Isometrics to Increase Ankle Dorsiflexion: PAILs/RAILs B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2024-06-08 | Stretching your calves alone is not enough to improve your ankle dorsiflexion in any meaningful way, we need active contractions to make the desired range of motion usable.Instead of just pushing your knee over your toe or stretching your calves, after you stretch try pushing your toes down without losing the level of dorsiflexion you’re in. You should feel the backside of your ankle tensing rather than stretching which would be the PAIL, Progressive Angular Isometric Loading.After creating tension for an extended period of time, lift your toes up and contract the front side of your ankle without moving anything else. Contracting the shortened side, your tibia, is the RAIL, Regressive Angular Isometric Loading.If you get pinching in the front of your ankle when you try to find the stretch, you can’t do this drill. You need to develop more plantar flexion, which is the opposite motion, so that you have more ankle capsule space to move into dorsiflexion.
Learning to Extend #mobility #gymworkout #strengthtraining #yoga #bodybuilding #backpain #athlete B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-22 | Learning to Move: Lumbar Spine 5/5,Being able to move segmentally at our spine promotes engagement of both core and lower back muscles, but also how we move our pelvis. For spine extension, training usually is revolved around doing Superman’s or back extensions; both are fine exercises, but I find this variation to be a lot more intentional for each lumbar segment. Quality of movement, the nuance and precision of how tension is placed on tissue, definitely matters in the context of improving how someone feels and controls their body. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
5 Mobility Bench Marks Everyone Should Meet B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-21 | When discussing someone’s joint mobility, more range of motion is usually viewed out as better. Which makes sense, right? Most people struggle to move, so it makes sense that the visual representation of range of motion is what will be measured. While this normally holds true, there’s more to establishing good mobility than getting our protractor out to measure the sheer degrees of range. Over the last 10 years of me being a personal trainer, I’ve come to find that there are a handful of benchmarks that broadly that show if someone “moves well”. This includes having the ability to move your feet with some meaningful ankle dorsiflexion present, have some meaningful range of motion in external rotation of the hip, have both range and control with flexion when hip hinging strength and hip extension to do a single leg glute bridge. I usually like starting with a bottom up approach by establishing foot mobility, since most things are influence off that. This includes the ability to extend the big toe, flex the big toe and have independent motion of the toes; all this lays the groundwork for the ability to prone and supinate the foot, which influences hip rumble internal and external rotation. This takes us to integrating the foot and hip together, through a single leg hip hinge; this challenges coordination through the hips/pelvis and how it intertwines with the hips. If someone struggles to not round their back here, it likely can be rooted in how their foot and hip interact. If there is a movement deficit here, we generally like using a pole as a tactile feedback tool to act as a “training wheel”, like when someone learns to ride a bike; we start them with a basic hip hinge with both feet, advance to a kick stand variation and then work on single leg balance. Another important aspect of the hip is its ability to externally rotate, which can be most obviously demonstrated and trained through an elevated pigeon pose. A good rule of thumb is to be able to comfortably do this with a surface that is hip height, while leaning over with a straight back. I am also a fan of performing asymmetric contractions within the stretch to further build strength and expand range of motion. Hip extension is another component of the hip that people often struggle with, the couch stretch is the gold standard for this. It should be noted that your training productivity with this is solely dependent on your ability to squeeze the glute, which should intensify the stretch. Doing this as an extended static stretch is usually good practice. This should be followed up with working towards being strong enough to do a single leg glute bridge. If someone is unable to perform this, then we should be opting for a simple bi-lateral option, hold it as an extended isometric and build up to single leg over time.If you want to learn more about the joint specific training you see us doing, check out our Skool Community through the link in our bio. We have an exercise library with comprehensive breakdowns, programs, concept videos, access to coaching feedback and more, all for $25/month or $250/year.
