Key Takeaways

1. The cable crossover works the pec major and minor muscles, and can be set up to emphasize the upper, middle, and lower divisions of the pecs.

2. The cable crossover works the pecs hardest in their shortened position, and offers more tension throughout the whole range of motion than does a dumbbell flye.

3. Avoid lunging into the movement or using your bodyweight to complete your reps. The crossover works best when you allow it to isolate your chest properly.

What Is A Cable Crossover and What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:26 in the video above.)

A cable crossover is just another name for a cable chest flye. “The benefit of using a cable versus dumbbells is constant tension,” says Jonny Catanzano, an IFBB pro bodybuilder and trainer in Austin, TX (@jonnyelgato_ifbbpro). That means that the weight on the cable stack is providing resistance throughout the exercise’s entire range of motion, and that makes the target muscles work harder. “When you use dumbbells,” says Catanzano, “as you raise the weight over your chest, the resistance drops off the pecs. When your arm is directly over your chest, your joints are bearing the load, not the muscles, and there’s no force pushing outward against your arm.” Therefore, the dumbbell flye isn’t an ideal exercise for chest development compared to a cable.

“Another big advantage to the crossover is that you can attack the chest muscles in the shortened position,” says Catanzano. In almost any kind of chest press, your pecs work hardest at the bottom, when they’re stretched out and lengthened. The crossover is hardest at the end of the range of motion when your pecs are the most shortened. This makes the cable crossover a nice complement to pressing exercises, helping to develop the chest more completely.

Yet another feature of the crossover is the ability to adjust the angle of the cables to zero in on one area of the chest over another. Assuming your cable station has adjustable pulley heights, you can set the pulleys low to target the upper chest, high to target the lower chest, or at shoulder level to emphasize the middle-pec fibers in mere seconds. To be clear, you can’t completely isolate one area of the chest over another—all the the regions of the pecs will work in any pec exercise you perform—but the crossover height settings will activate more muscle fibers in one region over another.

Catanzano also argues that the arcing flye motion and cable setup can be easier on the shoulders than dumbbell flyes or pressing movements, which often force you to go deep into shoulder extension to get the best activation of the pec muscles. “There’s a lot less shear force on the shoulder joints,” says Catanzano, “and that lets your chest do more of the work.”

How To Do The Cable Crossover: A Step-By-Step Guide

(See 02:43 in the video.)

Step 1. Attach a single-grip handle to each pulley on a cable station, and set the pulleys at about chest level. Grasp a handle in each hand and step forward from the machine a bit so that you feel tension on the cable, and your chest gets a bit stretched. You should be far enough away that the weights do not rest on the stack when your arms are extended at your sides.

Step 2. Stagger your stance for balance. You should feel rooted into the ground enough so that if someone tried to shove you, you’d be braced and stand your ground. Extend your arms at your sides and bend your elbows slightly (this will take stress off the elbows and prevent you from hyperextending them).

Step 3. Move your arms in front of your body, straightening your elbows as you go. Squeeze your chest as you perform the motion, and stop when your hands are directly in front of your sternum and touching each other.

Step 4. Control the weight as you draw your arms back, bending your elbows again. Perform 3–5 sets of 10–15 reps.

Note that we’re not asking you to cross one arm over the other. While the move is called a “cable crossover,” Catanzano says there’s no extra benefit in crossing your arms. If anything, the extra range of motion may be unnecessarily fatiguing, and it transfers the stress of the exercise to your shoulders and away from your chest muscles.

That’s how you do the classic, standing cable crossover. However, for an even better chest hit, it’s a good idea to do your crossovers lying against a bench if you can access one. Not having to balance yourself will leave you more energy to devote to training your chest, and it’s easier to get in and out of position with heavy weights.

Cable Crossover Upgrade

(See 05:07 in the video.)

Set a bench to 90 degrees and adjust the pulleys to shoulder height from where you will sit on the bench. Now you can perform the crossover with 100% focus on your chest. This upgrade applies to all versions of the cable crossover, which we’ll show you further down.

TIP: Whether doing your crossovers standing or seated, there will come a point when you’re so strong that it becomes difficult and even dangerous to start the exercise from the stretched (arms out) position. In this case, it’s OK to press the cable handles to full extension in front of your chest (as if you just did a bench press) and start the exercise from there, lowering the weight and going into the stretch to begin the first rep. This prevents you from starting the exercise in your weakest position, and will help you avoid shoulder injuries and muscle pulls in your pecs.

What Muscles Does The Cable Crossover Work?

(See 05:32 in the video.)

“A lot of people think that the cable crossover targets the inner chest, but it doesn’t really work like that,” says Catanzano. “What you’re feeling is a huge contraction right along where the muscles insert on your sternum,” so while the inner part of the chest is certainly working hard, the entire muscle is activated. Crossovers won’t necessarily get you a more defined, striated inner chest like bodybuilders show on stage, but you can be sure they’ll stress your pecs in ways they don’t get from bench presses, increasing your chances of getting the fullest chest your genetics allow.

Specifically, the cable crossover targets the pec major and minor muscles, and as we mentioned above, you can emphasize one division of the pec major over another. Crossovers done with the cables set at shoulder/chest level target the sternal head of the pec, the so-called “middle-chest” fibers. Setting the pulleys low to the floor will cause you to do the flye motion with more of a 45-degree angle, and that works the upper part of the pec—the clavicular head—harder. Doing just the opposite—that is, setting the pulleys above shoulder height—will cause you to bring your arms lower to the floor when you flye, and that works the lower chest (the costal head) best.

Chest Cable Crossover Variations

(See 08:01 in the video.)

You can make certain areas of the chest work extra hard depending on how you set the cable pulleys.

Lower-Chest Crossover

Target: costal head of the pecs, pec minor

Set the pulleys to eye level or as high as they’ll go. Perform as you would the regular crossover, but bring your arms from shoulder level down in front of you to about where your belt buckle would be. You should feel the exercise along the outside of your pecs, especially as your arms come back up and the muscles get stretched.

Upper-Chest Crossover

Target: clavicular head of the pecs

Set the pulleys to their lowest level. Perform as you did the regular crossover, but bring your arms from hip level up to in front of your face. Your arms should move at about a 45-degree angle.

Note that both the upper and lower-chest crossovers can be done seated on a bench as well.

Cable Crossover Alternatives

(See 13:26 in the video.)

We poo-poo’d the dumbbell chest flye above because the tension drops off as you finish the range of motion, but it still provides a pretty good chest stimulus, and it’s a fine option if you don’t have cable pulleys to use instead.

TIP: if you do dumbbell flyes, try cutting off the range of motion before your arms are perpendicular to the floor. In other words, come up only three-quarters of the way. You’ll do better to emphasize the bottom position of the exercise, when the pecs are stretched, since that’s where the dumbbell flye works you hardest.

Banded flyes are another option. If you have resistance bands, attach them to a sturdy object and use them the same way you would cables. As the bands stretch, they’ll provide more resistance to your flye motion, emphasizing the shortened position of the pec muscles just like cables do. “If you only have one band, just work one side at a time,” says Catanzano, “applying all the same tips and tricks I go over in the video.”

Suspension Trainer Flye

If you work out at home or on the road (aka in a hotel room), you may have a suspension trainer. In that case you can do a flye-pushup combination that works the same muscles as the crossover, plus a lot of core, upper back, and shoulders for stability.

Step 1. Attach the suspension trainer to a sturdy object and set the handles to about thigh level (you can lower the handles to make the movement harder, or raise them to make it easier).

Step 2. Keeping your body straight and rigid, extend your arms outward and lower your body until you feel a stretch in your chest. Bend your elbows as needed, and then extend your elbows as you flye your body back up.

Pro Tips: How To Avoid Common Mistakes with the Cable Crossover

(See 05:45 in the video.)

Mistake #1: Lunging into it

While your aim should be to be as balanced and stable as possible, some people tend to lean forward as they flye their arms forward, pushing their bodyweight into the movement. That brings your shoulders into the exercise more than it should, and relieves your chest of a lot of the work, so focus on keeping your body upright and stationary.

Mistake #2: Bending your elbows too much

You need a little elbow bend when your arms are extended out at your sides, but a bend of 90 degrees or so is too much, and finishing the movement like at—bringing your hands together in a bear-hugging motion—won’t make your pecs work optimally. “Straightening your elbows as you flye will cause your chest muscles to fully shorten at the end position,” says Catanzano, accomplishing the main feature of the cable crossover.

Mistake #3: Not setting the pulleys to the correct height

If you set the pulleys well above shoulder height for a regular, middle-chest focused crossover, you’re just going to put more stress on your shoulders and take it off your chest. Make sure the pulleys are in the right position for the area of your chest you most want to target. When in doubt, set them to chest level, whether standing or sitting down on a bench.

How To Warm Up Before The Cable Crossover

(See 10:49 in the video.)

Try these moves to prepare your chest, shoulders, and elbows for safe and strong crossovers.

Single-Arm Cable Press-Through

Sets: 2 Reps: 10–12 (each side)

Step 1. Set the pulley at shoulder level and grasp the handle with one hand. Stagger your stance and face the opposite cable, gripping the column for support.

Step 2. Press the cable forward, squeezing your pec, as if you were bench pressing. Allow your elbow to bend fully and drag behind your body a bit on the way down. That’s one rep.

Cable Internal Rotation

Sets: 2 Reps: 10–12

Step 1. Set the pulleys just above shoulder height and hold a handle in each hand. Raise your upper arms so they’re parallel to the floor and bend your elbows 90 degrees. Step forward and stagger your stance.

Step 2. Slowly rotate your forearms forward while keeping your upper arms raised. Don’t let your arms move forward at the shoulder; just rotate. Slowly rotate back again. Go very light and move carefully. This exercise warms up the rotator cuff, the sensitive muscles inside your shoulder joints.

Straight-Arm Adduction

Sets: 2 Reps: 10–12 (each side)

Step 1. Lower the cable height to around hip level for both pulleys. Grasp one handle and hold on to the opposite side’s column for support.

Step 2. Keeping your arm straight, bring your arm in front of your chest, squeezing at the top. The movement is basically a one-arm flye, but from a lower position so the stretch isn’t as great and you can get your pecs used to performing the range of motion.

Who Should Do The Cable Crossover?

(See 15:11 in the video.)

Catanzano recommends the crossover to aspiring bodybuilders or anyone whose goal is to better their physique. “It’s an isolated movement, so it’s not going to benefit athletes or powerlifters as much, but that doesn’t mean those people shouldn’t do them,” he says. “Someone who probably shouldn’t do crossovers is a person with shoulder injuries. The crossover is probably safer than a dumbbell or machine flye, but I might still avoid it. You could do some presses or pushups instead until your shoulder is healed up.”

How Often To Perform A Cable Crossover Workout

(See 14:46 in the video.)

“The best time to do cable crossovers is obviously on a chest day,” says Catanzano. “Or, if you do push, pull, and leg days, or upper-lower days, do it in the push or upper session.” It’s best to do crossovers after a pressing or pushup exercise so you have some blood and warmth in your chest already and it doesn’t need a lot of extra warming up.

You can do crossovers one to three times a week for moderate sets and reps: 3–5 of 10–15, or less if you’re just getting familiar with the movement. Take your sets close to failure—the point at which you can’t do another rep with good technique due to fatigue—and you’ll deliver a mighty stimulus for gains.

Balance out your chest work with the rear-delt cable flye.

The post How To Do The Cable Crossover For A Stronger Chest appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Key Takeaways

1. Push day workouts include all the upper-body muscles that push weight away from you—the chest, shoulders, and triceps. If you choose include lower-body pushing muscles as well, you can train the quads and calves on a push day.

