I recommend letting your heels "kiss" the floor, so you know you're using a consistent range of motion without letting your feet rest on the floor. When you pick your knees up, try to curl your pelvis up as if you're trying to pick your tailbone up off the floor.
Key points
Pull your toes up and flex your legs to ensure you have tension flowing throughout your full flexion chain.
Keep your feet and knees together, so you're not lifting one leg faster than the other.
Tuck your shoulder blades down and back to provide additional support for your spine.
You can further progress this exercise by lifting your tailbone slightly off the floor at the top position.
Level 3 Straight leg raises
The straight leg raise is essentially the same technique as the knee raise but with an increase in both resistance and range of motion. Both of these progressions are going to make it more difficult to maintain tension in your abs, especially at the bottom of the rep when your feet are closer to the floor.
Once again, I recommend letting your heels kiss the floor and even use a 1-2 second pause at the bottom to limit momentum and improve tension control. This pause is also a powerful way to prevent yourself from developing compensatory habits that make the exercise easier.
Key points
Remember to breathe smoothly through each rep and avoid holding your breath at the bottom position.
Do your best to not kick your legs up in a fast motion, so you don't use momentum to make the exercise easier.
Only lift up until your legs are perpendicular with the floor. Moving your legs further back uses gravity to pull your feet behind your hips. It's not a bad technique; there just isn't much resistance on the flexion chain against gravity past that point.
Keep some tension in your upper back to support your torso. It may be helpful to keep your hands by your side with your palms facing up.
Level 4 Foot suspended plank
Now things are getting fun! This level starts to make use of the Grind-Straps to add some new spice to the classic plank exercise.
Straps elevate your feet, which makes your core parallel to the floor and increases the resistance against gravity compared to a regular plank where your torso is at more of an incline.
Second, the straps remove some of the friction support your feet have when they are on the floor. Reducing the friction support means gravity is going to try to make your feet and hands spread out and you’ll need to keep your abs tight to pull yourself together.
Key points
Start with your knees on the floor and your feet in the straps. Place tension in your abs and slightly arch your spine as you would in the cat position of the cat cow exercise. Lift your knees off the floor to add the resistance.
Do not continue if you feel a strain in your lower back. Stress in the low back is a sign your abs are not holding enough tension to support your lumbar spine.
Push your hands forcefully into the floor, so your shoulder blades protract forward. This pushing motion will improve abdominal support and shoulder stability.
Level 5 Strap knee tuck
The strap knee tuck is both a great mobility exercise and strength exercise in one. The trick is to be mindful of the height of your hips during the exercise. Your goal is to extend your hips as much as you can when your legs are out straight, but don’t let your hips sag. From there, tuck your knees as close to your chest as possible while crunching your abs. Pause and squeeze your muscles for a second or two and then return.
You can also adjust the resistance of this move by lifting your hips as you pull in. The more you raise your hips, the more resistance you'll create against gravity.
Key points
Move in a smooth motion to prevent too much momentum and excessive sagging at the end of each rep.
Pause for a second in the tucked position to clench and tense up your abs.
Keep your feet together to avoid moving each leg at a different rate of speed.
Level 6 Strap knee tuck with a body saw
No matter how strong your abs are, this technique will make your abs sore for days first time you practice it. This exercise combines the mobility and strength challenge of the knee tuck with the searing muscle intensity of the body saw, which is essentially an advanced plank.
Perform this move just as you practice the knee tuck only when you straighten out your legs, push yourself back several inches. This backward shift will create a tremendous amount of leverage on your entire body and require a lot of core strength to prevent your hips from sagging. Move back as far as you're comfortable, pause a second and then pull yourself forward into another rep of the knee tuck.
Key points
Placing your hands more forward on the floor will make the exercise more difficult while walking your hands back several inches will make it easier.
Only push yourself back as far as you can while maintaining lumbar support. If you feel stress in your lower back, reduce your range of motion several inches.
Keep the pressure even on your hands and avoid pressing into the outside of your palms as you push yourself back.
It’s fine to hold your breath at the extended position to increase the support on your core. Just be sure to exhale as you pull yourself forward while tucking your knees.
Always pull up with your toes and push your heel into the handle of the straps to improve the tension along your flexion chain. This also helps your feet stay locked into the straps and improves stability.
Hypertrophy phase exercises for the flexion chain
When it comes to the supportive body chains, the best way to finish a workout is to hold an isometric variation of the grind phase techniques. You may find you’ll have to reduce the difficulty by several levels depending on how hard you pushed yourself during the grind phase.
