7 Extraordinary, Simple, Hard Exercises On the Floor – Part 3
Dear Strength Coach/Personal Trainer,
Part 3-5 of this series about body weight exercises, examines three different, but crucial ways to apply progressive overload to body weight exercises.
Here is the first one:
1. Lifting a greater portion of the body off the floor (akin to increasing the intensity of the exercise and increasing the load)
Example: Hamstrings – Press your heels into the floor, so that the pelvis is unloaded or lifted off the floor. (Unloaded = if there was a scale under the pelvis, the pelvis would touch the scale, but the scale would show 0).
Stages of progression for this exercise include:
- Press both heels into the floor w/knees 45 degree bent.
- Press both heels into the floor w/knees almost straight.
- Press both heels into the floor w/knees straight.
- Press both heels into the floor w/knees straight. Pelvis is unloaded, but does still touch the floor.
- Press both heels into the floor w/knees straight. Pelvis is lifted off the floor.
- Press both heels into the floor w/knees straight. Pelvis is lifted off the floor. The ribcage is unloaded. This variation requires tremendous neck strength.
- Press both heels into the floor w/knees straight. Pelvis is lifted off the floor. The ribcage is lifted off the floor.
- Repeat the entire progression with one leg at a time.
This, simple, hard hamstring exercise (that emphasizes the popliteus muscle, responsible for unlocking the knee) has a total of 14 different stages of progression.
14 different stages of progression is as many or almost as many options for varying the load that the athlete or client has in a machine dedicated to strengthening the hamstring!
Please, give these variations a try and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below.
Dedicated To Our Success,
Karsten Jensen,
MSc, Strength Coach, CPTN-CPT.M
Author, Lecturer, Founder of Yes To Strength
PS: Part 4 of this installment series discuses the 100 Rep Death March! It is NOT to be missed.