2. Push days make your training easy to organize. In your next session, you can do a pull day, training all the pulling muscles, and balancing out all the work you did for the push muscles.

3. The best push day exercises include presses of any kind, lateral raises, and triceps extensions.

4. You don’t have to do conventional push exercises to build muscle and strength. There are many alternatives that will allow you to work around injuries and range of motion problems, such as landmine pressing variations.

What Is A Push Day Workout?

(See 00:19 in the video above.)

A push day is any workout where you train the muscles that push things away from you. That usually means the chest, shoulders, and triceps, but some people like to include the quads and calves too, as they are the pushing muscles for the lower body.

Generally, you start a push workout by working the biggest muscles first, and finish up with the smaller ones. So a good upper-body push day might begin with some chest presses, and then go to shoulder presses or lateral raises, and end with triceps extensions or pushdowns.

If you’ve ever been confused about which exercises to use on which workout day, organizing your training into push, pull, and leg days makes it pretty obvious. If you train chest, shoulders, and triceps on push day, you’ve covered one half of the upper body and hit all the muscles that work together to push.

On your pull day, you would want to balance that out by doing back and biceps exercises (sometimes rear delts too)—i.e., moves that have you pulling the weight toward you. You can then round out the split with a leg day that covers the whole lower body.

Muscles Targeted On Push Day

(See 01:16 in the video.)

A typical push day is going to work your…

Pec major: the main chest muscle draws your arm in front of your body and up overhead.

Anterior deltoid: the delts assist in raising your arms in front of you and overhead.

Lateral deltoid: the outermost head of the deltoid, it raises your arm out to your side 90 degrees.

Posterior deltoid: the rear delt pulls your arm back and behind your body.

Triceps: the tris extend the elbow and help pull your arm downward from overhead.

If you choose to work your lower body as well, the pushing muscles of the legs are the quads, and calves. The quads extend the knee and the calves raise your heels up.

Our Favorite Push Day Exercises For Maximum Gains

(See 01:54 in the video.)

The best push day exercises are going to be ones that have a lot of potential for loading, so that you can get progressively stronger on them over a long period of time. That will allow you to keep building muscle over the long haul. They should also be exercises that you can perform safely and master the form on without too much trouble.

Some of our favorite push day exercises include the bench press, overhead press, triceps pushdown, and triceps extension. Any variation of these movements is fine. For example, you can do them with a barbell or dumbbells, cables or bands, and use a flat or incline bench.

Push Workout With Focus On Chest

(See 02:26 in the video.)

If you want to emphasize your chest on your push day, start it off with one or two chest exercises, and then move on to shoulders and triceps.

Here’s an example of a chest-focused push day.

1. Bench press

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–8

Step 1. Lie on the bench and arch your back, pulling your shoulder blades down and together. Grasp the bar just wider than shoulder width, and pull it out of the rack.

Step 2. Take a deep breath, tighten your glutes, and lower the bar to your sternum, tucking your elbows to your sides at 45 degrees on the descent. When the bar touches your body, push your feet into the floor and press the bar up at the same time.

2. Low-To-High Cable Flye

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

Step 1. Set the handles on both sides of a cable crossover station to the lowest pulley setting. Grasp the handles, and step forward to lift the weights off the stack so that there’s tension on the pec muscles. If you don’t have access to cable stations, use elastic resistance bands attached to a rack or other sturdy object.

Step 2. Stagger your feet for stability, and let your arms extend diagonally toward the floor, in line with the cables—but keep a slight bend in your elbows. Your palms will face forward. Keep your torso upright and stationary throughout the movement.

Step 3. Contract your pecs to lift the handles upward and in front of your body. The upward path of motion should be in line with the clavicular fibers of the upper pecs—think: diagonal.

Step 4. At the top of the rep, your hands should be touching each other in front of you at around face level, wrists in line with your forearms. Lower the weight under control, back to the start position.

3. Cable Lateral Raise

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

Step 1. Attach single-grip handles to the low pulleys of a cable crossover station. Cross the cables over so your left hand grasps the one on your right side, and vice versa.

Step 2. Stagger your stance for stability, and raise the cables 90 degrees out to your sides. Control the descent. You can mimic the move with resistance bands if you don’t have cables.

4. Lying Dumbbell Triceps Extension

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

Step 1. Grasp a pair of dumbbells and lie back on a bench. Hold the dumbbells over and slightly behind your head so that your elbows are behind your shoulders—you should feel your triceps tensing. This will keep the triceps engaged even when your elbows are locked out, as opposed to resting at the top position when your arms are pointing straight up over your chest.

Step 2. Keeping your upper arms where they are, bend at the elbows and lower the weights behind your head. Extend your elbows to come back up.

See “Professional Tips” below for more notes on how to do this workout.

Push Workout With Focus On Shoulders

(See 02:53 in the video.)

If you want to prioritize shoulder gains, start off with shoulder-focused exercises and then go on to your chest and triceps.

Here’s an example of a shoulder-focused push day.

1. Cable Rear-Delt Flye

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

Step 1. Set both pulleys at an adjustable dual cable station to the height of your head. Attach single-grip handles to the cables, and grasp the handles with your palms facing down or each other. Crossing one arm over the other, and stand with your feet between hip and shoulder-width apart. You may want to stagger your stance for extra balance. Step back a bit so you feel tension on the cables and a light stretch in your rear delts before you even begin the set.

Step 2. Brace your core. Now drive your arms straight out to your sides while keeping a slight bend in your elbows, as if reaching out for the walls around you. Stop when your arms are 90 degrees. 

Step 3. Lower the cables under control, and stop just short of where the weights touch down on the stack. You want to keep your rear delts working throughout the entire set, and letting the weight rest for a moment lets your delts rest too.

2. Cable Lateral Raise

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

Step 1. Attach single-grip handles to the low pulleys of a cable crossover station. Cross the cables over so your left hand grasps the one on your right side, and vice versa.

Step 2. Stagger your stance for stability, and raise the cables 90 degrees out to your sides. Control the descent. You can mimic the move with resistance bands if you don’t have cables.

3. Neutral-Grip Overhead Press

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–8

Step 1. Use a Swiss or football bar that allows your palms to face each other at about shoulder width. You can take the bar off a rack, or, if you don’t have one, simply pick the bar up off the floor and clean it to shoulder level. Stand with feet shoulder-width apart and tuck your tailbone slightly so that your pelvis is parallel to the floor. Draw your ribs down, take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core.

Step 2. Press the bar overhead, pushing your head forward as the bar clears it so that the bar ends up just behind your head in the lockout position.

4. Dumbbell Bench Press

Sets: 1  Reps: 5–10

Step 1: Lie back on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand. If the weights are light enough, use your knees to kick them up into position as you lie back so you start the exercise with your arms locked out. (If they’re heavy, simply roll back and hold the weights at shoulder level). Starting in the top position will be safer for your shoulders and elbows, but if you’re an advanced lifter and very strong, you may not be able to get the weights up with that kicking motion. (You can also ask a buddy to help you get the dumbbells into position.)

Step 2: Slowly bend your elbows and pull your shoulder blades together on the bench, lowering the dumbbells until they are close to the sides of your chest and you feel a stretch in your pecs. In the down position, your elbows should be at a 45-degree angle to your torso—not straight out to the sides.

Step 3: Pause in the stretched position, and then press the dumbbells back up, flexing your chest as you push.

5. Cable Pushdown

Sets: 2  Reps: 5–10

Step 1. Attach a rope or cambered (angled) bar handle to the top pulley of a cable station. Angle your body slightly and put your bodyweight into the handle a bit to get stable and put tension on your triceps.

Step 2. Keeping your elbows at your sides, press the weight down and slightly forward, as if pushing yourself up out of a parallel-bar dip. This will allow you to go a little heavier and reduce some stress on the elbows.

Step 3. As you lower the weight, allow your shoulders and elbows to move back slightly so you feel like your muscles are coiling up like a spring. The movement is almost like lowering your body into a dip.

See “Professional Tips” below for more notes on how to do this workout.

Professional Tips: Progressive Overload and Adaptations to Prevent Injuries

(See 03:26 in the video.)

The beauty of a push day is that the name itself tells you what to do. That is, just do pushing exercises. Your push day is not a time to do more curls because you think your arms need work, or back exercises that you should be leaving for your pull day.

Just keep it simple and limit yourself to one, two, or at most three exercises for a given muscle group. Understand that there’s a lot of carryover between push exercises, so you don’t have to do so much work overall. This means that your chest exercises are going to work your shoulders, and any pressing you do is also going to hit your triceps, so don’t get carried away.

Focus on progressive overload in your workouts: regularly trying to increase the weight you’re lifting or the number of reps you can perform for each move you do.

In the workouts outlined earlier, what you should do is start out with a weight that allows you five reps, with maybe one or two in reserve. In other words, do your set with a weight that you could perform six or seven reps with, but stop at five. Try to add a rep every time you repeat the workout, and when you reach 10 reps, increase the weight by two and a half to five pounds and start back at five reps again.

Adding too much weight before you’re ready is asking for injury, and so is doing too much volume. You only need a set or two per exercise to get stronger, and getting stronger will lead to bigger muscles over time. See “How Often To Do Push Workouts” below.

Alternative and Complementary Push Exercises

(See 04:45 in the video.)

You don’t have to do all the so-called “standard,” basic exercises to build muscle. Nor do you have to do the old-school barbell lifts. As your training evolves through the years, your goals change, or you develop injuries that you need to work around, your selection of exercises will need to change as well.

Instead of using the bench press, you can target your pecs with dumbbell presses, cable chest presses, a variety of pushup exercises, and machines.

In place of overhead presses with a barbell, you can use a landmine press or a kettlebell press.

Here are some alternatives to a few of the exercises we laid out earlier, so you can customize your push day workout to your body’s needs.

Seated Incline Landmine Press

Use it in place of: incline bench press (barbell or dumbbell)

Works: upper chest

Using a landmine apparatus (basically just a cylinder to load the barbell into, and a swivel that allows it to move in any direction) lets you lift a barbell more like you’re throwing a lever. That arcing motion is often easier on your shoulders than pressing a bar straight up and down, so it’s a good alternative for people with injuries. This landmine press mimics an incline press for the upper chest. You just need a bench, weight collar, and V-grip handle (the kind you see on seated cable row machines) to do it.

Step 1. Set the bar in a landmine or wedge it into the corner of a room. Place a bench in front of it. Load the bar, and attach a collar to the bar just below where the V-grip handle will fit. Rest the end of the bar on the side of the bench. Now sit on the bench, place the bar in the crook of the V handle, and lift the bar into position in front of your chest with both hands. Sit with your hips and knees 90 degrees and your torso very tall. Brace your core.

Step 2. Press the bar upward to lockout. The resistance will drop off as you press the bar away from you, so the exercise will feel hardest at the bottom, but that’s right where you want it—when the upper chest is most active.

Half-Kneeling Landmine Press

Use it in place of: overhead press (barbell or dumbbell), incline press

Works: upper chest, front and side deltoids

Conventional barbell overhead presses can be hard on people who don’t have great shoulder mobility, or are coming back from shoulder injury. They can cause you to bend backward as you press upward, and it can be difficult to achieve a full range of motion at the shoulder. The half-kneeling landmine press allows you to use a neutral grip (palm facing in, rather than forward), which tends to feel better on the shoulder. It also frees up your shoulder blades to rotate fully, an action they don’t get to perform as well on bench-supported pressing exercises, and that supports long-term shoulder health as well as activation of more overall musculature. In short, the landmine variation is a very functional press, doable by almost anybody.