Strap plank finisher
I recommend practicing a plank, either on the floor or on the straps. This strategy isn't meant to be one of those plank challenges where you're trying to hold the position for minutes at a time. Instead, stretch out your arms, so you increase the resistance and difficulty of the exercise. Adjust the challenge so you can only hold the plank for 20-30 seconds without any lower back strain.
Sit back and press
Years ago, I came across a large and expensive abdominal machine that seemed to work the abs, unlike anything else I had ever used. It was an incredible machine, and I earnestly sought a local gym that had one of these machines. Sadly none did, but I wish I had known about this move at the time because it's even more effective than that machine and doesn't require a five thousand dollar piece of equipment.
To perform this move, sit on the floor with your hands straight out in front of you and press down into the handles of the straps. From there, lean back while pressing into the handles until you find an appropriate level of resistance. Again, you want to hold this position for 20-30 seconds. Pull your hands toward your torso to decrease the resistance and sit back up when you finish the set.
Chapter 9
Grind Style Glutes & Hamstrings
One of the most common questions I’m asked about calisthenics is if there’s a suitable bodyweight exercise that compares to the deadlift.
This is a bit of an apples-and-oranges question because all exercises have their own adaptation fingerprint. Due to the specificity principle, all exercises condition the body to the unique functional demand of a given activity. Even doing the exact same activity but changing a small detail, like your grip or range of motion, will slightly alter the results.
So the definitive answer is no: there is no exact bodyweight equivalent to the deadlift. There aren't even weighted exercises that are equivalent to the deadlift. Doing deadlifts with dumbbells isn't the same as the classic barbell deadlift. Even using a different barbell will alter the specific stimulus. So if you're interested in optimizing your specific deadlift strength, then that exercise simply must be in your program.
I know a lot
of folks are not really asking about deadlift strength when they make such an inquiry. Most of the time, they are more concerned with strengthening their posterior chain and making sure they aren't leaving any stone unturned. They want to know they can adequately strengthen their glutes, hamstrings, and spinal erectors. In that light, there are certainly some very potent exercises that can help you do that in the bodyweight universe.
Tension control phase exercises for the extension chain
Poor extension chain tension control is one of the biggest challenges within our fitness culture. Like with the flexion chain, our modern lifestyle as made sleepy extension chain muscles the normal state for even advanced exercise enthusiasts.
Not only does a sleepy extension chain compromise your strength and performance, but it also places your spine at a higher risk for injury, especially under external loads. This is why some people claim exercises like the deadlift or kettlebell swings are unsafe. However, like any move, they are perfectly safe and can even prevent injury as long as your tension control is dialed in.
Nonetheless, sleepy extension chains are everywhere, which is why I recommend practicing these extension chain tension control exercises daily.
Standing hamstring and glute tension
This is a simple drill you can do anywhere you find yourself standing still. This is also an ideal exercise to practice on a daily basis to improve the tension control in your hamstrings throughout daily activities.
Select one leg and place it a few inches behind the other. Drive your weight into the heel of your back foot sort of like you're trying to spread the floor apart with your feet. Do this while placing tension along the entire backside of your back leg, including your calves, hamstrings, and glutes. Hold for a few moments and then switch to do the same on the other side.
Bent over hamstring and glute tension
This position requires more tension control since it extends your posterior muscles. You can practice this with a little hip flexion, like when leaning on a countertop or with a more pronounced position like when picking something up off the floor.
I recommend practicing this one leg at a time to identify differences you can address between your left and right leg.
Hand clasped spinal tension
This technique conditions the tension control in your spinal erectors. It's the same basic idea as the shoulder movement exercise from the push and pull chain. The difference is you're not focusing on scapular movement, but rather your spinal extension instead.
Stability phase exercises for the extension chain
Marching high knees
This move is the same as the standing exercise you practice for the squat chain. This makes sense since your hamstrings and glutes are part of both your extension chain and squat chain.
The difference here, is you're now focusing on tensing your glutes and hamstrings as you lift the knee of the other leg in front of you. Many people tend to bend the knee slightly and lean back in an attempt to lift the knee up higher. Your mission is to prevent this by tensing up your glutes and hamstrings of the supporting leg to maintain stability. I like to think of trying to move my legs in opposite directions with each step. The lifting leg is moving upward and forwards while I drive my support leg down and back with the tension in my hamstrings and glutes.
Crab walk
This gym class exercise is one of the best stability exercises for your extension chain. Like the crawling exercise for the flexion chain, the crab walk requires total body control while transferring tension from one limb to another.
Be mindful of how your hip position can adjust the difficulty of this exercise. The higher your hips are the more resistance you’ll have on your posterior chain.
There’s also a tendency to push off with your arms to move forward. This is fine, but you’ll have more hamstring engagement if you pull yourself forward with your hamstrings, almost like a hamstring curl.