Learning to Glute Bridge #gymworkout #strengthtraining #legday #mobility #bodybuilding #athlete B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-20 | Learning to Move: Glute Bridges 4/5, When someone feels their lower back when bridging, it’s because their extending with their spine when it’s meant to be a hip extension movement. This usually becomes a problem as load increases; if hip extensors can’t do the job, then our body looks for the path of least resistance, which means to borrow from the spine. I think this is where exercise in itself becomes a skill, the act of actually doing it well will create better movement patterns that are more sustainable long term; There’s a time and place to push for more load. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Learning to Pelvic Tilt #mobility #balancefitness #trackandfield #bodybuilding #strengthtraining B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-17 | Learning to Move: Pelvic Tilting 3/5, Knowing how to intentionally tilt at the pelvis, rather than dump at the spine, during lower body exercise is one of the most important things for improving training productivity. Hyperextensions are awesome for teaching this because we can leverage the pad as a pivot for the pelvic tilt; if the pad is above your hip bone then you are going to flex and extend at the spine, which isn’t wrong or bad, but that’s not anterior and posterior pelvic tilt. I think of this as the bicep preacher curl for hip hinges. Thinking more range of motion is better is usually a bad thing here too. More often than not this encourages more recruitment from the spine, rather than glutes and hamstrings. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Learning to Hip Hinge #mobility #balancefitness #gymworkout #strengthtraining #homeworkout #yoga B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-16 | Learning to Move: Hip Hinging 2/5,Having range is different than knowing how to use your range and the single leg hip hinge is one of the most clear demonstrations of interdependence between the foot, hip and pelvis. A lot of people struggle to not dump at the spine here, let alone not fall over; the pole on our back is used as a “training wheel” to feel out the correlation between hip/pelvic orientation and foot pressure; a lack of balance and difficulty in “finding” your hip is almost always related to this. Way too many people load their deadlifts bilaterally, yet they can’t even do them on one leg…🤦🏼♂️ Being patient and giving yourself some leeway is so underrated here, treat this as an exploratory movement rather than intensity. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Assessments Aren’t Everything #mobility #gymworkout #personaltrainer #strengthtraining #rehab #yoga B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-13 | Learning to Move: Assessment 1/5,When someone has a movement problem, sometimes the initial thinking is to figure out it out by doing some form of assessment. The table test assessment can give us useful info like their degrees of passive and active range of motion, as well as the gap between the two. What the table test doesn’t do is account for how movement presents in each individual exercises. Every exercise is an assessment, each one should be information that’s used to navigate training decisions. The table test is also information, but it’s just one side of things. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Hanging for Shoulder Mobility #gymworkout #strengthtraining #calisthenics #bodybuilding #athlete B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-11 | Thinking Outside the Box, So many of us joint-centric trainers, therapists and hobby gym goers initially stumbled on this perspective to training through FRC, Functional Range Conditioning. FRC is by far the most comprehensive framework out there and is the basis of a lot of what we do. But not any single framework will ever have all the answers, this includes ours, all any of us can do is go off of best practices from research and anecdotes during training. Hanging was one tool that was laughed upon in that club house, as if there was no merit, even if it felt good. Blasting shoulder rotation can definitely be a fix for someone, following the length loading progression has value in building range, the scapula definitely matters and so does the thoracic spine, but theres a million ways to skin a cat, so to speak. Trial and error, listening to your body and doing what makes sense all has a role in training. If this resonated with you and you want more training content, comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite to our community 👊🏼#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Form Doesn’t Matter, Context Does #mobility #gymworkout #bodybuilding #strengthtraining #athlete B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-09 | Form Is Contextual,Most people think form is objective, that there’s a clear line between “good” and “bad” form; I think a better way to phrase things is “what’s more ideal for the goal?”