7 Moves to get you Stronger For CrossFit

[Music] [Applause] [Music] oh crossfit why are you so hard just do more crossfit they say three on one off i'll be headed to the games in no time does this ever get easier gosh i hated it but i'll see you tomorrow but did you die hey everyone marcus philly here with functional bodybuilding and welcome back for another episode where i'm going to be talking about the intersection of functional bodybuilding and the sport that i lived and breathed for seven years [Music] that's right i'm diving into some specific breakdowns of how we can use functional bodybuilding moves to improve your positions and provide necessary strength to be better at the movements of crossfit because if you love crossfit or if you're just starting out with it you're inevitably going to run into this question how do i get better at crossfit in a more purposeful way than just doing more crossfit the crossfit methodology has been around for over 20 years now the sport of crossfit which is similar but also quite different has been around for close to 15 years a fitness methodology is different in many ways than sport see sport is all about maximizing your performance looking for every possible way to achieve better outcomes earn more points and win the game see in sport we always look outside of the practice of the actual game to find ways to improve our function on the field court or track this is why strength conditioning is a respected profession and an element of just about every major sport in the entire world but what happens when the sport itself is strength and conditioning right that's essentially what crossfit is it's a sport based on competing in strength and conditioning disciplines so for that reason many people have mistakenly thought over the years that all you need to do to get better at this sport is to simply just do more and more of it over and over again but as the years go by and more and more competitors reach new levels of performance and separate themselves from the pack we have seen many many ways and people explore training methods disciplines and movements that help them perform better at crossfit competitions well so how does that involve functional bodybuilding see well with functional bodybuilding i love to break down the specific demands of human physical endeavors and five movements contraction types and training concepts within fbb that lend themselves well to developing that trait to make those physical endeavors easier so today i've chosen seven movements from functional bodybuilding our exercise library that i believe have great carryover to crossfit see whether you love to compete in the sport or you just like to attend a few crossfit classes a week at your local box these movements can and will help you move better produce more power and increase your efficiency in the sport and don't let me forget that one of the biggest benefits to doing these movements is going to be making you more resilient to the demands of the high intensity fitness method that is crossfit okay there are going to be timestamps below in the description so that you can jump around to different movements if you wish and feel free to come back and reference those whenever you're ready to incorporate more let's get started the first exercise is the dumbbell or kettlebell prone row and this is designed to help you with your horizontal pull to improve chest of our pull-ups and your capacity within that movement chester bar pull-ups are common movement that show up in the sport of crossfit and the practice of it in any gym they require a different range of motion and also a slightly different direction of force production than a traditional pull-up many athletes are going to find this movement difficult to master even when they have a strong chin over the ball bar pull-up and you're going to ask yourself why well this comes down to the fact that in order to make contact with your chest to the bar the standard for the movement you must retract your shoulder blades considerably and push your chest forward into the bar this is not very natural in a natural position for many people when they're trying to pull themselves up and over the bar at the same time so therefore building strength with the kettlebell or dumbbell prone row in the horizontal pull direction is going to aid your chest to bar efficiency and strength i would advise using a slight incline as this is going to mimic the line of force of a chest to bar pull up when you perform them additionally it's really important that you don't overload this exercise that's going to steer you in the wrong direction see what we want to do is we really want to prioritize full scapular retraction and pulling your elbows as far behind you as possible if you can do that it's going to have direct translation to your chest of our pull-ups okay movement number two is the cyclist front squat an upright torso squatting maneuver that's going to translate really well to your olympic lifts crossfit is full of olympic weightlifting you have to be great at cleans and snatches to be successful in crossfit additionally you'll also see front squats and overhead squats programmed very often what you don't see a lot of in the actual sport and contests is the back squat i mentioned all this to say that the style of squatting that is predominantly seen in competition is a more upright vertical squat rather than the lean forward low bar back squat style that you see people doing in powerlifting so one of the missions of your training and your accessory work should be to strengthen that vertical squat position in the vertical squat position the knees go way over the toes one way to exaggerate this position is with the cyclist front squat we take the athlete to an extreme range and vertical torso position and then we build lots of strength and core capacity on top of that so that you're better for the sport you're going to want to keep your torso as