phase one of broke back hypertrophy. I hurt my back so I’m broke back right now. I can’t do deadlifts or back squats. this workout has elements from Boyd Eply’s complete conditioning for football, The Maximum Strength Program, Enter the Kettlebell, and Mike Boyle. If you want to train around back pain it’s the way to go. The step up has a KB in one arm over the weighted leg. My balances in the step up isn’t good enough yet do put the KB over the non working leg. I’ve been using a 15 in box for the step up.
The hip flexion is on a cable stack with a leg cuff. I’ve been doing 2 sets of 20 for hip flexion and step ups. I’ve been using a 65lb KB for the kb swings. My hang clean max is 285. last time I maxed on front squat I hit 315. I’ve been doing the front box squat starting at 265 and working my way up.
I’m trying to improve my 40 yard dash and broad jump.
Make sure your hips are level before starting a program. If they aren’t I’d highly suggest buying gravity boots or an inversion table. I had that problem and inversion fixed it for me.
I used to obsess over how screwed up the muscle imbalance of my spinal erectors was. It effected my self esteem and my self image. I felt like a genetic screw up and inferior. They are by no means perfectly symmetrical now, but the erector spinae are a hell of a lot closer in size than before inversion and if I could get lean I’d say I’m well on my way to a six pack.
Before I used gravity boots the lowest node on the left side of my rectus abdominus was iddy bitty. It obviously wasn’t in the game when called upon for its required functions. My right spinal erector was also shut off and not performing in its functions. If you put your hands on your spinal erectors and take a few steps. You should have a nice contraction contralateral to the leg weight is on. In addition to those things I’d say I had some kind of chronically shortened psoas which caused my right hip to be lower than the left. So part of my abs were shut off, my right spinal erector was shut off and my hips weren’t level.
The medical system blew off my problem. I didn’t have the money for elite training. I felt like I was screwed for life. There was no way to fix my problems. It was depressed about having to look inferior for the rest of my life and seriously thought about killing myself.
After inversion the formerly inactive node of my rectus abdominus had doubled in size, the muscle imbalance of my spinal erectors had evened out some and my hips had gotten as close to level as an imperfect body would allow.
For $100 I fixed a problem most physical therapists would blow off and say “everyone has some asymmetry” to. I’d have to pay $400 a month to get someone like Mike Robertson to figure out the problem and fix it. It might get fixed that way, but I doubt it’d be fixed as fast as inversion would fix it. Now don’t get me wrong elite training is probably awesome and the results amazing. I’m not a millionaire though so I don’t have the money for that shit. I have to pay for stuff to make my life go around like food, rent, car payments and insurance.
Inversion is the poor man’s answer to muscle imbalance in the hips, low back and abs. It’s cheaper than physical therapy or expert training and more convenient, whether or not it’s more effective I don’t know. I’ve never had enough money to pay for expert training or enough PT to fix my problems.
All I know is inversion was effective for the problems I had. If you have enough awareness and low enough self esteem to see your flaws then inversion will keep you from having to get the cumbersome medical system involved for something it would blow off as insignificant.
You can invert after every workout as a prehab measure. I didn’t have any idea how long to invert, but my back hurt so I spent 10 minutes a day hanging upside down. As far as how long to hang upside down is up to you. A little bit every day is probably best. For the first 10 sessions spend 5 minutes at the most. If you move twist and do crunches it will speed the process. I’m at the point where the ligaments in my spine have gotten stretched out enough that the time it takes to do 50 inverted crunches and 10 inverted squats a day is all the inversion I need. Anymore than that and it makes my back hurt. If I can tell you one thing about inversion don’t overdo it.
If you have a back injury from shear or axial loading a physical therapist will likely put you on a table with a belt around your pelvis and something holding your shoulders in place to decompress your spine. Inversion is the same idea, but a little more extreme.
I use gravity boots right in my commercial gym. People look at me funny, but so far it’s been the only thing that has made my back healthy again.
I’m no expert. I’m just going from personal experience. So far inversion has been great-knock on wood. I highly recommend it for anyone that has some mucle imbalance in the hips, spinal erectors, and abs-like me- wants to lift heavy or do explosive movements.
I’d also like to thank Biotest for letting me spew the garbage from my brain without assassinating me in my sleep. If you’re going to lift weights buy some of Biotest’s creatine monoydrate and Surge.
If you’re trying to improve your sprint times another thing I like to do is the dynamic front split on a total gym. The value of the total gym has been debated thoroughly, but for my purposes it serves me well. I don’t think anything can increase the dynamic flexibility of the hamstrings like the dynamic front split. You can’t do it every day of the year like you would in a warm up because you will develop IT band issues-I did anyway. I would suggest waiting until a week or two before competition. Do the dynamic front split every day the week for 2x10/side and then the day of competition do a 2x10/side in the morning. Train hip flexor mobilizations the same way as the dynamic front split.