Step 1. Kneel on the floor with your left knee down and directly under your hips. Your right knee should be bent 90 degrees, and your stance about shoulder width. Tuck your tailbone under so your pelvis is level with the floor, and make sure you’re not kicking one hip out to the side. Pick up the bar and hold it at the end, about a fist’s space from your shoulder. Drive the downed knee into the floor so you feel your glute contract and help brace you.

Step 2. Press the bar up as high as you can while maintaining control, leaning forward at the top and reaching your arm up the best you can. Hold the top position for a moment.

Bottoms-Up Kettlebell Press

Use it in place of: overhead press (barbell or dumbbell)

Works: front and side deltoids, forearms and grip, core

If you struggle to perform any kind of press through a full range of motion without pain, the culprit is often a lack of stability. If you can train the rotator cuff and other muscles around the shoulder joints to clamp down on those joints, you may be able to press heavy and pain-free again soon. Turning a kettlebell upside down and lifting it with the bell pointing up is extremely hard to balance and control, making for a great stability challenge without the need for much weight at all.

Step 1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and hold a light kettlebell by its handle. Clean it up, or simply pick it up into position at shoulder level. Draw your ribs down and brace your core.

Step 2. Press the bell straight overhead without allowing it flop over. Avoid bending or twisting to either side. You may find it helps to extend your free arm out to the side and squeeze your hand into a fist.

How To Stretch and Warm Up Before A Push Day Workout

(See 10:39 in the video.)

Use the following exercises to warm up and promote mobility before any push day workout.

1. Band Dislocation

The name sounds bad, and while it may feel like your shoulders are being wrenched out of their sockets for a split second, the dislocation is actually a great way to promote strength in the shoulders throughout a full range of motion.

Step 1. Hold an elastic exercise band with both hands outside shoulder width. Keeping your ribs down and core engaged, raise your arms overhead and behind you—don’t bend your elbows.

Step 2. Bring the band back over your head to the start position.

Standing T-Spine Twist

Step 1. Stand with feet at shoulder width and raise your arms out to your sides. Bend your arms and bring your fingertips together in front of you.

Step 2. Brace your core and your glutes and twist only your torso to one side. Try to avoid letting your hips move backward as you do. Extend your arm when you’re at your farthest point, and then come back to the starting position. Repeat on the other side.

Elbow Circle

Step 1. Hold your elbows against your sides, bend your arms, and point your thumbs behind you.

Step 2. Slowly rotate your arms away from you and toward the floor, making a big circle. Try to drive your shoulders back the whole time as well as your thumbs, so you really feel your elbows having to twist and extend.

How Often To Do Push Workouts

(See 13:19 in the video.)

Because a push workout is so comprehensive, you don’t need a lot of other workouts in the week to train your whole body. As we said earlier, you can do push, pull, and leg workouts and cover everything. In this case, you could do a push workout on Monday, a pull workout Tuesday, take Wednesday off, and then do a leg workout on Thursday. On Friday, you would repeat the cycle, starting with a push workout again.

You can vary the exercises you do when you repeat the workouts so things don’t get stale. If you’re an intermediate or more advanced lifter, it’s a good idea to have A and B options for each workout day.

Ultimately, it’s smart to train each muscle group twice in a seven-day period. So if you do a push workout on Monday, you should do another one by Friday or Saturday. That’s enough time to recover but not so much time that you begin to lose adaptations. A 2019 study showed that muscle growth stops about 48 hours after a resistance-training session, regardless of how much volume you do. So training a muscle more frequently is likely a better strategy than bombing it one day per week.

Now if you choose to put leg exercises, such as squats for the quads and calf raises for the calves into your push day, things have to change a little bit. You can do your leg work before or after your chest, shoulder, and triceps work on your push day, and then your pull day would have to consist of back, biceps, rear delts, glute, and hamstring exercises.

In this kind of split, you’re really doing two full-body workouts but they’re organized according to muscles that push and pull. Note that when it comes to legs, it’s very hard to train quads without there being some overlap with glutes, and vice versa, so you may want to take one day of rest in between push and pull workouts that train the upper and lower body together.

Looking for a good pull workout to balance your push day? See our guide to back and biceps training.

The post The Best Push Day Workouts For Muscle and Strength appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Key Takeaways

1. The stiff-leg deadlift can be done with a barbell or dumbbells and it targets the hamstrings, with some benefit to the glutes, lower back, and adductors.

2. You should lower the weight slowly and ease into the stretch. Stiff-leg deadlifts put a lot of tension on your hamstrings, so warm up thoroughly and do them late in your workout.

3. Keep your knees slightly bent and try to maintain that angle throughout the lift. Your legs don’t have to be rigidly straight, but they shouldn’t bend so much that you turn the lift into a Romanian deadlift or squat.

4. The difference between the stiff-leg deadlift and RDL is the degree of knee bend. One focuses on the hamstrings and the other on the glutes.

What Is A Stiff-Leg Deadlift and What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:28 in the video above.)

The stiff-leg deadlift, aka stiff-legged deadlift, or straight-leg deadlift, is a variant of the conventional barbell deadlift done with the intention of targeting the hamstrings as much as possible, with some added benefit to the spinal erectors of the lower back and the adductors (inner thighs). Some people start it from the floor, but we think it’s better in most cases to start standing, with the bar at arm’s length in front of you, and bend your hips back, lowering the bar while keeping your legs nearly straight (or stiff). Then you come back up to standing.

If you do it right, you’ll feel a tremendous stretch in your hamstrings. The stiff-leg deadlift isolates the hamstrings’ hip extension function—that is, your ability to push your hips forward and stand tall—as opposed to their other function, which is bending the knee. If you combine stiff-leg deadlifts with any leg curl variation, you’ve got a complete hamstring workout in just two exercises. (To learn about other deadlifts you can do at home with one or more kettlebells, see our guide to kettlebell deadlifts.)

How To Do The Barbell Stiff-Leg Deadlift

(See 01:16 in the video.)

Step 1. Deadlift the barbell so you’re in a standing position, or, if you have a power rack, start with the bar on the rack at about thigh height. Starting the exercise from standing is safer than pulling straight off the floor with stiff knees, and using a power rack will save you energy getting into position. Grasp the bar with hands shoulder-width apart, and stand with the barbell at arm’s length and your feet hip-width apart.

Step 2. Take a deep breath into your belly and brace your core. Now unlock your hips and tilt your pelvis back—think about pointing your tailbone up into the air.

Step 3. Unlock your knees so there’s a slight bend in them. Think “soft knees.” Now, keeping a long spine from your head to your tailbone, push your hips back as far as you can, as if trying to touch your butt to the wall behind you. As your hips bend, try to keep your knees in the same position.

They’ll want to bend as your hips go further back, and it’s OK to let them move a little bit, but try to keep the same knee angle you started with. If you do it right, you’ll feel a very deep stretch in your hamstrings as your hips move.

Step 4. When your hips are as far back as they can go and your hamstrings are as stretched as you can stand, extend your hips to come back to standing tall.

Tips:

– As your hips go back, focus on keeping your chest up. If someone were standing in front of you, they should be able to see the logo on your shirt. This will help you to keep your lower back flat the whole time. NEVER let it round forward while holding a weight in front of you.

– As you bend your hips, feel your weight shift to your heels. If you feel your weight centered over your feet, or in your toes, you’re not moving your hips properly.

– Take at least two seconds to lower your torso and feel the stretch in your hamstrings. Again, it’s a BIG stretch, so give your body time to ease into it. Bouncing your reps can lead to injury.

– Don’t go any lower than your hips will allow. As soon as you feel they’re pushed all the way back, and your hamstrings are stretched, come back up. Going any lower than that will probably result in your lower back rounding forward, and that will increase injury risk as well as take the emphasis off the hamstrings.

– Keep your lats active, pulling the bar close to your body. It doesn’t have to stay in contact with your legs the whole time as with a conventional deadlift, but the bar should move in a straight line up and down. Relaxing your back would cause the bar to drift in front of you, and that can make you lose your balance.

– Note that if you have particularly tight hamstrings, your range of motion may be small (maybe around knee height), and that’s OK. Don’t stretch beyond where you can control the movement just for the sake of getting more range. As you get stronger and more practiced with the movement, your range of motion will increase.

How To Do The Dumbbell Stiff-Leg Deadlift

(See 03:42 in the video.)

If you don’t have a barbell, or you want to increase your range of motion slightly, you can perform stiff-leg deadlifts with dumbbells or kettlebells. The movement is the same, but the dumbbells will allow you to position the load at your sides rather than in front of your body, and you may find that that allows you to feel the exercise more in your hamstrings and takes pressure off your lower back.

Step 1. Stand with the weights at your sides and your feet hip-width apart. Brace your core.

Step 2. Unlock your hips and your knees, and drive your hips straight back. Keep your knees stiff. When you feel the stretch in your hamstrings, come back up.

Muscles Targeted With The Stiff-Leg Deadlift

(See 04:13 in the video.)

The stiff-leg deadlift primarily works the hamstrings, but it will also train the spinal erectors, as they have to work isometrically to stabilize your lower back. Because you’re performing a hip extension, your glutes will get in on the job too. Finally, your adductors—the muscles that run down your inner thighs—also contribute to the movement.

Pro Tips: How To Avoid Common Mistakes When Deadlifting

(See 04:30 in the video.)

Mistake #1: Rounding your lower back

You’ll see some people in the gym and online doing stiff-leg deadlifts purely as a back exercise—sometimes intentionally, and sometimes not. They’ll bend at the waist instead of the hips, completely rounding their lower back. Or, in an effort to increase the range of motion, they’ll round their back toward the bottom of each rep. In either case, it’s usually a bad idea, as it can lead to a back injury.

The stiff-leg deadlift is meant to be done almost entirely by the hips. Once you can’t move them back anymore, extend your hips to come back up. Your body should form a straight line from your head down to your tailbone throughout the whole movement.

Mistake #2: Locking The Knees

Your goal should be to keep your knees from bending, but that doesn’t mean lock them out entirely. Locking your knees can cause too much tension in your hamstrings and lead to injury. Think “soft knees,” and let them bend just enough so that you get the best range of motion out of your hamstrings without losing tension in them.

Mistake #3: Bending The Knees Too Much

If you bend your knees the entire time you bend your hips, you’re going to turn the stiff-leg deadlift into a Romanian deadlift, conventional deadlift, or a squat. If at any time you feel your quads tensing up, you know you’ve bent your knees too much. Think about it like this, if your knee angle is totally straight, your knees would be 180 degrees, and if they were bent halfway, they’d be 90 degrees, so aim for roughly 160 degrees of knee bend.

Stiff Leg Deadlift Vs. Conventional Deadlift: Key Differences

(See 06:44 in the video.)

A conventional deadlift starts with the bar on the floor, and it allows you to bend your knees more so that your quads and glutes can contribute more to the movement. This makes the conventional deadlift a great overall strength exercise for the lower body.

In the stiff-leg deadlift, the goal is to take the quads and glutes out of the equation as much as possible to better isolate the hamstrings. To do this, you have to keep the knees nearly straight and focus on bending only at the hips.

For these reasons, the conventional deadlift is used more by powerlifters and weightlifters looking to strengthen the lower body as much as possible, while the stiff-leg deadlift is more popular among bodybuilders and other physique or figure athletes who are trying to develop each individual muscle group to its best potential.

Stiff-Leg Deadlift Vs. Romanian Deadlift

(See 07:25 in the video.)