. When leaning over under load, we have the options of doing it with our hips or our spine. Our hips are usually what’s practiced, RDLs, deadlifts, hyper extensions; rounded spine training is a niche and most don’t do it, even worse think spine deadlifts are bad still 🙄 (it’s 2026, some old dogs still won’t learn new tricks). Exercise isn’t any single thing, it’s how you progressively load and challenge the body over time. How you do it can look more different than most people think; the Jefferson Curl-RDL comparison is just the most notable example of this. If this resonated and you want to learn more about the training perspective, comment “Skool” and I’ll send a free invite to our community 👊🏼#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Abductor Eccentric Loading #mobility #gymworkout #strengthtraining #glutesworkout #legday #athlete B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-07 | Adductors: Lateral Hip 4/4,It’s commonly understood that both sides of a joint contribute to how it moves, feels and performs; think the scapula and the front of the shoulder, hip flexor and glute correlation, abs and low back pain, etc. The adductors don’t usually get viewed the same way, as if the lateral hip isn’t a factor. Usually we would opt to shorten this tissue to complement the length training, that makes the most sense. This same set up never gets length attention though and we ended up talking about it during this session. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Upper Body Mobility That Won’t Hinder Recover B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-07 | Sometimes the goal with mobility training is to not necessarily just improve mobility, but to preserve it without sacrificing bandwidth for other endeavors you have going on, like being in season for sports if you’re an athlete. Some athletes have a habit of keeping training volume too high, which hinders both their recovery for weightlifting as well as sport, other athletes end up neglecting certain areas entirely. It’s important to know how to cover large bases to get the most out of the training you’re doing. There’s a million ways to go about this and we just went over a handful of training options. For the spine, we always want to make sure that we have flexibility in extension, flexion, rotation, and lateral flexion. One of my personal favorites for lateral flexion and extension is to be doing a dead hang variation that allows for us to length and load the tissue that facilitates both end ranges of motion. The main focus here is really just to spend time in that static stretch, relaxing, and allowing the targeted tissue to be lengthened for as long as your grip can handle. If you had too difficult of a time or couldn’t do the lateral reflection variation at all, then a simple alternative, which should be done anyway even if you can do the dead hang, are side bands on a traditional hyper extension. During this exercise, you’re able to eccentrically lengthen the lateral spine, which includes the obliques, as well as contracting them to pull yourself back up and shorten them. This could also be loaded overtime, but if we’re focused on just preserving our ranges doing this with just your body weight, I would consider a good “wellness” exercise. Hanging could also be used for the shoulder specifically and the position you put your arms in dictates what tissue is being lengthened. Depending on the individual and their shoulders history, one arm position may feel noticeably more restricted than another and that’s okay. It would probably be a good practice to just spend time in the positions that you deem most challenging; focus on breathing, relaxing, and building tolerance to that overtime; I think it’s a good practice to just simply do all these positions at some point throughout each week, it doesn’t take long and covers a large portion of what makes someone’s upper body both feel and perform well. The scapula should also be something that’s acknowledged, in particular how well someone can both control it, but also underload. Scapula training ultimately boils down to doing variations of CARs, controlled articular rotations, which is essentially an expression of the full range of motion of the scapula. The scapula CAR in itself is very progress-able and regress-able by doing it in a variety of different positions and different loading profiles. This is something that could be done at a lower intensity to maintain your ranges of motion or loaded progressively overtime to strengthen them.Like most things there is a lot of ways to do something, and these were just a handful of tools in our tool belt to train different qualities of movement for upper body, both strength and mobility. If somebody had pain pinching or simply could not perform any of the movements, then we would just find an alternative that challenged their ranges of motion in a way that was appropriate for them. How much volume someone does should be dictated on what their other programming looks like, what they’re doing for their sport specifically and how you apply the training tools is what ultimately matters. If you want to learn more about this approach to training, join our Skool community through the link in our bio. We have a lot to offer there, an exercise library, programs, concept videos and access to coaching feedback, all for either $25/month or $250/year, both with a 7-day free trial.
