If you are looking for an effective upper body strength and stability workout than can completed outside the weightroom, take a look at the push up series provided below. These exercises are done on the basketball court and utilize a basketball as a training aid. While they are designed as upper body workouts, one could easily adapt them to incorporate more additional core work, by dimply doing planks with the basketball.

Joe Cairo, Shoreline Community College Strength and Conditioning Coach, takes you through through a push up series that is part of his Navy Seal inspired BEAST training which emphasizes balance, endurance, agility, strength, and toughness. The clip is from a DVD that demonstrates a complete workout program that is conducted on the basketball court utilizing body weight exercises. For more information about this DVD click the Link Basketball in the Fast Lane – Strength and Conditioning Drills

The YouTube video below has sound, so please make sure that your sound is turned on and that you have access to the site. If you are viewing in a school setting, please note that some schools block access to YouTube. If you have trouble viewing the clip contact your network administrator.

Here is a quick summary of the different push up used in the series

Without a ball

1.Regular Push ups
2.Elbows out
3.Elbows in
4.Hands wide
5.Diamond – hands in close with fingers touching
6.Claps – clap at the top of the push up
7.Partner push ups – Facing each other both athletes will first slap left hands at the to of the push up and then right hands at the top of the push up of the next push up.
8.Team Push up- four athletes place their legs on the lower back of a teammate that perpendicular to them thus forming a square. The group of four communicate to left up and go down together as a unit.

Push ups with a basketball

1. One hand on the ball – do one push up with the left hand on the ball and then roll the ball to the right hand and do a push up.
2. Out wide – with arm extended out wide and hand on the ball do a push up and then roll the ball to the other hand and repeat
3. Ball in front – with the arm extended as far as possible in front and your hand on the ball, do a push up and then switch hands.

In training athletes at AC Flora High School in Columbia, S.C. and Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., one of my go-to exercises is the single-leg Romanian deadlift. This exercise targets the hamstrings and glutes, and because it is a single leg movement, it also trains balance and can help eliminate any asymmetries in the body from right leg to left leg. Additionally, when athletes perform the exercise with one dumbbell, it trains the core in anti-rotation.

Many athletes have weak hamstrings and weak glutes. The demands of sports like basketball, soccer, and volleyball place a high emphasis on jumping, quick burst running, and abrupt stopping—and all these movements are very quad dominant. It is vital, especially for these athletes, to target both the hamstrings and glutes when strength training to balance out that strength imbalance. One of the reasons I want my athletes to have strong hamstrings and glutes is because these muscles play a major role in protecting the ACL when landing from a jump and planting and cutting.

The Romanian deadlift (RDL) is a staple in my programs because it trains the posterior chain, a group of muscles on the backside of the body. All athletes should train both the muscles in their backside and frontside.

The single-leg RDL does this—and more, because the hip hinge occurs while standing on one leg. This movement is much more difficult to perform. It is great for athletes as they are on one leg a lot of the time in their sport.

As a first step, athletes should be taught the double legged RDL. They can then progress to the single leg RDL. The cues for the Romanian Deadlift are as follows:

1.       The feet should be about hip width apart.

2.       The knees should be slightly flexed.

3.       As you descend, your back should stay flat and the shoulders should be pulled back.

4.       The hips should hinge and be pushed back as you go down while the knees stay slightly flexed.

5.       The barbell should stay close to the body during the entire movement and should be lowered to just below the knee.

6.       As you bring the bar back to starting position, focus on squeezing the glutes.

The cues for the single-leg RDL are similar to the above, with these two additions:

1.       The rear leg should stay in line with the torso for the entire movement. Lock in the rear leg by squeezing and extending the glute.

2.       Hinge at the hips and feel a stretch in the hamstrings of the leg that you are standing on.

When doing the single-leg RDL for the first time, the athlete should first practice the movement with no weight. When adding weight, I like to use a contra-lateral load. That means the weight is in the opposite hand so the exercise is also working the anti-rotation of the core.

Below is a video that shows the movement in more detail.

By Chris Beardsley

Chris Beardsley (Google Scholar, ResearchGate) graduated from Durham University with a Masters Degree in 2001. He since contributed to the fields of sports science and sports medicine by working alongside researchers from Team GB boxing, the School of Sport and Recreation at Auckland University of Technology, the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, the Department of Sport at Staffordshire University, and the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University.

For more great information regarding strength and conditioning follow Chris on Twitter and Instagram

Although it is the largest muscle in the body, the gluteus maximus has historically not been a major focus of strength training research.

However, there are a number of electromyography (EMG) studies that help us understand how it can be developed most effectively.

Firstly, gluteus maximus EMG amplitude is reduced during isometric hip extension when the hip is flexed, compared to when it is fully extended.

Therefore, exercises with peak contractions in high degrees of hip flexion (such as squats) are likely to be less effective for strengthening the glutes, compared to exercises with peak contractions close to full hip extension (such as hip thrusts).

Secondly, gluteus maximus EMG amplitude is increased during prone hip extension by greater hip abduction, and by greater hip external rotation.

Taken together, these finding indicate that the gluteus maximus is more strongly activated when it is shortened (full hip extension, abduction, and external rotation) than when it is lengthened.

Thirdly, gluteus maximus EMG amplitude is greater when the knee is flexed to 90 degrees, compared to when the knee is fully extended. This is probably because a straight leg leads to more hamstrings involvement in hip extension.

Therefore, exercises that involve hip extension while the knee is more extended (such as deadlifts) are likely to be less effective for strengthening the glutes, compared to exercises that involve hip extension while the knee is flexed to around 90 degrees (such as hip thrusts).