upright as possible you're going to keep your elbows very high and above your knees and you're going to let your knees drift out over your toes and know that your loading on the bar will be significantly less than your maximal front squat and that's okay remember that when we train to improve an exercise we don't have to match our loads in the auxiliary or accessory movement like the cyclist front squat in order to have carry-over so don't push your loads on this cyclist's front squat if you can't yet okay number three is the philly press this is going to work scapular endurance as well as shoulder range of motion and strength handstand push-ups push press push jerk front rack positions these are all integral parts of crossfit what they all have in common is a need for great scapular endurance that means the muscles of the rotator cuff have a lot of muscle endurance and don't get tired too quickly additionally you're going to need great range of motion in your shoulders for these positions to get through these movements of course they require adequate strength but it often comes down to how long you can endure furthermore the quality of your positions as a result of your shoulder range of motion is going to impact your efficiency and how much wasted energy you're using so the philly press is a variation that i started using back in 2017 and what it does is it combines an isometric kettlebell rack hold with a single arm dumbbell arnold press at the same time the single arm arnold press is an effective tool to help build range of motion and anterior shoulder strength the kettlebell rack is an effective isometric that helps build scapular endurance and the posterior shoulder endurance that's required by combining it together it's a potent exercise that can be performed in a variety of different positions such as the tall kneeling the half kneeling standing or seated positions what you should be focused on you got to get full rotation of that dumbbell from supinated at the bottom of the rep to pronated at the top of the rep with your kettlebell rack you want to keep your elbow down and pressed against your body the entire time avoid letting that elbow flare up and out to the side okay next up is the rower or slide board pike up this is a big core flexion movement that helps lend itself to toe to bar flexibility as well as closed chain hand stand stability and strength i like how this movement brings together several important characteristics of fitness all into one that each lend themselves well to various movements of crossfit toaster bar handsome push-ups handstand walking and burpees are all movements that have crossover with this pattern that ability to bring your legs towards the torso with strength and great flexibility is essential for several of the core flexion movements in crossfit like toes to bar ghd sit-ups and even burpees this move focus specifically on that strength component while also helping develop flexibility to get the thighs closer to the chest additionally i also like that the shoulders have to support the body weight in different angles with the arms you'll develop better closed chain shoulder positions and strength with this exercise all at the same time as getting stronger in your core flexion okay one point of performance here to pay attention to is that as you move up into the pike position we're going to be bringing your head as close to the rower as you can at the top of the rep this is going to mimic proper overhead positions for handstands so try and stare through your arms at the rower as opposed to looking down at the floor when you're all the way up in the pike position okay moving along we're moving into the banded deficit romanian deadlift we're going to show you at some various grip widths including the clean grip and the snatch grip okay movements like the deadlift power cleans kettlebell swings are all common in any crossfit gym or competition one of the unique applications of these hinging exercises in crossfit is the way that they show up at higher repetitions than other training methods and approaches that are out there this has long been scrutinized as unsafe and often been the target of criticism of crossfit why are you doing so many deadlifts so fast in a row but it's the reality of the sport and if we want to make our bodies more resilient to high repetition hinging then this exercise might just be your solution a few different things that i like about this exercise number one we're extending your range of motion with the deficit this means we're strengthening you at the end range where athletes are often the most vulnerable it also means that the mid-range strength that is so often the movement standard in crossfit competitions will become even more robust the stiff-legged orientation and component of the romanian deadlift is going to ensure that you don't cheat this exercise and overuse your quads see we need to build strong glutes and hamstrings to bulletproof us when we're performing fatigued deadlifts and power cleans in a metcon or in a competition lastly we're using a band and banded loading makes sure that we don't overload the lengthened range of motion see using a band is actually overloading you at the shortened range of the targeted muscle and that is where you're actually the strongest the length in range is where you're most vulnerable so when you're at the bottom of the rdl you want the weight to be lightest when you're at the top of the rdl you're okay with it being heavier this will allow you to get great training volume without requiring long recovery periods between your sessions because you're not overloading that more vulnerable and weak position at the bottom my personal history with the deadlift i was a horrific deadlifter when i started crossfit and constantly tweaked my back my success over time in the deadlift i did pull a personal record of 565 pounds at the end of my crossfit career see that success was due in