CategoriesExercises You Should Be Doing

Exercises You Should Be Doing: Transverse Landmine Snatch

All I have to say is that today’s Exercise You Should Be Doing will make you make this face.

It’s that cool.

Copyright: bowie15 / 123RF Stock Photo

 

Or, I don’t know, if that doesn’t do the trick, what if I told you I’m not wearing a shirt as I write this post, maybe that would help?[footnote]I mean, I am wearing one. But if I told you I wasn’t, and it made you make that face, I’d consider my day complete.[/footnote]

Anyways, today’s exercise I want to share is pretty neato.

Transverse Landmine Snatch

Here’s one of my athletes, Rishi, who’s part of the USA Men’s Field Hockey Program, performing it during last night’s training session.

Who Did I Steal It From? – Stanford University Strength & Conditioning coach Cory Schlesinger.

HERE’s his Instagram page. You should follow him.

What Does It Do? – In short, it’s an excellent introductory drill that trains explosiveness and power; albeit in multiple planes AND in a manner that’s very joint friendly and relatively easy to learn.

I’ve never been shy or reluctant to admit I’m a coach who’s not in any way, shape, or form competent in the OLY lifts.

When I was at Cressey Sports Performance we never prioritized them with our athletes – instead leaning very much on things like medicine ball throws, KB swings, bounding, and sprinting – and even now, at CORE, I still don’t prioritize them.

This is not to insinuate I feel the OLY lifts aren’t wonderful or that they don’t work. To speak candidly I’m at a point in my coaching career where I know what I’m good at and if someone I’m working with really wanted to learn them (or I felt they could benefit from learning them) I have many colleagues in the area I can refer to.

NOTE: If you’re interested you can read more about why I don’t use the OLY lifts HERE.

What I like most about using the landmine in this instance is that it kinda-sorta keeps things predictable; I.e., the barbell will more or less stay in the same path each and every repetition.

This makes the learning curve infinitely shorter.

What I also like about this variation is that it combines a lot of “good” things into one movement: Hip hinge, split stance, rotary stability, transverse (multi-planar) motion, and fake “overhead” pressing.[footnote]The only way this exercise could be more baller is if it also included nunchucks.[/footnote]

The latter makes this an excellent exercise for those who play sports with a heavy overhead component (baseball, basketball, swimming) or for those who may lack the requisite mobility to go completely overhead.

Key Coaching Cues: This isn’t something a lot of people can perform on Day 1. Sure, you’ll get some athletes/clients who will be able to pick it up quickly, but typically I’ll first need to take the time to coach someone through a proper hip hinge, progressing them from a deadlift to a KB swing, KB/DB clean, and also pepper in a fair amount of anti-rotation movements (carries, for example) alongside landmine pressing variations.

In short: it’s important to master the “parts” of the movement before you train the whole enchilada.

Only then will the movement make sense or “click” with someone.

Once there, though:

  1. The move should start with the plate “hovering” a few inches above the ground, with the inside leg (leg closest to the bar) staggered.
  2. It’s important not to “lose” the shoulders; upper back stiffness is crucial.
  3. They’ll then clean the barbell, rotate, and “catch” it in an extended squared-stance position. Like I said above it’s one of those exercises that’s best broken down into its parts. Once the novelty of those have been addressed it makes the actual exercise a bit easier to handle.
  4. I tend to stick in the 3-5 reps/side range and take into account I want this to be explosive. For most people loading 25-45 lbs on the bar will be more than enough.
CategoriesExercises You Should Be Doing Strength Training

Exercises You Should Be Doing: 1-Arm Landmine Row

Things have been cranking the past few days, and it’s been hard for me to keep up with the blog.  I posted one up late on Monday, skimped yesterday, and am posting a short one today. I’m slacking, I know.

If it’s any consolation I’m really sorry everyone, but I promise I’ll make it up to you soon.

(Bambi Eyes)

I actually do have a lot on my plate right now:

1.  Within the next week or so, strength coach Dan Trink and I will be exposing to the world a project we’ve been working on in collaboration with Greatist.com.  It’s thiiiiiiiiiiiiis close to being complete – everyone’s busy putting the finishing touches into place – and we’re pretty certain it’s going to help out a lot of people, if not win us a Nobel Prize.

Stay tuned.  News to come shortly.

2. I’m cranking away on my next T-Nation article, which discusses some of more common exercises that trainees tend to butcher.

3.  And yesterday I actually spent the afternoon hanging out with JC Deen, lifting heavy(ish) things and eating some dead animals. We met up in the city, headed over to Boston University to get a quick lift in and then spent the afternoon talking about training, marketing, writing, and even read some poetry to orphans.

Okay, we didn’t really do that……..but we did spend a fair amount of time shooting the shit and talking about the industry.

All I have to say about JC is that he’s a great dude, and my man has a very, very bright future a head of him.  You might even say I officially have a little man-crush.

I know some of you reading may already be familiar with his work, but if not, I’d highly encourage you to check out his website HERE.

So anyways, enough with the small talk.  Lets get to today’s Exercise You Should Be Doing

1-Arm Landmine Row

Who Did I Steal If From:  I know Ben Bruno has been posting a lot of new exercises as of late with the landmine, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s already highlighted this one. However, in my defense I looked at the date from when I actually filmed this video and it was November 23, 2008 (hence the winter skully on my head).  HA – take that Bruno!

What Does It Do:  Actually, a lot. As with any row variation we’re hitting the upper back, lats, and biceps pretty hard, so this should be a popular “go to” exercise for all the meat heads out there reading – especially for those who train in a gym who’s dumbbell selection is limited.

You could foreseeably load this sucker up pretty heavy.

A little less known is that this exercise is an absolute beast when it comes to anti-rotation (or, rotary) training.  Because it’s done in a two-point stance – only two points of contact – there’s a strong demand on the torso to resist rotation, which I feel makes this exercise pretty key.

Key Coaching Cues:  Maintaining a “neutral” spinal position throughout is paramount.  If we’re going to keep ourselves honest, if one were to place a long PVC stick down the backside, there should be three points of contact – back of the head, between the shoulder blades, as well as the sacrum.

This is just a point of reference, of course, I don’t expect you to really place a PVC pipe on your back while performing this exercise. But it might not be a bad idea for those struggling with proper positioning.

Moreover, it’s important to refrain from using too much “body english” on these.  While it’s inevitable there’s going to be “some” movement in the torso, the key objective here is to not look as if you’re having an epileptic seizure and stay as still as possible while performing the movement.

To that end:  you’ll want to push your hips back, keep your knees “soft” (don’t lock them), brace your abs, and focus on pulling “through the elbow.”  Ideally, I like to tell trainees to pull their elbow towards their hip……..and to NOT go past that point.

Another thing to consider is the size of the plates used.  It’s actually less cumbersome to use the smaller 10 lb plates and just load the bar up with as many of those as you need.

Using the larger plates – while they look waaaaaaaay cooler – will just get in the way of everything.

I like to perform these for sets of 6-10/side.  Try them out today and let me know what you think.

NOTE:  For those who don’t have access to a landmine apparatus (the thingamajig on the floor that the bar goes into), you can just as easily place barbell in the corner between two walls and do the exact same thing.  You might have to place a towel around the bar so that it doesn’t mark up the wall, but that shouldn’t be too much of a hassel.