The stiff-leg deadlift looks similar to another deadlift variant that starts from the standing position: the Romanian deadlift. Some coaches argue the two movements are really the same, but we see some subtle differences. In a Romanian deadlift, your knees are free to bend so that you can push your hips back as far as possible. That shifts the emphasis from the hamstrings to the glutes, and it allows you to use heavier loads. You’ll see powerlifters and weightlifters using Romanian deadlifts often to strengthen their glutes for bigger squats, deadlifts, and cleans, while the stiff-leg deadlift is usually the better option for bodybuilders and other physique/figure competitors chasing hamstring gains.

Look at the two pictures below, which show the bottom position of each lift, and the difference should be pretty clear. The first one is the stiff-leg deadlift, and the second is the RDL.

Straight-Leg Deadlift Variations

You can train the basic stiff-leg deadlift with a little more isolation and range of motion if you do it one leg at a time. Check out this article for a whole guide to single-leg deadlifting.

Straight-Leg Deadlift Alternatives

If you want another option that’s a little easier on both the hamstrings and the lower back than the single-leg deadlift, check out our guide to the B-stance Romanian deadlift.

How To Warm Up Before Stiff-Leg Deadlifts

(See 09:50 in the video.)

The stiff-leg deadlift is NOT an exercise that you want to jump into cold. With all the stretch it puts on the hamstrings, you need to warm up thoroughly beforehand. Here are two moves that will warm up your hamstrings and open your hips before you get into stiff-leg deadlifts.

Bodyweight Hip Hinge

Step 1. Stand with feet parallel and bend your knees slightly.

Step 2. Now drive your hips back as far as you can while keeping a long spine from your head to your tailbone. When you feel a stretch in your hamstrings, or you can’t push your hips back any further without losing your spine position, come back up to standing. REPS?

Hip Flexor Stretch

Step 1. Kneel on the floor with one knee. Both hips and knees should be bent 90 degrees. Now tuck your tailbone under so your pelvis is level with the floor. Brace your core.

Step 2. Shift your weight forward, moving your front knee past your toe, until you feel a stretch in the front of the hip on the back leg. Keep your hips and shoulders facing forward. Your front foot must also stay flat on the floor. Hold for 30 seconds. REP?

It’s best to do stiff-leg deadlifts at the end of your leg days, preferably after you’ve done leg curls or another hamstring and/or glute exercise. Because the exercise puts your hamstrings under such an intense stretch, you don’t want to rush into them when you’re cold and not comfortable doing a full range of motion.

Who Should Do Stiff-Leg Deadlifts?

(See 11:39 in the video.)

If you’re someone who wants to slap some more meat on their hamstrings, the stiff-leg deadlift should be a cornerstone of your leg workouts. Also, if you’re a sprinter, other kind of track athlete, or anyone else who runs a lot in their sport, the stiff-leg deadlift will help you build strong hamstrings, which are key for fast, explosive running. Finally, if you compete in strength sports, like weightlifting or powerlifting, the stiff-leg deadlift will help strengthen the muscles you need to pick up big weights.

The post How To Do The Stiff-Leg Deadlift With A Barbell Or Dumbbells appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Key Takeaways:

1. The chest-supported row can spare your lower back while overloading your upper and middle back.

2. It provides an alternative to the classic bent-over barbell row, and may be more appropriate for people who have done bent-over rows for years and reached a plateau, or can no longer perform that movement safely.

3. The chest-supported row can be done with dumbbells and an adjustable bench at home. An alternative is the three-point dumbbell row.

4. When performing it, be sure to avoid arching and bending the spine, not getting a maximum stretch at the bottom of each rep, and putting yourself in an uncomfortable position.

What Is The Chest-Supported Row and What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:20 in the video above.)

The term chest-supported row refers to any row exercise where your chest rests against a bench. This can be done with a variety of machines, but if you work out at home, you can do it with an adjustable bench and dumbbells. By resting your chest against the pad, you create a very stable position from which to row, and that allows you to lift heavier weight than if you were doing an old-fashioned bent-over row. It will also help you to isolate your middle and upper-back muscles for better gains without being limited by the strength and stability in your lower back.

The chest-supported row is good for keeping your form strict, which can help beginners who need to learn rowing movements, as well as more experienced lifters whose lower backs may be banged up from years of bent-over rows, deadlifts, or squats. In other words, the chest-supported row lets you train the muscles of the mid and upper back without stressing the lower back.

How To Do The Chest-Supported Row: Setup and Instructions

(See 01:00 in the video.)

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 30- to 45-degree angle. It really just has to be high enough so that your hands don’t touch the floor when you’re doing the row. Now grasp a pair of dumbbells and straddle the bench.

Step 2. Rest your chest and belly against the bench and let your arms hang. Shorter people may need to stand closer to the head of the bench, while taller ones stand further back, so that when you lie on the bench your head is clear of it. Your legs should be fairly straight and your toes should dig into the floor. Brace your core, and make yourself as stable as possible.

Step 3. Allow your shoulder blades to spread apart so you feel a stretch in your upper back. As you begin the row, drive your shoulder blades back together and downward. Think “proud chest,” and imagine squeezing a pencil or a walnut between your shoulder blades—that’s how tight you should aim to pull them together.

Row the weights back toward your hips with your arms close to your sides until your elbows are bent about 90 degrees and your back is fully contracted.

Step 4. Lower the weights under control and let your shoulders spread apart again. That’s one rep.

What Muscles Does The Chest-Supported Row Work?

(See 02:06 in the video.)

The chest-supported row done with the arms staying close to your sides is going to mainly work the lat muscles, but you can vary the way your back muscles get trained by adjusting the height of the bench and your arm angle. A steeper angle on the bench as well as arms raised 45–60 degrees away from your sides will recruit more of the upper back (trapezius, rhomboids) and rear deltoids.

Of course, as with any row, your biceps and forearms will also get some work.

Pro Tips: How To Avoid Common Mistakes

(See 02:38 in the video.)

Mistake #1

One common mistake on the chest-supported row is arching the back really hard as you row the weight up. When the weight is heavy, or you’re tired at the end of a set, it’s tempting to hyperextend your spine in an effort to get the weight up, but that can hurt your back. If you feel your chest rising off the bench, you’re breaking form.

Keep your core tight and your shoulder blades moving back and down. Your upper torso should stay neutral and supported by the bench.

Mistake #2

Another mistake is not letting your shoulder blades spread at the bottom of the row. You can’t spread the shoulders apart on a bent-over barbell row without losing stability, so you should take advantage of the strong position that the chest-supported row puts you in by getting a stretch in your back muscles at the bottom of every rep. Many coaches and scientists believe that loading muscles in their stretched positions, or emphasizing the stretched position of a rep, provides a growth stimulus all its own.

Let your shoulders protract at the bottom and feel the stretch before you retract them and row. You can even hold this position for a second.

Mistake #3

Lastly, make sure your body is properly supported by the bench. If you position yourself too far forward on the bench, your chest won’t rest on the pad, and your upper body may flop over the edge of the bench. By the same token, if you’re too low on the bench so that your face is rubbing into it, you’ll have a hard time breathing (not to mention, of course, that you’ll look a little ridiculous).

All of your upper body right down to your hips should be supported by the bench at all times. Learn to use the bench for its true purpose—to provide a platform off which you can perform your exercises without having to stabilize any body parts yourself—and you’ll get the best possible results.

Variations of Chest-Supported Rows

(See 04:39 in the video.)

The chest-supported position lends itself to a few other movements that can help your back training.

Kelso Shrug

(See 04:43 in the video.)

By just retracting your shoulder blades you can focus on the upper back muscles, leaving the lats and the biceps out of it. Called a Kelso shrug, this can strengthen your back for heavier deadlifts as well as give you a thicker appearance front to back, particularly in your traps.

Step 1. Set up on the bench as you would for a chest-supported row.

Step 2. Simply retract your shoulder blades back and downward. You don’t have to fight to keep your arms straight, but don’t bend them to assist—keep the movement purely at your shoulders. Hold the top position for a moment or two.

EZ-Bar Chest-Supported Row

(See 05:13 in the video.)

You don’t have to limit yourself to dumbbells when you do the chest-supported row. A straight barbell can be cumbersome to use, but an EZ-curl bar can let you go heavier than dumbbells and use a palms-up grip, which will bring more lats and biceps into the movement.

Step 1. Load an EZ-curl bar and set it below the bench. Use small plates so that the weights don’t hit the floor when your arms are extended. Grasp the bar with hands shoulder-width apart and your palms facing up.

Step 2. Row the bar until it touches the bench—your shoulder blades should still be fully retracted at the top.

Chest-Supported Row Alternatives

(See 05:44 in the video.)

If there’s one drawback to the chest-supported row on an inclined bench, it’s that many benches can only be set to 45 degrees, and that does tend to cause people to arch too hard at the top. A good fix for that is to raise the bench to about 90 degrees and perform the exercise seated rather than lying down.

You’re still doing a row with your chest supported, but you’ll be less likely to cheat your body position as you get tired or the weight gets heavy.

From a seated position, the resistance will have to come from in front of you rather than below, so a cable is a good idea here. And for ease of use, it’s usually better to work one arm at a time.

Seated, One-Arm Chest-Supported Cable Row

(See 05:48 in the video.)

Three-Point Dumbbell Row

(See 06:50 in the video.)

A dumbbell row with three points of support (one hand and two feet) provides a solid foundation for heavy rowing. It also allows you to work one side at a time, so you can identify and bring up any imbalances between sides.

Step 1. Stagger your stance so your legs provide a wide base of support. Keeping a long spine, hinge at the hips and place one hand on the bench. Pick up the dumbbell with your free hand, and brace your core.

Step 2. Row the dumbbell to your hip.

Chest-Supported Rows Vs. Barbell Rows: Key Differences

(See 07:17 in the video.)

Chest-supported rows and bent-over barbell rows train mostly the same muscles, but the chest-supported row offers more isolation and less activation of the lower back. In the barbell row, the strength of your lower back will always limit the amount of weight you can row. So, if your goal is to build muscle and strength in your back, and you’ve been grinding out barbell rows for years, you may want to switch to the chest-supported row. Likewise, if you have a lower-back injury, barbell rows might aggravate it while the chest-supported row can let you train your back pain-free.

Another advantage of the chest-supported row being so stable is that it will help to prevent you from bouncing or rocking the weight up, which tends to happen when people barbell row.

How To Warm Up Before Chest-Supported Rows

(See 08:00 in the video.)

Include the following movements in your warmup.

T-Spine Rotation

(See 08:06 in the video.)

Step 1. Get on all-fours so your hands are directly underneath your shoulders and your knees are underneath your hips. Tuck your tailbone under so your pelvis is perpendicular to your spine, and brace your core. Push your hips back so your butt is close to your heels, and place your right hand on the back of your head.

Step 2. Twist your torso to point your right elbow out to your left-hand side, and then sweep it back up, rotating until your elbow points overhead. Avoid flexing or arching your lower back at any point. That’s one rep. Do 2 sets of 10 reps on each side.

Kneeling Elbow Circle

(See 08:51 in the video.)

Step 1. From the same all-fours position as the T-spine rotation, turn your elbows to point out to the sides and then bend them, lowering your body to the bottom of a pushup.

Step 2. Turn your elbows toward your body and extend your arms to return to the starting position. That’s one rep. Alternate directions each rep, and do 2 sets of 10 reps.

Who Should Do Chest-Supported Rows?

(See 10:07 in the video.)

If you have a lower-back injury, chest-supported rows will allow you to train the rest of your back hard and heavy without irritating your lumbar spine. Furthermore, if your goal is to put on muscle, the stability and isolation that the chest-supported row provides will let you train heavier and progress in load more quickly than a barbell row, and that means faster gains.

How To Fit Chest-Supported Rows Into Your Workouts?

(See 10:25 in the video.)

