.

After experiencing this myself, the kids I had coached up to this point, including the soft-ass ones with the low back issues, raced through my mind. Have I been holding my athletes back (by this time, in the thousands)?

Could I have been the reason all those kids ended up with low back issues? The cold hard truth is, very likely yes.

One Message

I’ve told this story before on this site, but it bears repeating. While this comes up time and again, I was hell-bent on becoming the second coming of my mentor, Mike Kent.

Coach Kent is a national coaching treasure. There’s no one like him, and every athlete he’s ever come across loved him. I was one of them, and I was desperate to be just like him.

The problem is, I couldn’t see how adaptable he was to different groups.

I became the football version because I played football for Coach Kent, and I thought that version was the silver bullet to get any athlete to work.

Was I right? With football, I was golden:

  • They loved the way I coached them.
  • I was hard but playful when the time was right.
  • I pushed them and wouldn’t for a second listen to any bitching or complaining from anyone.
  • I challenged them as men and asked them to reach outside of themselves during every training session.

In retrospect, I was a bully of sorts, and they ate it up.

Insert our Women’s Soccer team. You can guess what is coming—same recipe. I coached hard, took no excuses, refused to let them complain, and pushed them harder than ever.

And, I lost every single one of them. When I say lost, I mean I earned the nickname The Weight Room Nazi.

They hated me.

They hated coming to the weight room, and I got to the point where my skin would crawl, knowing they were on the docket for the day.

Instead of inspiring them or showing them how to dig deep, they descended further into disinterest and lack of care. It was the worst.

Was the reason that:

  • They were a bunch of spoiled rich kids?
  • They had some weak coaches before me, who let the athletes walk all over them, and now they finally had someone who demanded hard work?
  • I was dealing with young women who were relatively new to weight training?
  • They didn’t believe that blood makes the grass grow. And, perhaps the ladies thought saying something like that makes you sound like a moron.
  • These 25 young ladies, most importantly, weren’t football players, and my approach was what was failing?

Oh shit, I think I’ve screwed this up. I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Death of the Ego

There is being right, and then the insecure, desperate, and manic need to be right. Somewhere in the middle is where most of us dwell.

And the entire reason for writing this article is to challenge you to do some soul searching.

I promised no Pinterest moments, but I’m almost 22 years in the game, and I welcome the whoops-a-daisy moments. I’ve learned enough and seen so much that there are those times when I feel like I’ve seen it all.

And then, I realize that I don’t know everything.

Our egos are functioning for a slew of reasons. Some are productive, but most are toxic. And as a coach or trainer, we have chosen a significant decision-making profession. We are the final word, the long arm of the law.

Most of us have a ton of education (degrees and certs) and are confident in our thinking. Because of the physical nature of what we do and the nervous system’s incredible adaptability, even when we are wrong, the body adjusts and gives us credit when we aren’t deserving.

I Don’t Know

Dr. Susan Puhl (may she rest in peace) was my Advanced Exercise Physiology instructor and my thesis chair during my graduate work. She was as smart as they came and was a hammer in the classroom.

I love to tell this story about my first group presentation in her class.

We had taken the topic of altitude and its effects on the human body. The instructor broke us into small groups, and we spent an entire evening presenting our sections.

Each group had 3-5 people, and we were responsible for a few minutes individually for each section. We were all a tad nervous, and then the first student gets up and starts her portion.

Within the first couple of minutes, Dr. Puhl asks her a question. At that moment, the lady gave an answer that she thought might pass.

Dr. Puhl commented, “Wrong—try again.”

The young lady made another attempt at talking her way through the answer.

All we heard from the back of the room was, “Nope, the wrong answer, try again.”

The student’s portion was to be a few minutes. But, the exchange turned into 20 minutes with her sobbing in front of 18 strangers.

Round and round, they went. The more this girl tried to bullshit, the more Dr. Puhl wouldn’t let her off the hook.

Halfway through this debacle, I began to sink in my seat because I was up next and feeling the doom that might come my way.

Another guy named Victor in my group was already terrified about presenting, so I’m pretty sure that he was sitting there, in a puddle of his urine.