Lastly, like with all types of crawling, play around with speed and direction. You don't always have to move forward, but also sideways and backward too. You can even rotate your body, so you alternate between front crawling to work your flexion chain and crab walk for the extension chain.
Strength phase exercises for the extension chain
The following exercises are all hip dominant movements which focus on using your glutes and hamstrings to lift yourself up. Do your best to keep your spine slightly extended so you won’t be tempted to perform these moves with a lot of movement in your lower back. If you do feel a lot of stress in your lower back, it’s usually a sign that you’re overloading the exercise. If that’s the case, I suggest regressing a level or two and practice driving your hips up with more tension in your glutes and hamstrings.
All of the techniques are shown using the Grind Straps, but any elevated surface, like a step or weight bench will do.
Level 1 Floor straight leg hip bridge
Don’t underestimate the power of this simple movement. It’s a perfect opportunity to explore how you’re using tension in your extension chain in a balanced way from head to toes.
Newcomers to this movement might find their hamstrings are prone to cramping if they are not used to putting much tension in those muscles. If you're experiencing such a thing, decrease the range of motion, so you're not lifting your hips quite as high. Your hamstrings will quickly grow stronger and more resilient in a few weeks, and you'll be able to handle this move without any problems.
Key points
Focus on driving your heels down into the floor to ensure full activation of your hamstrings.
Let your hips “kiss” the floor rather than completely resting to ensure constant resistance on your extension chain.
Keep your shoulder blades tucked down and back to provide additional support for your spine, which should also be slightly extended on the floor.
It may be helpful to imagine opening the back of your hips at the bottom position and clenching your glutes and hamstrings at the top.
Level 2 Cross ankle hip bridge
This exercise progresses the resistance by shifting more of your weight onto one leg while the other is assisting. Be sure to place the foot of your working leg on your centerline to avoid excessive torque on your hips and torso.
Key points
Pay attention to the tension in the hamstrings in the inner thigh. It’s natural for those muscles to work harder to maintain stability.
Work hard to keep your pelvis level so one hip isn’t higher than the other. There’s a tendency to twist the hips and torso with unilateral hip extensions. Trying to fight that rotation is part of what makes the exercise more effective.
You can slightly progress the resistance of this technique by placing your supporting foot up closer to the knee. Doing so changes leverage of the assisting leg and forces the working leg to work harder.
Level 3 Single leg hip bridge
The next natural progression is to place all of your weight on one leg while keeping the other leg straight out in front of you. Not only will this put all of your weight on one leg, but you're now also lifting the weight of your non-lifting leg.
Key points
Avoid the tendency to kick up the non-lifting leg. Just press your heel straight out while keeping your quads tense to lock out the leg.
Watch out for any lateral movement in the foot or knee of the working leg. Do your best to lock your whole leg into place as you move your hips up and down.
Experiment with pointing your toes forward up up to the ceiling to find the most comfortable position for your working leg.
Level 4 Straight leg bridge on straps
This move is a pretty big progression for several reasons. It incorporates a lot more range of motion in your hips plus it creates more leverage on your spinal muscles. It also requires more stability in your arms and shoulders as you push your shoulders down and back.
Key points
As with knee tucks, you can adjust the resistance of this move, depending
on where you place your hands. Moving your hands closer to the anchor point increases the resistance while moving them back decreases it.
Do your best to use tension along your entire extension chain and prevent the tension from “pooling” into any specific areas like the lower back.
Just as with floor hip extensions, only use the range of motion you’re comfortable with and can use with control. Avoid using momentum or poor technique to lift your hips as high as possible.
Level 5 Cross ankle straight leg bridge
Just as with the lying bridges, the next progression of the straight leg bridge is to cross at the ankle, so you're placing more resistance on one leg.
You'll probably notice this also makes the opposite arm and back muscles work harder too. This is perfectly natural since force transfers diagonally through the body. Your challenge is to maintain stability throughout your whole body so you move without any twisting or shifting to the side.
Key points
Avoid twisting your torso as much as possible, especially as your muscles fatigue throughout the set.
Keep your toes pointing up or forward, so you don't twist your leg throughout each rep.
As with the cross angle bridges on the floor, you can progress the resistance of this technique by positioning your supporting foot closer to your knee.
Level 6 Single straight leg bridge
The single leg hip bridge requires a lot of strength, mobility, and stability from your whole body. All of your lower body weight is on one leg, which will place more resistance on the opposing arm. Just be sure to keep at least some weight on the other arm to maintain torso stability. Keeping your working leg on your centerline will help improve your stability as well.
Grind Style Calisthenics Page 7