You can do the chest-supported row anywhere in your back workout or on an upper-body day. Since it trains the muscles that are opposite the ones that perform the bench press, it’s a good complement to bench pressing, and you can alternate sets of the two moves, or do the two exercises back to back to ensure that your training is balanced.

The chest-supported row can be done safely with heavy weight, as well as for high reps. Start with 2–3 sets of 5–10 reps, and add weight and reps gradually over time.

For more upper-back training ideas, see 4 Traps Exercises and 2 Workouts for Getting Huge.

The post Do Chest-Supported Rows To Build Back Strength appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Key Takeaways

1. The glutes are the most important muscles for full-body power, and a strong set will make you more athletic.

2. Warm up for a bodyweight glute workout by stretching your hip flexors and performing lateral band walks.

3. The hip thrust is a powerful glute-max exercise. Be careful not to hyperextend your lower back as you lock out your hips.

4. Kickbacks can work the glute max or the glute medius, the muscle on the side of your posterior.

5. The hip thrust and glute bridge are similar exercises that both work the glute max, but the bridge uses a shorter range of motion while offering more isolation.

4 Great Glute Exercises For Building Your Butt

(See 02:54 in the video above.)

The following bodyweight glute exercises come highly recommended by Juan Leija, an Onnit-certified coach and co-founder of Onnit Gym in Austin, TX (@juannit247).

1. Bodyweight Hip Thrust

Sets: 3–5  Reps: 8–12

(See 02:58 in the video.)

Step 1. Lie against a bench perpendicularly, so your shoulder blades are supported on the edge. Place your feet on the floor so that they’re in line with your hips. Your hips and knees should be bent about 90 degrees. Tuck your tailbone slightly so that your pelvis is perpendicular to your spine, and brace your core like you were about to get punched in the gut. Tuck your chin to your chest and drive your elbows into the bench for extra stability.

Step 2. Drive through your heels to raise your hips until they’re locked out. Be careful not to go so high that your lower back arches—stop when your hips and torso are level with the floor.

If 8–12 reps isn’t challenging enough with your bodyweight alone, you can increase the rep number to as high as 25. “Four sets of 25, or 100 total reps, would give you a killer glute workout,” says Leija. Another way to make the hip thrust more challenging with bodyweight alone is to do it one leg at a time. See our guide to the B-stance hip thrust.

The hip thrust, popularized by Bret Contreras, author of Glute Lab, works hip extension, the glutes’ primary function. While its mechanics are similar to that of a squat or deadlift, the hip thrust better isolates the glutes (although the quads and hamstrings are still involved to a degree).

2. Banded Glute Bridge

Sets: 3–5  Reps: 12–15

(See 04:39 in the video.)

Step 1. Place a circular resistance band just above your knees and lie on the floor with your hips and knees bent about 90 degrees. Place your feet in line with the hips or slightly wider so there’s tension on the band. Tuck your tailbone under and brace your core.

Step 2. Drive your legs apart to put more tension on the band. Now extend your hips to lockout as you did in the hip thrust.

The banded glute bridge trains two of the glutes’ functions simultaneously: moving the legs out to the sides and hip extension. “Be careful with your foot position,” says Leija. “The advantage of a glute bridge is the way it isolates the glutes. If your feet are placed too far forward, you’ll bring more of the hamstrings into it. If your heels are too far back toward you, you’ll use more quads,” and that defeats the purpose.

As with the hip thrust, if 12–15 reps doesn’t fatigue your glutes, take the reps up as high as 25. You can also do the glute bridge without a band and using one leg at a time, as we explain in our article guide to the single-leg glute bridge.

3. Banded Kickback

Sets: 3–5  Reps: 12–25 (each leg)

(See 06:51 in the video.)

Step 1. Loop a circular resistance band around your feet and slide it to just above your knees. Stagger your stance so one leg is in front of the other. Grasp onto a bench or other sturdy object for balance, and bend your hips back about 30 degrees while keeping a long spine. Bend your front knee slightly. Brace your core.

Step 2. Kick your rear leg straight back until your glute is fully contracted, and control it on the way down. Keep tension on the band at all times.

The kickback trains the glutes in hip extension just as the hip thrust does, but one side at a time. This allows you to get a little extra range of motion for more muscle recruitment. You can also aim your leg 30–45 degrees from your side as you kick back to put more emphasis on the glute medius muscle (the side of the butt cheek).

4. Sumo Pulsing Squat

Sets: 3–5  Reps: 10–20

(See 08:16 in the video.)

Step 1. Stand with feet outside shoulder width and your toes turned out about 30 degrees.

Step 2. Bend your hips back and squat as low as you can without your pelvis tucking under. Drive your knees out as you descend, and keep your torso as upright as possible (people should be able to see the logo on your T-shirt).

Step 3. Come back up about three quarters, and lower your body back down. Finish by coming back up to standing. That’s one rep.

“The glutes lose tension toward the top of a squat,” says Leija, “so spending more time in the bottom half of the movement keeps the glutes working where they work hardest.”

How To Stretch Your Glutes

(See 00:26 in the video.)

Warming up your hips on the front and sides will help reduce the risk of injury in your workout and may help you to feel your glutes better when you train them. Research has shown that being able to mentally connect to the muscles you’re working during an exercise may help to promote muscle recruitment and boost the results you see.

Leija recommends these two drills.

1. Hip Flexor Mobilization

(See 00:31 in the video.)

Step 1. Kneel on the floor with one knee. Both hips and knees should be bent 90 degrees. Now tuck your tailbone under so your pelvis is level with the floor. Brace your core.

Step 2. Shift your weight forward, moving your front knee past your toe, until you feel a stretch in the front of the hip on the back leg. Keep your hips and shoulders facing forward. Your front foot must also stay flat on the floor. Rock your weight back to the starting position and repeat for 2–3 sets of 5–10 reps on each side.

“Avoid leaning back and arching your back,” says Leija. “Keep your core engaged. Otherwise you’ll get the range of motion from your back and not your hip, which is the goal.”

2. Banded Lateral Walk

(See 01:41 in the video.)

Step 1. Loop a circular exercise band around your feet and pull it up to the thickest part of your calves—but if you feel more glute activation with it at your ankles or knees, try it there instead. Place your feet hip-width apart or wider, so that you put some tension on the band and feel your glutes starting to work.

Step 2. Hinge your hips back and bend your knees so you’re in an athletic stance—think: ready to catch a ball, tackle an opponent, or jump up in the air. Take a small step to your right, keeping your foot facing straight forward (don’t let your toes turn outward).

Step 3. Step your trailing foot in toward your lead foot so you’re back in a hip-width stance. Keep walking in that direction, keeping tension on the band the whole time. (If your feet come too close together, the band will go slack and your glutes will get to rest). Walk 5–10 yards each direction—that’s one set. Do 3 sets total.

Bridge Vs. Hip Thrust

(See 10:44 in the video.)

Many people use the terms “bridge” and “hip thrust” interchangeably when discussing glute training, but this isn’t accurate. Leija points out that while a hip thrust is intended to target the glutes very directly, it also works the hamstrings and quads to a certain degree, mainly because the range of motion is large. The glute bridge, on the other hand, uses a short range of motion (your back is on the floor, so you don’t have as far to extend your hips versus when you’re supported on the bench). As a result, the bridge won’t challenge all your glute muscle fibers, but it takes the hamstrings and quads out almost completely, better isolating the glute fibers it does hit. So the glute bridge is, arguably, a better option for mucle gain/physique transformation. Meanwhile, “the hip thrust is better for training hip explosion,” says Leija, making it the smarter choice for athletic applications (i.e., if you’re an athlete, you should probably spend more time thrusting than bridging).

Ultimately, both are solid exercises and build muscle and strength in the glutes, so use them in combination.

Benefits of Working Out Your Glutes

(See 00:15 in the video.)

The glutes are the most powerful muscles in your whole body. They’re also the biggest (the glutes are dense, so they may not look as broad as your quads or lats, but if you could flatten them out on the floor you’d see they’re huge). In day- to-day life, the glutes allow you to stand up, walk upstairs, and pull things up off the floor, so strengthening them is key for keeping quality of life as you get older. If you’re an athlete, “strong glutes help you run faster, jump higher, and lift more weight,” says Leija.

Since you’re reading this article, you’re probably also aware that the glutes are very aesthetic, sexy muscles, and that training them is one of the biggest trends in fitness. Unless you descend from the same gene pool as Jennifer Lopez or Kim Kardashian, the only way you’ll be able to get a rear that looks half as fine will be to build it with exercise—hence the reason we put this article together.

Master another great glute-building exercise with the B-stance RDL.

The post Bodyweight Glute Exercises & Stretches To Build A Bigger Butt appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Key Takeaways

1. The Viking press is used in strongman competition and trains the shoulders and triceps.

2. The Viking press is joint-friendly and less stressful to the shoulders and low back than standard overhead presses.

3. You need two barbells and a power rack to perform the Viking press.

4. You can do landmine presses and dumbbell push presses in place of a Viking press.

5. Perform the Viking press for 2–3 sets of 5–8 reps to build muscle and strength. To build power, do 3–5 sets of 1–5 reps.

What Is The Viking Press and What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:21 in the video above.)

Similar to a landmine press, the Viking press has you lifting the bar overhead in an arcing motion rather than straight up, as in a military press. Actually, if you want to do the Viking press in a public gym or at home, you’ll have to set it up with TWO bars that are parallel to each other in a power rack/cage. This is because most gyms won’t have the same kind of Viking press apparatus that strongmen train on—and that’s how the Viking press began.

The Viking press is often used in strongman competitions, and, while we can’t prove it, we suspect that that’s where the name comes from—since the sport has long been dominated by gigantic Scandinavians. It should come as no surprise, then, that the Viking press is a great way to build upper-body strength and muscle. (For more muscle-building tips and a training schedule, see our article on how often you should lift.)

The two-bar setup means that you’ll have to grip both barbells by their sleeves—the thick end of the bar where you load the weight plates. This will force you to use a neutral grip—palms facing in—and many people find that this position is easier on their shoulders than pressing with palms facing forward. The thickness of the sleeve also disperses the weight of the bar more evenly through your joints, so if your wrists, elbows, and shoulders tend to hurt doing normal barbell overhead presses, the Viking press may allow you to train pressing pain-free.

Yet another benefit is that the Viking press is safer for the low back. On the old-fashioned military press, the heavier the weight gets, the more people tend to lean back as they press, hyperextending their lower back, which can cause injury. With the Viking press, because you’re lifting the weight on an arc, it causes you to drive your body slightly forward. Doing so lets you keep your ribs down and your core braced, so your torso is one tight column that makes for stronger, safer pressing.

How To Do The Viking Press Correctly

(See 01:53 in the video.)

Admittedly, the Viking press is a bit complicated to set up. You need to have a power rack with safety guards and two equal-sized barbells to do it.

Step 1. Set the safety guards in the power rack. Place one at about shoulder level and the other one notch higher. Now place empty barbells on top of the guards. Set the ends of the barbells that you will hold to press on the lower guard so that the opposite end that serves as your fulcrum is higher. Now secure the higher ends of the barbells by loading 10-pound plates on the sleeves, and tuck the weights inside the safety guards so they rub against the guards. This is just to keep the bars in place so they don’t slide down the safety rods while you press.

Step 2. Now load the weight you’ll lift on the other side of the barbells. Grasp the ends of the bar sleeves and stand just behind the bars with your feet at shoulder width. Your wrists should be in line with your elbows. Draw your ribs down and brace your core.

Step 3. Press the bars upward to lockout until they’re straight overhead. Allow your bodyweight to shift forward as you press and push your head through so your arms end up in line with your ears.