What do these studies mean?

In summary, it seems likely that the best position for producing maximum tension in the gluteus maximus is full hip extension and 90 degrees of knee flexion. This is where the gluteus maximus muscle is shortest, and also where hamstrings involvement is least.

Unsurprisingly, this is the exact position used for manual muscle strength testing.

In addition, it is the top position of the hip thrust exercise, which probably explains why this lift is so effective for glute training.

This article was provided by Training and Conditioning

By Katrin Koch
Katrin Koch, CSCS, is the Director of Strength and Conditioning for Olympic Sports at the University of Georgia.

The University of Georgia boasts one of the premier men’s tennis programs in the country. Last year, it captured its fourth-straight Southeastern Conference Championship and made its 23rd NCAA semifinals appearance. One secret to its success is its work on strength and conditioning.

The squad works out year-round, including during the spring competitive season. We dive right into the spring in-season less than a week after players return from winter break. The focus of our conditioning sessions during this time is agility. Some of the exercises we do are ladders with bands, lane drills, Murray drills, slalom step-throughs, side-steps, call-outs, triangle call-outs, and court-tempo runs. The athletes complete four to six sets of each activity, with one to two minutes of rest in between.

Due to the increased practice volume during the spring in-season, I put a lot of emphasis on athletes’ proper execution of these activities. When the squad conditions following a two-hour practice, I know the players have likely used up most of their glycogen stores and might get sloppy with their form. However, forcing them to do each drill correctly when fatigued helps them become more disciplined, which should pay off during long, grueling matches.

The team lifts twice a week during the spring in-season, and the aim is to maintain the strength gains made in the fall. I usually run the players through a strength exercise supersetted with an explosive movement in the same muscle group to increase their power outputs. Here’s a sample workout week:

DAY ONE
Prehab
TRX Single-leg squat……………2×5
TRX rows……………………………2×6
Purple band ankle series………..x8
Miniband walk……………………….x6
Pillar push-ups………………………x8
TRX YTWL’s……………………….2×5
Keiser hip pull-throughs………..2×8

Exercises
Box jumps……………………………..4×6
DynaMax ball snap-down…………3×5
Dumbbell snatch…………………….3×6
Keiser with pull down………………3×8
Single-arm landmine press………3×5
45-degree split-jumps……………..3×4
Keiser standing abs………………..3×10
Med ball crossover abs…………..3×10
Split-stance Keiser bar-chops….3×8
Abs (30 sec. on, 10 sec. off)……6 min.
Foam roll or partner stretch

DAY TWO
Prehab
Piriformis to lunge……………………….2×6
Single-leg squat unilateral reach…..2×3
Figure four stretch……………………..20 sec. ea.
Wrist roll……………………………………x2
Physio ball single-leg glute bridge…2×6
YTWL’s on physio ball…………………2×6
TRX squat…………………………………2×6

Exercises
Bike at 16 mph for half-mile……………….x5
Crossover step-ups………………………….x8
Slamdowns……………………………………..x8
Bench squat jumps…………………………..x10
Full sit-ups………………………………………x20
Alt straddle jump………………………………x8
Burpee to chin-up…………………………….x3
Single-leg rear foot elevated squat…….x6
Foam roll or partner stretch

By Chris Beardsley

Chris Beardsley (Google Scholar, ResearchGate) graduated from Durham University with a Masters Degree in 2001. He since contributed to the fields of sports science and sports medicine by working alongside researchers from Team GB boxing, the School of Sport and Recreation at Auckland University of Technology, the Faculty of Sport at the University of Ljubljana, the Department of Sport at Staffordshire University, and the College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University.

For more great information of strength and conditioning follow Chris on Twitter and Instagram

Not so long ago, Brad Schoenfeld changed how most people viewed rest periods for hypertrophy.

His important training study showed that 3-minute rests were better than 1-minute rests for muscle growth. These results may have been observed because of the greater training volumes that could be performed when using longer rests.

So if the benefit of longer rest periods is linked to training volume, what can we learn about this from other research?

Firstly, we can see that the reductions in training volume that occur with shorter rest periods may be more marked when using multi-joint exercise, compared to when using single-joint exercise.

So if your workout is focused entirely on compound movements, then rest periods could be more important.

Secondly, we can see that reductions in training volume happen mainly between 1 and 2 minute rest periods. The difference between 2 and 3 minutes is much smaller, except when the number of sets is high (5+) per exercise.

So if you tend only to do 3 or 4 sets per exercise, then you can probably get away with 2 minute rests. But if you are doing more than that, may want to extend that rest to 3 minutes.

And finally, it is very interesting that recreational lifters seem to auto-regulate to just under 2 minute rest periods, and that auto-regulated rest period does not produce different volumes from a fixed 2-minute rest, over 3 sets.

So if your workouts involve 3 or 4 sets of several exercises, and you are training mainly for hypertrophy in order to look good, then you probably don’t need to time your rest period.

So how does this tie together?

In summary, rest period duration is probably something to consider only for advanced lifters.

We can see from the research that recreational lifters will have a natural tendency to use a rest period that is similar to 2 minutes. And this auto-regulated rest period will lead to the same volumes as longer rest periods, at least over 3 – 4 sets. So there seems little need to set a rest period, as that is just another factor to worry about.

On the other hand, advanced lifters who are doing 5+ sets per exercise may want to keep an eye on the clock to avoid reducing training volume in later sets, especially when using compound movements.