Right before this poor girl’s soul was about to leave her body for good, Dr. Puhl called off the dogs.

Dr. Puhl said, “Do you know why I’m not stopping?” And the wet mess of a human in front of us said, “No, why?”

Her answer was straightforward.

“It’s because you clearly don’t know, but refuse to admit that you don’t. So you would rather make up answers than admit that you don’t know. I would have happily accepted that and let you move on, but instead, I wanted to see how long you would rattle off guesses than swallow your pride and let us all know you don’t have the answer. In the future, the answer is simple; the answer is, I don’t know.

– Dr. Susan Puhl

From that moment forward, things changed for all of us. As you might have figured, when I was to get up and answer questions, I was tripping over myself to give the reliable and bulletproof answer, I don’t know.

I appreciate the need to be right. I understand the image we are trying to uphold, and we don’t want to look unprepared. But know when to stop talking in circles and attempting to pull an answer out of thin air.

And never, ever, bullshit. Let them know that you don’t know, but will find out and get back to them with an answer as soon as you can.

What We’ve Always Done

  • Do you know how many studies were in the first-ever edition of The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research? Four.
  • Do you know how many studies were featured in the last edition of the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research? Nineteen.

What the hell does any of this have to do with this article?

When I was on my come up, I used to, like a nerd, spend my evenings and weekends in the library at Eastern Kentucky reading all the research I could get my hands on. I have read every word of the first five volumes (currently at 34) of that publication.

Due to this journal and other scientific journals like it, the profession has accelerated discoveries and improved old ones.

When I got my start, the profession was in diapers. Now, I mean, the evolution of strength science is like a rocket ship. We are evolving at a breathtaking rate.

The reason I bring this up to you is that I’m guilty of this myself, perhaps more than anyone.

The phrase, “What we’ve always done.” rolls right off of your tongue.

It’s also the biggest cop-out answer of them all. It tells us that you are lazy. It gives me all the information I will ever need about you.

I’m experiencing this as we speak, a professional night of the soul. I’m on the back nine of my career, and what we’ve always done doesn’t make much sense.

Yes, there are mainstays in my system, those exercises or groupings that would be the hill on which I would die. But many of the things I have preached for two decades are losing their shine. Why? Because I’m tinkering with other things.

I’m listening to fresh voices and watching some brilliant people do some unconventional things that are downright better at producing the results that I want. This openness is in contrast to what I’ve always done.

To give you a glimpse, much of the traditional exercises, like squats and deads, and how we’ve executed them, don’t work.

I’m a big carryover guy. If we do this in the weight room, then we do this on the field. And to be honest, I’m struggling to lie to myself that the carryover is there in the way I need it to be or how I have fantasized it to be. Has it all been a lie? In real-time, I’m telling you, oh shit, I think I’ve screwed this up.

I am standing on the mountaintop of epic proportions in the world of admitting I was wrong. I’m questioning the very fabric of my system.

Not because I have been wrong the whole time, but that there are now better choices.

You can’t be wrong when it’s the best choice available, but when a better alternative has shown its face, It’s a real crossroads.

I’m not exactly sure where I’ll be a year from now. Stay tuned and find out.

Look, we all have to face the music at some point. The day will come when you realize that something you are prescribing to your clientele isn’t working. And that is okay. It’s pretty liberating, to be honest.

I’m too old to waste any more time.

My reputation has never really been a thing for me and certainly isn’t something I’m afraid to tarnish now. So admitting when I’m wrong and saying, “I don’t know” (big love to you, Dr. Puhl) is easy for me. It gives me room for something better.

I want to be excellent and don’t have any more time to throw away.

Embrace being wrong. It happens. Do what is required of you, and then move on. You’ll be better for it.

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January 10, 2021

10 At-Home Exercises For Women That Actually Work

Since the idea of work-from-home is getting extremely popular during the pandemic, make sure you do not leave your health regimen high and dry. Everyone is suffering from Schrödinger’s disease.