You can also perform the Viking press the way strongman competitors do, which is more like a push press. You dip your knees quickly and use momentum to drive the weight up. This will allow you to lift heavier and it makes the exercise more of a total-body movement. Note that if you dip your knees you’ll need more room so that the bar doesn’t bang into the safety guard nearest you, so you may need to set that guard another notch lower.

What Muscles Does The Viking Press Work?

(See 03:15 in the video.)

The Viking press primarily strengthens the front and lateral deltoids, but the triceps will work hard too as you extend your elbows. Your traps and other back muscles, legs, and core will also get some activation.

How to Stretch Before Doing the Viking Press

(See 03:26 in the video.)

It’s a good idea to warm up both the shoulders and the thoracic spine before you get into any Viking pressing. Here are some movements that will prep both areas.

The Cat-Camel Stretch

(See 03:33 in the video.)

Step 1. Get on all fours and brace your core. Your arms should be directly under your shoulders and your knees under your hips.

Step 2. Press your arms into the floor while you round your upper back toward the ceiling, spreading your shoulder blades. Hold for a second.

Step 3. Now retract your shoulder blades while you arch your upper back and drive your solar plexus toward the floor. Hold for a second. That’s one rep. Imagine the motion as having a string running through your solar plexus with someone pulling it up and then down—try to move at the upper back and not the lower back. Do 2 sets of 10 reps.

Behind-The-Back Shoulder Rotations

(See 04:09 in the video.)

Step 1. Stand tall and place the back of one hand behind you and against your lower back. Place the palm of your other hand behind your head.

Step 2. Now pull your hands back an inch or so away from your head and low back, hold a moment, and then switch positions, rotating your shoulders to bring one hand to your head and the other to your lower back. That’s one rep. Do 2 sets of 10 reps.

Viking Press Alternatives

(See 05:03 in the video.)

OK, OK, so maybe the Viking press is a hassle to set up and you can’t monopolize a power rack and TWO barbells in your gym without getting dirty looks from your fellow gymgoers. In that case, you can try two alternatives that train the shoulders in a similar way.

Landmine Press

The landmine press is basically just a unilateral version of the Viking press done with the far end of the barbell on the floor. Lucky for you we recently shot a video and did a whole separate article on how to landmine press.

A really simple option B that anyone can do at home with a pair of dumbbells is the dumbbell push press. You won’t be able to go as heavy as with barbells, but the dumbbells will force you to control two weights independently, and they allow you to use that shoulder-friendly neutral grip.

Dumbbell Push Press

(See 05:35 in the video.)

Step 1. Stand tall with feet hip-width apart. Hold a heavy pair of dumbbells at shoulder level with your elbows forward so your forearms are vertical. Turn your wrists so your palms face in. Draw your shoulders back—think “proud chest”—and brace your core.

Step 2. Dip your knees very quickly while keeping your torso tall and straight, and then explode upward, straightening your knees to provide momentum as you press the weights straight overhead to lockout.

How To Fit The Viking Press Into Your Workouts

(See 06:14 in the video.)

If you normally do barbell overhead presses or push presses as your main strength lift in a workout, the Viking press can substitute for either and would be best used early on in your workout on an upper-body push or chest/shoulder day. Two to three sets of 5–8 reps are fine. If you want to do the strongman version where you dip your knees, which trains more total-body power, you could do 3–5 sets of 1–5 reps. Again, do this as your first or maybe second exercise of the day, after you’ve warmed up thoroughly, but are still fresh enough to be explosive.

Learn how to do another joint-friendly, strongman lift in our guide to the Zercher squat.

The post How To Do The Viking Press Like An Expert appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Key Takeaways 

– The sissy squat is the only squat exercise that can train the rectus femoris muscle in a lengthened position.

– The sissy squat requires stability and should be learned by holding onto a sturdy object for support.

– Start with 2–3 sets of 5–10 reps.

– The sissy squat works the vastus medialis (the “tear-drop muscle” on the inner side of the quad), vastus lateralis (outer quad), vastus intermedius (underneath the other quads), and the rectus femoris.

– Do the sissy squat toward the end of a leg workout when your legs (and knees) are warmed up and full of blood.

What Is The Sissy Squat and What Are Its Benefits? 

(See 00:24 in the video above.)

The sissy squat is a hell of a leg exercise if you can just get past its funny name. From a standing position, you bend your knees as deeply as you can while keeping your hips locked out. This will cause you to rise up onto the balls of your feet, so, one might argue that the sissy squat makes you look like a ballet dancer, or someone doing a goofy exercise that a meathead might consider a little effeminate—hence the “sissy” name. But the fact is, sissy squats were a favorite of hardcore bodybuilders for decades, and have recently come back into style thanks to social media.

While sissy squats look strange, they really isolate your quads like no other movement, particularly the rectus femoris muscle. Here’s a quick anatomy lesson: Your other quad muscles only work to extend the knee, but your rectus femoris straightens the knee as well as raises your leg in front of you. 

Other squatting movements cause you to bend your hips as you bend your knees, so the rectus femoris never really gets trained in a lengthened position. But when you do sissy squats, you keep your hips straight, and that puts a stretch on the rectus femoris, delivering a stimulus it can’t get from front squats, back squats, leg presses, and so on.

This is especially good news because research is mounting that shows muscles may get a better growth stimulus when they’re trained in lengthened positions. In other words, when they’re stretched a bit. Two trials (1, 2) specifically indicated that exercises that trained muscles at longer muscle lengths led to greater muscle gains versus exercises that worked the areas at shorter muscle lengths, though the reasons why are still in dispute.

How To Do The Sissy Squat Correctly 

(See 02:00 in the video.)

The sissy squat can be performed without any support, but most people are going to need to hold onto something in order to keep their balance, and that’s how we recommend you learn it. 

Step 1. Hold onto the support beam of a power rack or any other sturdy object and stand with your feet between hip and shoulder-width apart. Turn your toes out between 10 and 30 degrees. 

Step 2. Brace your abs as if you were about to take a punch to the stomach, and squeeze your glutes. Now begin to slowly bend your knees while leaning your torso back. Allow your heels to come off the floor so you’re balancing on the balls of your feet. Keeping your hips locked out, go as low as you can without discomfort or losing control of the movement. Ideally, you’ll get down to where your knees are fully flexed, with your hamstrings touching your calves. 

Step 3. Extend your knees to come back up to standing. Be sure to keep your hips straight as you do so. 

What Muscles Does The Sissy Squat Work?

(See 03:00 in the video.)

“The sissy squat works the quads with only minimal assistance from the glutes,” says Jonny Catanzano, an IFBB pro bodybuilder and trainer (@jonnyelgato_ifbbpro), “so it’s a great movement for isolating the quads and strengthening them in an extreme range of motion that really couldn’t be trained any other way.” Specifically, the sissy squat works the vastus medialis (the “tear-drop muscle” on the inner side of the quad), vastus lateralis (outer quad), vastus intermedius (underneath the other quads), and, of course, the rectus femoris, which you’ll remember we said bends the hip as well as extends the knee (it starts below your hip flexors and runs down the middle of your quads).

How Do Sissy Squats Vary From Other Squats?

As we said above, the sissy squat is the only exercise that can work the rectus femoris muscle in a lengthened position, which may prove extra beneficial for muscle growth. Other types of squats require you to bend at the hips as well as the knee, but the sissy squat has you keep your hips straight. The result is a movement that stretches out the rectus femoris while putting all the quad muscles under tension.

How To Stretch Before Doing Sissy Squats 

(See 03:51 in the video.)

“Sissy squats take your quads through a full range of motion and into a very big stretch,” says Catanzano, “so make sure you’re very warmed up before you do them.” Here are three exercises he recommends to warm up and stretch out before you do a leg workout that features sissy squats.

1. Hip CARS

(See 04:00 in the video.)

Step 1. Hold onto an inclined bench or other sturdy surface and raise one knee up in front of you. Now move your knee away from your body, trying to get to 90 degrees or as far as you can, but don’t allow your hips to turn in that direction—keep them facing forward.

Step 2. Turn your thigh bone in its socket, so you raise your foot up while you point your knee downward as far as you can. Then kick your leg straight back behind you, feeling your glute engage. Touch your foot back to the floor.

Step 3. Reverse the movement, raising your leg behind you, and then bringing the knee around to the front again. That’s one rep. Do 2–3 sets of 5 reps on each leg to start, working up to 3 sets of 8 reps.

To increase the challenge, place an object on the floor so you have something to raise your leg over and hover above.

2. Knee Lift With Leg Extension

(See 05:20 in the video.)

Step 1. Set up as you did for the hip CARS and raise your knee in front of you. From there, extend your knee fully as if you were kicking.

Step 2. Keep the knee extended as you lower your leg back down. “Try not to bend over as you’re raising the leg, or use momentum to complete the reps,” says Catanzano. Do 3 sets of 5 reps on each leg.

Sissy Squat Alternatives

(See 06:07 in the video.)

The sissy squat is a challenging exercise and can be very awkward when you’re first trying it out. Some people may also find that it bothers their knees. Therefore, you may want to try a couple of other exercises that are a little more user-friendly, but target the quads in a similar way.

Reverse Nordic Leg Extension

(See 06:11 in the video.)

This movement reduces the sissy squat’s range of motion, and allows you to use the floor for extra stability.

Step 1. Place a medicine ball or other object on the floor—you’ll use it to gauge your range of motion. Attach an exercise band to a rack or other sturdy object in front of you (a pullup bar that’s screwed into place works fine too).

Step 2. Get on your knees (you may need to lay a towel down on the floor for comfort) and roll the ball into place about a foot behind you. Grasp the band with both hands. Extend your hips and brace your core—hold this position throughout the exercise.

Step 3. Allow your body to fall back slowly, driving your legs into the floor to resist it, until your back touches the ball. (The band will help control your descent so you don’t crash backward.) You should feel a deep stretch in your quads. Use the band to help you extend your knees to come back up.

“As you get stronger and more mobile on these,” says Catanzano, “slide the ball back a bit further,” until you don’t need the ball and you can touch your hamstrings to your calves. You can also progress the exercise by changing to a lighter band that will provide less assistance.

Catanzano recommends 2 sets of 8–10 reps.

Banded Sissy Squat

(See 08:35 in the video.)

“This move teaches you how to effectively lock out your hips,” says Catanzano. “When you try to learn that on a regular sissy squat, it can be difficult. This is a great way to ease your way into doing a standing sissy squat, especially if you have problems with mobility.”

Step 1. Attach two exercise bands to a sturdy object, like a power rack’s support beam. They should be pretty thick bands, an inch or an inch and a half wide, as they’ll need to be able to support your bodyweight. (We like the selection offered at elitefts.com.) Wrap one band around the bottom of the rack and place a foot through each loop. Slide the band up so it hugs the top of each calf, just below the knee. Now wrap the other band around the rack at roughly shoulder level and grasp an end in each hand.

Step 2. Lean back, using the band in your hands for assistance and the one at your knees for support. Squat as low as you can while keeping your hips extended.

Do 2 sets of 8 reps. As you improve, you can progress to 3–4 sets of 8–12 reps.

How To Fit Sissy Squats Into Your Workout 

(See 11:10 in the video.)

Do the sissy squat later in your leg day when you’re very warmed up and have a lot of blood in the quads. Start with 2–3 sets of lower reps—5 or whatever you can manage—and gradually increase reps as you get stronger. When you find you’re able to do more than 10 reps, you can experiment with holding a dumbbell on your chest for extra resistance, or wearing a weighted vest. You can also try the sissy squat unassisted—that is, do it without holding onto something—which will challenge your ability to keep your balance as well as strengthen your quads.

