Tag Archives: Merrylands

Tire Flips

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The first concept to consider is the fact that the tire flip is not a deadlift; it is more like a hack squat. The movement is generated solely from the lower body, the
arms merely lock onto the tire. Do not attempt to lift the tire with your arms or serious injury can occur.

To set up properly you want your arms slightly bent and in a comfortable position. Your feet should be back away from the tire and your chest up against it. Your
back is flat and your hips are low. Lockdown your upper body and drive from your legs to extend your hips, knees, and ankles. When you do this your hips should
be propelling the tire simultaneously upward and forward. Your body should remain close to the tire at all times as you quickly rotate your hands and follow through
until it is completely flipped.

Some tires are heavy and you may only be able to lift it waist high; at this point, drive one of your knees against the tire to prop it up until you can get your hands
turned and your hips adjusted to complete the flip. You can train tire flips in two ways: you can flip a heavy tire for strength and power production or go with a lighter tire to work more volume and train your endurance and conditioning.

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The Truth about Squats

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By definition, a full squat is just below parallel, where the hip joint is lower than the knee joint. At the bottom of the squat, if you were to put a marble on your thigh, it should roll down towards your hip — not your knee.

In actuality, most people perform half squats or quarter squats (referring to the range of motion) for various reasons. Some can’t due to mobility issues, while others simply resist because they claim squatting to full depth is “bad for your knees and back.”

Fortunately, we can look to science — specifically a recent study published in the journal Sports Medicine1 — for a definitive ruling on the squat depth debate.

Researchers essentially did a review of all current literature on knee and back health, as it pertains to squat depth at various loads. The researchers reviewed a total of 164 articles and found some very interesting data. Not only are full depth squats not dangerous, they actually cause less stress on your knee joint and spine. “When compared with half and quarter squats, in the deep squat [less] knee joint and spinal joint stress can be expected.”

“Not only are full depth squats not dangerous, they actually cause less stress on your knee joint and spine.”

Noted in Scientific Study —

Supportive tissue (ligaments and tendons) will adapt to increased loads, and concerns about degenerative changes in the knee are unfounded.

At the turning point of a half squat, there is more compressive stress on the knee and a smaller support surface for the quadriceps tendon (when compared with a full squat).

Full squats do not have any negative effect on the stability of knee ligaments.

The spine adapts to squat training by A) increasing bone mineral density, increasing tensile strength of ligaments, and C) strengthening back muscles — this contributes to a protective effect.

When half squatting, a significantly greater load is necessary to create the same training stimulus (when compared to the full squat) — this requires MORE compressive force on the back and knee to produce the same effect.

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Exercise Selection

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Bodybuilder-
In an attempt to “bring up their weaknesses” bodybuilders often opt for isolation exercises. Chest flyes, concentration curls and leg extensions are all part of the bodybuilder’s repertoire.

Additionally, since these isolation exercises work only one small area at a time, you must do many different exercises to get a full workout, which again leads to a greater time commitment.

Athletes-
Athletes, on the other hand, are more concerned with function. And since the body was not designed to have each muscle and/or movement pattern isolated, they rarely perform isolation exercises like bodybuilders do.

Instead, they focus on movements that engage the entire body, just like what would naturally happen during a sporting event.

These exercises have a huge metabolic cost and rev up your metabolism much more that a chest fly could even dream of doing. Also, because they work so many muscle groups simultaneously, they are very time efficient.

As you can tell, I favor the use of exercises that work the entire body over isolation movements. That being said, there are times, where an isolation exercise can be effectively used to supplement the use of the more result-producing exercises.

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