The self-isolation focuses on the idea of assuming that either you are containing the virus from the outspread or preventing yourself from being infected by avoiding any contact with the external environment.

As necessary as it is to stay indoors and work from home, it is also a good idea to focus on a Workout Program to Burn Fat.

Utilize this time to achieve your fitness goals.

If you are self-conscious about excess body fat and weight issues, the following is a list of exercises curated workout program to burn fat for women that work.

1. The Bridge

This exercise serves as an activator for your glutes, hamstrings, and core muscles.

  • Lie down on a mat with your knees bent and your back and feet touching the floor.
  • Raise your bottom off the ground and slowly bring it back to the resting position.
  • Make sure you are using your core strength.
  • Do two sets of 10 reps if you are a beginner.

2. Knee Push

It is an exercise that will serve as a prerequisite for pushups.

  • Lie face-front on the floor with your knees touching the floor.
  • Go down slowly and raise your body just before reaching the floor.
  • Make sure that your elbows are at a 45-degree angle.

3. Lunges

Lunges focus primarily on your core and abdominal muscles.

They help shred extra body fat and are included in the Tone Program For Females. If you are looking to build stability, this exercise is excellent for you.

4. Squats

The squat is a prominent lower body workout regimen.

The most important aspect of a squat workout is ensuring that your form is correct. Otherwise, there will be no visible results.

5. Crunches

Crunches are the go-to workout plan when it comes to scorching your excess belly fat. It requires immense core strength to perform crunches.

If you feel that crunches are on the more accessible side of the spectrum and you want to intensify them, you can add resistance bands or weights.

6. The Plank

It is one of the most conventional exercises in tone programs for females.

The reason being that the plank helps in shredding fat evenly from your body without causing any stretch marks.

With time, you will be able to do a plank for a longer duration of time.

7. Bird Dog

  • Lie with your face forward and knees touching the ground.
  • Lift alternate leg and hand simultaneously.
  • You will feel a tingling in your arms and legs.
  • This exercise requires balance and stability.

8. Hip Abduction

This exercise is meant for you if you are not a beginner.

  • Lie on either side
  • Say left hand, lift your right leg slowly while resting the other on the ground.
  • Reverse

The exercise helps in toning your hips.

9. Side Planks

  • If you want to maintain a proper posture and reduce stress on the spine, it’s time to take up side planks.
  • It strengthens the abdominal and back muscles, and the best thing is you can practice at any time.
  • But, to achieve the best results, you have to remain constant.
  • To perform side planks, extend your legs and lie on your right side and keep your feet and hips at rest on the floor.

10. Go for the Russian Twist

Yes, you heard it right; like its name, it’s an effective exercise you can perform at home to reduce weight.

  • You have to sit on a floor mat and lean back in a Russian twist until you feel that the abdomen area muscles are well stretched.
  • Create a V shape, and slowly twist from one side to the other.
  • Make sure you have the right posture to get the best results.

Even though you are confined to the four walls of your home, do not let this confinement stop you from following and achieving your fitness goals.

Make sure that you are eating right and following a workout routine to stay fit and healthy.

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December 2, 2020

Get More Power from Rowing

I’m a rower – on water and in the gym. I regularly watch rowers and trainers work out on their rowing machines with growing frustration. Why am I frustrated?

Because they could be getting much better scores if only they knew one key technique.

Get More Power from Rowing - Fitness, crossfit, rest and recovery, rowing, indoor rowing, power, core strength, power output, hamstrings, hip hinge, back strength, glutes, arm strength, competitive rowing, rowing ergometer, rowing technique, ratio and rhythm

Master the Rowing Machine

Go into the average gym, CrossFit, or a rowing club, and you will see a lot of great athletes using the rowing machines.

What difference does it make?

They are an order of magnitude different. Somehow those on-water rowers seem to coax more and more out of a rowing machine and leave most gym rowers for dead.

Two reasons why this happens:

  1. On-water rowers who use the rowing machines understand the concept of ratio and rhythm. This allows them to get more rest each stroke, thus allowing them to be more powerful because they’re getting less tired.
  2. On-water rowers know how to recruit extra muscles into their effort. The more muscles that are brought into the power phase, the more the flywheel accelerates, and the better the numbers.