See another challenging squat exercise with our guide to the Zercher squat.

The post What Is The Sissy Squat and Why Your Workout Needs It  appeared first on Onnit Academy.

What Is The Rear-Delt Fly and What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:29 in the video above.)

The rear-delt fly is the simplest and most direct way to train the rear deltoid—the little muscle on the back of your shoulder. You start with your arm in front of your body and you extend it out to your side.

Rear-delt flys are important because most people have lopsided shoulders. They sit staring at a computer or their phone all day, rounding their upper back, and that causes the posterior muscles to weaken and lengthen while the anterior muscles get tighter. If you’re a fitness fiend, you probably do too much pressing and chest work in relation to your rowing and rear-delt work, and that contributes to the imbalance. So rear-delt flys help to build up the back of the shoulder, which contributes to the appearance of bigger and more even shoulders overall. Rear-delt flys can help to prevent shoulder injury by restoring muscle balance, as strong rear delts help keep the shoulder joints centered, rather than pulled forward, which wards off shoulder injuries like an impingement.

How To Do The Rear-Delt Cable Fly Correctly

(See 01:23 in the video.)

There are several ways to do a rear-delt fly with cables, but the version that follows is the most straight-forward.

Step 1. Set both pulleys at an adjustable dual cable station to the height of your head. Grasp the cables themselves with your palms facing down, crossing one arm over the other, and stand with your feet between hip and shoulder-width apart. You may want to stagger your stance for extra balance. Step back a bit so you feel tension on the cables and a light stretch in your rear delts before you even begin the set.

Step 2. Brace your core. Now drive your arms straight out to your sides while keeping a slight bend in your elbows. You really have to do this as an arcing motion, as if reaching out for the walls around you. Stop when your arms are 90 degrees. 

Step 3. Lower the cables under control, and stop just short of where the weights touch down on the stack. You want to keep your rear delts working throughout the entire set, and letting the weight rest for a moment lets your delts rest too.

You can also do the fly using single-grip or D handles attached to the cables and your palms facing each other. This may bring a little more of your lateral delts into the exercise, but that isn’t a terrible thing. Ultimately, choose the setup and hand position that feels most comfortable to you and allows you to train the exercise hard and heavy.

How To Do The Dumbbell Rear-Delt Fly Correctly

(See 02:37 in the video.)

Without the tension of cables, you’ll have to adjust your body position to allow your rear delts to work against gravity. This can be done easily by bending at the hips so your torso faces the floor. Now when you perform the fly motion, your arms will be lifting up from vertical to 90 degrees to the floor, shortening the rear delt muscle completely.

Step 1. Hold a dumbbell in each hand and bend your hips back until your chest faces the floor. Keep a long spine as you do so to protect your lower back. Turn your hands so your palms face your legs.

Step 2. Raise the dumbbells out to your sides 90 degrees while keeping a slight bend in the elbows. Your torso should remain motionless.

Step 3. Control the descent and stop a little short of your arms being vertical. Again, you want to keep tension on the delts.

Note that this same motion can be done with cables as well, if you only have access to a station that has low pulleys, or won’t adjust to shoulder level.

If you have an adjustable bench, it’s a good idea to do the rear delt fly—with both cables or dumbbells—using the bench for support. The bench stabilizes your body for you, and that will allow you to focus more on the rear delts and give them a better stimulus. It will also force you to do the movement more strictly, as many people have a tendency to bounce their torso when doing dumbbell rear-delt flys.

What Muscles Do Rear-Delt Flys Work?

(See 03:31 in the video.)

No big surprises here. The rear-delt fly works—ta dah!—the rear deltoids. Your upper back muscles, such as the trapezius and rhomboids, will also get involved a little bit, but that’s why it’s so important to raise your arms out only to 90 degrees, where they’re in line with your sides. While it might seem like extending your arm back further will give you an even better contraction in the deltoid, you’re really just bringing the traps into the movement even more. The rear-delt fly is supposed to isolate the deltoids so you can focus on building up that muscle alone, so do it right and let the target muscles do their thing.

Is One Variation Better Than The Other? Who Should Do Which?

(See 04:05 in the video.)

OK, so here’s the big question: should you do the rear-delt fly with cables or dumbbells? Well, the advantage of a cable is that the resistance is constant throughout the whole range of motion. That means that even when your arms are in front of you, your deltoids are still going to be working pretty hard. You’ll notice that when you use dumbbells, this isn’t the case—the tension drops off the delts completely when your arms point toward the floor, and the fly feels the hardest at the end of the range of motion when your arms are extended at your side.

Either version is OK, and if you train at home or only have access to dumbbells, then the dumbbell rear-delt fly is what you’ll have to rely on to build your rear delt muscles. But if you can get your hands on a cable, it’s the better choice for a more complete rear-delt workout. Another good alternative would be exercise bands, which keep tension on the delts throughout the whole range.

How To Stretch Before Doing Rear-Delt Flys

Follow these five steps to better shoulder mobility—courtesy of Dr. Layne Palm (@laynepalmdc)—to warm up and stretch your shoulders before taking on any rear-delt workout.

Other Rear Delt Fly Variations

Rear-Delt Cable X Fly

(See 05:00 in the Rear-Delt Cable Fly video above.)

The rear-delt fly doesn’t always have to be done with your arms traveling to 90 degrees. Some trainers argue that if you perform the fly with a 45-degree arm path, you’ll be able to go a little further into shoulder extension and contract the rear delts even harder without getting the upper back involved. This point is debatable, but the rear-delt cable X fly is a worthy variation to experiment with.

Step 1. Set the pulleys of a cable station up high, at least to shoulder level. Grasp the cables themselves—you don’t need a handle—with a crossover grip, and step back so you feel some tension on the cables. Stagger your stance for balance.

Step 2. Extend your arms in a 45-degree path, as if drawing an X in the air, until your rear delts are fully shortened. (Your arms will be behind your body.) Keep your arms fairly straight, and don’t extend your elbows as you fly—that would turn the movement into more of a triceps exercise.

Rear-Delt Row

(See 05:45 in the Rear-Delt Cable Fly video.)

While a fly motion lets you work your rear delts without assistance from the back and biceps, it’s not the only way to train the rear delts. Rowing exercises certainly hit the rear delts as well, and you can emphasize them over the back muscles with a rear-delt row variation.

Step 1. Set an adjustable bench to a 45-degree incline and lie down with your chest against the pad. Grasp a dumbbell in each hand.

Step 2. Row the weights up with your elbows pointing 45 degrees out from your sides. Row until your upper back and rear delts are fully contracted, and then lower under control.

FYI, any row variation where the elbows are flared (as opposed to tucked near your sides) will recruit the rear delts significantly.

How To Fit The Rear-Delt Fly Into Your Workout

(See 06:45 in the Rear-Delt Cable Fly video.)

Rear-delt exercises in general are often left to the end of upper-body workouts, but if your rear delts are lagging, it’s a good idea to do them first in your session when you’re fresh and can give them your best effort. A few sets of rear-delt cable flys before you do any pressing or lateral deltoid work will help to bring your rear delts up fast.

In general, 2–3 sets of 5–10 reps is enough rear-delt training for any one workout. Do it twice a week with two different exercises. For example, one session could feature the rear-delt cable fly and the other the dumbbell rear-delt fly, or the cable X fly.

Learn another great shoulder-building exercise with our guide to the landmine press.

The post Rear-Delt Cable Fly or Dumbbell Rear-Delt Fly: Which Is Better? appeared first on Onnit Academy.

What Are B-Stance Hip Thrusts and What Are Their Benefits?

(See 00:46 in the video above)

The B-stance hip thrust is sometimes called a “hip thrust with a kickstand,” or a “staggered-stance hip thrust,” because you use one leg for balance while the other one thrusts. Like the conventional bilateral hip thrust, you lie back on a bench (your body perpendicular to it), and raise your hips up to lockout, but in the B-stance thrust, you push with one foot while the heel of the other one stays grounded for extra support.

You see, most people start out with the regular bilateral hip thrust, where you work both glutes at the same time. Later, they try to progress to the single-leg hip thrust, which has you holding one leg up in the air while you thrust with the other one. The problem is, going from two-legged hip thrusts to single-leg thrusts is too big a leap for most people. It can be very hard to stabilize your hips and avoid twisting to one side when you’re doing true single-leg hip thrusts, and many people find that even their bodyweight alone is too difficult to control for more than a few reps.

That’s where the B-stance hip thrust comes in. It’s a nice intermediate exercise that’s more challenging than the basic two-legged hip thrust, but more stable than the single-leg hip thrust, so you can work one side at a time and build your balance without having to work too hard to keep your body aligned and on the bench.

In addition, because it’s a unilateral exercise, it allows you to isolate one glute at a time, which helps correct any imbalances you have between sides. Also, focusing on one muscle area at a time recruits more muscle in that area, which can help you add muscle size more easily. So, if you want a big, round butt, the single-leg hip thrust is a very good exercise choice.

Lastly, if you have lower-back pain, and you find that two-legged hip thrusts hurt to perform—maybe because you hyperextend your back at the top of the movement—you may find that the B-stance hip thrust is more comfortable to do. Because you’re essentially working one leg at a time, you can’t thrust as hard or as high, so it’s harder to overextend your range of motion. The single-leg hip thrust keeps the force where you want it—in your glutes—and out of your lower back.

How To Do B-Stance Hip Thrusts

(See 03:00 in the video)

The B-stance hip thrust builds off the conventional two-legged thrust. Once you’ve found a comfortable position for bilateral thrusts, it’s an easy transition to B-stance thrusts.

Step 1. Secure a bench against a wall or rack so it doesn’t slide; you can also weight it down with heavy dumbbells. Lie back on the bench, perpendicular to its length, so that the edge of the bench supports your body right under your shoulder blades.

If you’ve tried hip thrusts in the past and felt them too much in your lower back, you can try sliding your body up a little higher so the bench supports your mid-back rather than the bottom of your shoulder blades. 

Now extend your hips to get into the top position of the double-leg hip thrust, so your shoulders, hips, and knees are aligned. Adjust your feet so that they’re directly below your knees. Now when you lower your hips down, your stance should be set so that you can thrust with the greatest range of motion and good form.

Feel free to play around with your foot position, angle, and spacing a little more, and do a few practice reps, until you find a setup that’s the most comfortable and lets you feel your glutes working more than any other muscle. This will be your normal bilateral hip thrust setup.

Step 2. Now you’ll transition from the bilateral hip thrust to the B-stance. Extend one leg forward so the heel lines up with the toes on the planted foot. This partially-extended leg is called your kickstand leg. Keep the toes on your kickstand leg elevated so the weight of your leg is resting on that heel.

Step 3. Tuck your chin to your chest, and make fists with each hand, driving the back of your arms into the bench for stability. Tuck your tailbone under, and brace your core. Now drive through the foot of your planted leg to extend your hips until they’re locked out and parallel to the floor. Push both knees out a bit as you extend your hips, and keep your ribs pulled down so you don’t bend at the spine.

Your shoulders, hips, and knees should form a straight line in the top position.

According to Bret Contreras, PhD, author of Glute Lab and arguably the world’s foremost expert on glute training, the kickstand leg should only apply about 30% of the force in your B-stance thrust. Most of the work should be done by the leg that’s closest to your body. Remember, the kickstand leg is only supposed to provide some stability, so make your other leg’s glutes do the majority of the work.