large part to two things number one i had to learn better technique and finally get rid of my over extension issue i had in my low back when i deadlifted but number two was i was able to build enough volume through lighter contractions full range of motion hinging exercises just like this one i did countless lightweight rdls in order to build resilience so that i could train at higher intensities later on i wish i had had this exercise in my toolbox back then when i was competing because i know it would have helped me tremendously okay exercise number six is the pause parallette push-up this is a deep range of motion that's going to make mid-range and end range more resilient to high speed kipping dips and burpees so one of the challenges of always trying to make your strength training better stronger more competitive is that you start to look for ways every way possible inside the rules to gain an edge one of these edges that comes up is that people start to shorten range of motion of exercises to the bare minimum to pass like why squat all the way to the bottom when your butt touches the ground when a good repetition is considered when your hips just go below your knee one area where we've seen this become problematic is around the ring dip when athletes in crossfit are asked to take their shoulders into a deep extension position at high speeds we've seen a lot of injuries occur in 2017 there was this event that happened that had an unprecedented number of pectoral injuries and tears that occurred at a regional competition when athletes had to perform 45 ring dips as fast as they could paired with dumbbell snatches i think one of the underlying reasons for this is that there wasn't and isn't enough shoulder extension training in the methodology burpees push-ups mid-range of motion dips and muscle ups and the occasional bench press are really all we see show up in crossfit competitions and many of the method methodology gyms that are out there so an exercise like the parallette push-up with the pause at the bottom in the lengthened position of the pec and the shoulders is a great way to build strength and resilience in this vulnerable area of the upper body the goal with each rep should be to let the chest drop as far through the parallettes as possible and let the elbows get as far behind the body as you can we're using this to build end range strength and stability so that when ring dips and muscle ups show up later on you can be more resilient and confident in your ability to push speeds and avoid injury or setback okay and last but not least we're going to look at the side plank power raise this exercise is going to help us fight internal rotation and improve our scapular retraction strength this is an isometric core movement that's going to get combined with another rotator cuff specific exercise i wanted to bring this in as an exercise that trains the frontal playing since so much of crossfit is sagittal plane focused see performing side planks has long been a method i have used to bulletproof my low back against injury crossfit athletes have had their fair share of back injuries and i suspect a lot of it comes down to lateral stability imbalances the side plank alone is a simple but very worthwhile drill to incorporate into training for crossfitters to help overcome and balance out these lateral stability imbalances add to that that we're going to be doing the exercise on top of a power raise and you have a two for one bang for your buck drill that is not only going to give you lateral core strength but also make your rhomboid muscles stronger to support better chest of our pull-ups and upper body gymnastics and crossfit altogether this is absolutely not an exercise you want to load very heavy get into the proper position make sure your body isn't rotating all over the place trying to overcome some weight that is too heavy okay i don't want you to get me wrong on this one i may have pointed out a few areas that i believe crossfit leaves its athletes and enthusiasts vulnerable to injury but that's the nature of any sport when you push for maximal performance we're always taking a risk so this isn't a message suggesting you should stop doing it all together i believe with proper training and methods that support you staying strong crossfit can be a beautiful expression of physicality and mental fortitude if you love it then i'm here to support you to do it for longer today's video is full of information and you might want to go head back now and review something that you felt particularly called to go try but the question i think that's on a lot of your minds right now is hey marcus how do i put this into my workouts so if you go ahead and click the link in the description below you can head to our website and you can grab a free pdf download of how i would recommend building these exercises into your training i'm going to include two strength balance sessions and two finishers that can be added to just about any day at the gym that you're already going to they will take about 10 to 15 minutes you can mix and match them one to two maybe even three times a week for as long as you're seeing positive benefits i want to put that in your hands so that you can make sense of how to actually practically go use this in functional bodybuilding formats that we use all the time okay now's your turn jump down into the comments section below leave me a message i want to know what you thought of this breakdown i also want to know and continue to want to bring you the best and most relevant content about fitness and nutrition so please let me know what you'd like to see next in the comments as you're at it and until next time keep training smart and spreading love to everyone take care [Music]

Channel: Marcus Filly

Views: 80,781

Rating: 4.972456 out of 5

Keywords: functional, bodybuilding

Id: 4i24b5p8HUg

Length: 18min 27sec (1107 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021