The Basic Rowing Stroke

Rowing is comprised of two main parts:

  1. The Power Phase– In which you push against the footboard and accelerate the handle and chain towards you.
  2. The Recovery Phase– You rest and return to a bent-leg compressed posture with the chain retracted inside the machine.

An effective power phase uses legs, back, and arms to accelerate the handle and chain. So far, so good., but that isn’t what I’m seeing being done in the gym.

Most gym rowers fail to use their back muscles to accelerate the handle and chain.

This is a critical difference compared to the on-water rowers. This is what I teach my clients.

Add Back Power to your Rowing

First, learn which muscles to activate. Finding them and feeling these muscles, and knowing how to make them activate is probably the hardest part of this technique improvement.

Then, I would like to show you how to recruit them into your rowing stroke cycle and give you a drill to practice, which will enable you to add your back muscles into your rowing stroke.

Body Swing Only Rowing

On-water rowers learn technique and effective power using drills and exercises. And so I’m going to show you a drill called Body Swing Only Rowing.

  • Let’s start by sitting on the rowing machine.
  • Pick up the handle and sit with your legs straight, arms straight, and your body leaning forward.
  • The key is that your shoulders are forward of your hips (use a mirror to check), and your neck and shoulders are relaxed.

On-water rowers call this position the catch position. It’s achieved by hinging through your hips with a straight back. If you have tight glutes and hamstrings, you may find this challenging.

If you cannot achieve this position, don’t do the exercise. You won’t gain anything until you can stretch forward in this posture.

Stage One

  • Swing yourself backward until your shoulders are behind your hips.
  • Leave your legs and arms straight. Then swing forwards again, and back moving the flywheel with the handle and chain as you swing.
  • Try not to lean back further than 5-10 degrees.
  • Now make the flywheel spin faster by gripping your abdominals just before you start the backswing.

A strong mid-section helps you connect your backswing to the handle and chain without any slippage.

Stage Two

  • Add the arms to the backswing.
  • Start swinging the back alone as in stage one, and then add an arm draw to keep the handle and chain accelerating as the handle comes close to your body.
  • Then straighten your arms and swing forward from the hips.
  • This sequence is important—arms before body swing.
  • Keep working the swing-and-draw with a strong core to remove chain slippage so that when you start to move, the chain immediately accelerates the flywheel. Notice that you can do a tiny bit of backswing before you start the arm draw.
  • This is important for activating the back muscles. You have to get larger muscle groups (legs and back) working before smaller muscles (arms) in rowing.

This is a critical skill for developing stroke power.

Stage Three

  • Half the leg drive.
  • Add a half leg drive. Rowers call this half-slide, and it’s when your legs are 50% towards being straight.
  • Normally this is when your elbows are over your knees.

Stage one is the back. Add stage two, which is the arms, and then add stage three, the legs.

You are now moving the handle and chain faster because more body parts are accelerating the flywheel.

The critical component is the transition from one body part to the next.

Keeping this smooth and keeping the chain taut, and continuing to accelerate will give you the best results.

Stay focused on legs-back-arms and the reverse sequence when you return to start another stroke.

Learning this will reinforce the big muscles before the small muscles rule.

String It Together

Do the drill with 10 strokes at each stage. Then move to full slide and use a full leg drive; try to make the second half of your power phase feel like when you did the drill.

Use the mirror to check your posture. The first half of your power should be using only your leg drive. Check your torso is leaning forwards with shoulders forward from the hips. This is an unnatural posture and has to be learned – but it reinforces the big before small muscle rule, and that’s why it’s effective.

The last thing you can practice is rowing and try to finish your legs, back and arms simultaneously. This is an exaggeration from normal rowing technique – but it’s a good way to get a seriously powerful end of the rowing stroke.

And a good way to continue practicing or use it to do a 10 stroke power push during a workout when you want more power and that split to go down.

Next is learning that second thing… ratio and rhythm. But we’ll leave that for another day.

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