Use your bodyweight alone until you’ve mastered the B-stance hip thrust technique. But when you think you’ve got it down, you can add a barbell to your lap for resistance, just as you do with the normal two-legged hip thrust. However: “I suspect that as you lift more weight,” Contreras writes in his book, “you will inevitably use your extended leg more to counterbalance the weight, which defeats the purpose of trying to load mostly one leg. So, as with the single-leg hip thrust, it’s better to keep the load light.” If you get to the point where B-stance hip thrusts for higher reps (north of, say, 10) don’t challenge you much anymore, it’s probably time to progress to the true single-leg hip thrust (with the non-working leg up in the air), which we explain in the B-Stance Hip Thrust Alternatives section below.

What Muscles Do B-Stance Hip Thrusts Work?

(See 05:40 in the video)

The B-stance hip thrust really works the gluteus maximus, which is your main butt cheek muscle, responsible for extending your hips. But it also trains the gluteus medius, which is on the side of your butt cheek, and the glute minimus, which lies under the glute medius. Both the medius and minimus work to stabilize the pelvis, so they will get trained by any variation of the hip thrust too.

While all variations of the hip thrust are fairly new exercises in the fitness world, research on them is mounting, and pointing to positive benefits both in terms of athleticism and glute muscle gains. A 2019 trial found that hip thrusting with a barbell improved subjects’ sprint performance. Meanwhile, in a landmark 2023 study, subjects were divided into two groups, with one team training the hip thrust and the other doing the barbell back squat—no other lower-body work was performed. After nine weeks, glute growth in both groups was roughly the same, indicating that the hip thrust is at least as good a glute exercise as the much beloved, age old, and tried-and-true squat.

Perhaps even more impressive, however, was another 2023 study that had two groups perform a full-body workout. One group did leg presses and stiff-legged deadlifts for their lower body in the session, while the other group did those two movements and then two sets of hip thrusts at the very end of the workout. Both groups saw gains. The non-thrusting group enjoyed a six percent increase in glute growth, but the ones who ended their workouts with thrusting grew their glutes by more than nine percent.

This gives us a little to think about. On the one hand, the subjects who hip thrusted did end up performing more work for their glutes than the other group did, which may account for their extra gains. However, you have to factor in that their hip thrusts were done dead last in the session, after they had trained both upper and lower body and accumulated a lot of fatigue. The body’s ability to recruit muscle fibers is greatly diminished for exercises that are done late in a workout—i.e., exercises done at the end of your workouts will never be as effective as those that are done at the beginning—so this suggests that the hip thrust may have outperformed the other glute exercises in the session (the leg press and stiff-legged dead), regardless of fatigue.

Note that all of the above research was done on the TWO-legged hip thrust, NOT the B-stance exercise, so it’s hard to say how B-stance thrusting compares to back squats, single-leg squats, leg presses, deadlifts, or anything else. But, until further research emerges, it’s a good bet that any hip thrust variation is going to be a solid choice for building the glutes.

How Do B-Stance Hip Thrusts Compare To Other Hip Thrusts?

The B-stance hip thrust is essentially the middle man between the bilateral thrust and the single-leg hip thrust, helping you progress from the former to the latter. It won’t allow you to train as heavy as the more stable, two-legged thrust will, but the B-stance will help you to better isolate the glutes on one leg at a time, while providing enough stability for you to train hard and safely. It’s also likely safer for the lower back than the bilateral thrust, because it lessens the risk of hyperextending the spine when you lock your hips out.

How to Stretch Before Doing B-Stance Hip Thrusts

(See 07:45 in the video)

Warm up and stretch out your glutes and hips prior to a B-stance hip thrust session with these moves, courtesy of Onnit-certified coach Eric Leija (@primal.swoledier). Do 2–4 sets each.

Pelvic Hip Circle

Reps: 3–5 reps

Stagger-Stance Hip Hinge

Reps: 5–10

Hinge Jump

Reps: 3–5

B-Stance Hip Thrust Alternatives

(See 06:12 in the video)

When you think you’ve got the B-stance hip thrust down, you can move up to the single-leg hip thrust, where you raise one leg in the air and work the other one without any support.

Single-leg Hip Thrust

Step 1. Set up as you did for the B-stance hip thrust but raise one leg off the floor entirely and bend that knee, bringing it toward your chest.

Step 2. Push your working foot into the floor and raise your hips until they’re roughly in line with your working knee and your shoulders. Remember to keep your ribs down and core braced.

Single-Leg Glute Bridge

If you want to isolate the glutes a little bit more, you can do a single-leg hip thrust motion on the floor, without a bench. This is known as a glute bridge. Bridging your hips up from the floor will decrease the range of motion some, but it will ensure that only your glutes do the work to move your hips (as opposed to the hamstrings, which do contribute a little bit to the hip thrust, while the quads kick in a little as well to extend the knee).

Luckily, we have a whole video tutorial on how to do the single-leg glute bridge in a separate article.

The post How To Do B-Stance Hip Thrusts Like An Expert appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Let’s explore how to do the landmine squat for better squat technique, more quad development, and safer, user-friendly squatting in general.

What Is The Landmine Squat And What Are Its Benefits?

(See 00:35 in the video above.)

The landmine squat is done with the barbell in a landmine unit, which is a metal cylinder that swivels on an axis. A landmine allows you to lift the barbell in various arcing motions rather than straight up and down, letting you perform a number of exercises with a less complex squatting technique that can be easier on your joints.

In the landmine squat, the weight is held in front of your body rather than behind it, so landmine squatting resembles the front squat as well as the goblet squat that many people do with a kettlebell. Therefore, it’s sometimes called a landmine goblet squat. One big advantage of the landmine squat over the kettlebell goblet squat is that it’s more stable, and the barbell allows you to load more weight, so landmine squats in general can be done heavier and are usually a better choice for building muscle than the goblet squat.

Like the goblet squat, the landmine squat reinforces good squatting mechanics that keep you safe—for example, sitting your hips back and keeping your chest up as you descend. If you have trouble squatting with a barbell on your back—that is, if it bothers your low back or knees, or you just can’t seem to keep form—the landmine squat can be an awesome replacement exercise. Use it to ingrain good squatting mechanics, and then go back to the barbell back squat or front squat. You’ll probably find that your technique is sharper, and you can squat deeper than before.

How To Do The Landmine Squat?

(See 01:35 in the video.)

The landmine squat is pretty easy to perform, making it a great move for beginners, or other people who don’t have much experience squatting with load. You want the bar right up against your chest, and keep your torso as upright as possible as you squat down.

Step 1. Load a barbell into a landmine. If you don’t have a landmine unit, you can wedge the end of the bar into a corner in your gym. It won’t be quite as stable, but it should still work. Set a box or bench on the floor in front of the bar, right next to where the barbell plates will be loaded. Pick up the end of the bar and rest it on the box and load the plates you’ll use. Now you have a platform to lift the bar off, making it easier to get into position for the start of the exercise.

Step 2. Squat down in front of the bar and wrap your hands around the end of it. Tuck your elbows to your sides. Keeping your back straight and flat, lift the bar off the box and step away from the box if needed so it’s not in the way of your squat. You should end up standing with the bar right at your chest. (Don’t hold the bar any higher; that will make your shoulders work harder than they have to, and you’ll fatigue your upper body before your legs.)

Adjust your stance so your feet are between hip and shoulder width and your toes are turned out a few degrees. Now you’ll have to play around with your position and see what’s comfortable. You can lean forward so your weight is more on the balls of your feet, or you can stand tall—whatever allows you to squat with the deepest range of motion and good form.

Step 3. Draw your ribs down, take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core. Keeping a long spine from your head to your tailbone, squat as deeply as you can, driving your knees apart so that they line up with your big toes. You should be able to go much lower than you normally could in a back squat without your heels rising off the floor or your lower back rounding.

Step 4. Extend your hips and knees to stand tall again. When you’ve finished your set, rest the weight on the box again.

What Muscles Does The Landmine Squat Work?

(See 03:05 in the video.)

Like the back squat, you can count on the landmine squat to work the following muscles:

• Quadriceps (front thighs)
• Glutes (butt)
• Rectus abdominis, obliques (core)
• Various muscles of the upper back (they act as stabilizers here)
• Deltoids (shoulders, again, working to stabilize)
• Spinal erectors (lower back)

The landmine squat is a perfect choice for people who want to emphasize quad gains. Because the range of motion is so great at the knee joint (greater than a hip-dominant back squat), your quads will work hard throughout each rep. It’s also ideal if you suffer from lower-back pain during back squats. Your torso stays very vertical on a landmine squat, minimizing shear forces on the lumbar. In other words, landmine squatting lets you train legs heavy and hard without undue stress on the spine.

How To Do The Landmine Hack Squat

(See 03:34 in the video.)

The landmine can also be used as a substitute for the hack squat—the squat machine you see in most gyms where the weight is held behind the body and your back rests on a pad. The landmine hack squat may allow you to squat even deeper than the regular landmine squat, making it a great tool for emphasizing the quads. That said, it’s a little more awkward to set up and, for most people, will take some getting used to.

Step 1. Set up the barbell in a landmine as you did for the regular landmine squat. You don’t have to use a box to rest the bar on if you’re using light weights that you’re sure you can control, but if you do, make sure that when you squat, the bar will be clear of the platform. Wrap your hands around the bar and lift it up, turn around, and rest the bar on one shoulder.

Step 2. Play around with your foot position until you feel balanced and stable. Your feet should be between hip and shoulder-width apart and a little in front of you, and you should lean your bodyweight backward into the plate on the bar—that’s right, let the barbell support your weight just like a hack squat machine would. In this case, the bar really should be in a landmine unit. A corner alone may not provide the stability to support your body—so be smart and stay safe!

Step 3. Lower your body into the squat, going as deeply as you can without your pelvis tucking under and your lower back rounding. You should be able to get your knees almost fully flexed.

Step 4. Drive through the balls of your feet to stand back up. On your next set, switch the shoulder that the bar rests on so you don’t develop an imbalance.

How to Stretch Before Exercising

Use the following drills from Onnit-certified coach Eric Leija (@primal.swoledier) to warm up your hips and knees for strong squatting.

Landmine Squat Alternatives

(See 05:15 in the Landmine Squat video at the top.)

If you don’t have a landmine or a barbell, you can perform a goblet squat with either a kettlebell or a dumbbell. Like the landmine squat, the goblet squat is an excellent movement for learning and refining good squat technique, as it automatically forces you to squat with your chest up while driving your knees apart and sitting back into your hips.

Step 1. Hold a kettlebell in front of your chest by the sides of its handle. Draw your shoulders back and downward (think: “proud chest”), and tuck your elbows in close to the bell—try to get your forearms as vertical as you can. Stand with your feet between hip- and shoulder-width apart, and turn your toes out a bit—up to 30 degrees if you need to.

Step 2. Tuck your tailbone and draw your ribs down so that your pelvis is parallel to the floor. Take a deep breath into your belly, and brace your core. Actively twist your feet into the floor, but don’t let them move. Think of your legs as screwdrivers, or that you’re standing on grass and trying to twist it up beneath you. You should feel the arches in your feet rise and your glutes tighten, creating tension in the lower body.

Step 3. Keeping a long spine from your head to your pelvis, push your hips back and squat down, as if sitting down into a chair. Squat as low as you can while keeping your head, spine, and pelvis aligned. Push your knees apart as you descend. You should feel most of your weight on your heels to mid-foot area. If you feel your lower back beginning to round, stop there, and come back up. Keep your torso as vertical as possible—you shouldn’t have to lean forward or work extra hard to hold the bell upright. Avoid bending or twisting to either side.

Step 4. Drive through your feet as you extend your hips and knees to come up.

Learn more about squatting variations for different goals with our guide to Front Squats Vs. Back Squats: Everything You Need To Know For Building Muscle.

The post How To Do The Landmine Squat: Hack Squats, Goblet Squats, and More appeared first on Onnit Academy.