Abduction Slider Eccentrics #mobility #gymworkout #strengthtraining #homeworkout #athlete #fitness B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-05 | Adductors: Eccentric Alternative 3/4,Not everyone wants to lean against the wall with their legs open and thats okay, alternatives are there for a lot of reasons and comfort level is definitely one (although the last one is my favorite if you feel like getting set up for it). Adduction sliders can be good too if we do them right, and by right I mean creating tension through the full range of motion as opposed to just sliding out and not making meaning control of it. Static stretching is a tool, eccentric loading is a tool, each tool can have variations that use different equipment, position bias, load profile bias and simply just someone’s preferences. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Training for the Splits: Eccentrics #mobility #gymworkout #stretching #yoga #gymnastic #homeworkout B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-03 | Adductors: Eccentric Loading 2/4, In the pursuit of becoming more mobile, static stretching gets used way more than eccentric loading. It should be viewed as a different tool in our tool belt; train at-length with stretching and isometrics, train to-length with eccentric loading to “back fill” the space (the range of motion). Pairing training tools that cover the same bases in different ways is generally good practice to avoid plateaus and more effectively build strength over time. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Isometrics for the Splits #mobility #gymworkout #strengthtraining #stretching #yoga #homeworkout B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-02 | Adductors: Isometrics 1/4,For adductors most people do a standard inner thigh machine or brute force their way into the middle split. Both have a time and place, but patience and training within your means is usually a more sustainable approach. In this instance it usually means doing a series of isometrics, essentially working your way into deeper range, as opposed to redlining yourself; more often than not this gives you higher quality stimulus that actually feels good later. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Shoulder Extension Isometrics #stretching #yoga #mobility #gymworkout #athlete #fitness#bodybuilding B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-09-01 | Tight Pecs?: Extension 3/3,Stretching shoulder extension is underrated for opening up anterior shoulder tissue and is often a weak point for people who struggle with dips and chest pressing movements. There’s a few ways to go about it but I find for a lot of people a simple set up like this is a good start and gets the job done. It’s good practice to do your isometrics here too (do i sound like a broken record yet?), it’ll help build strength at this end range and further open things up. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Chest Stretching Isometrics #mobility #gymworkout #strengthtraining #athlete #fitness #yoga #posture B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-30 | Tight Pecs?: Abduction 2/3,Aside from improving how well the shoulder joint moves, stretching our shoulder into abduction is one of the lowest hanging fruit. Door way stretches are the laymen’s way of going about this, which can feel good and help but it doesn’t address other qualities of movement like the ability to create tension and possess strength at the end range. Adding isometrics into commonly done stretches is straightforward and makes the basics of joint training more palatable for someone who is less experienced. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Shoulder CARs #mobility #gymworkout #strengthtraining #athlete #fitness #warmup #bodybuilding #yoga B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-29 | Tight Pecs?: CARs 1/3,Gym goers often say their chest always feel tight, with stretching being the first thing they do. If we have restriction, we should definitely be stretching, but learning to move the joint that a tight muscle attaches to needs to be the first step; tight muscles come from immobile joints, muscles don’t get tight for no reason. CARs are our way of getting the joint to move through YOUR full range of motion, without allowing other surrounding joints to move as compensation. CARs are a great warm up, but they also can be used as a finisher and high intensity training tool.You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Assessments Don’t Matter, Learning How to Move Does B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-29 | When people experience movement problems, the first thought is that they need to go and get an assessment by a trainer, physical therapist or some type of movement specialist, which makes sense considering that if someone’s experiencing problems, they wanna understand why. The catch with this is that most assessments don’t cover all of your bases nor tell the full story. A traditional table test can be used to assess someone’s passive range of motion, their active range of motion and the gap seen between the two; what the test doesn’t account for is how the movement is expressed through different exercises that both have different points of emphasis and integrate other joints/muscles; this is why an assessment cannot tell you everything, every exercise is an ongoing assessment to give us the full picture and ensure that no stone is unturned. My client Nikki here assesses very well on a standard table test in that we have a visual active range of motion in both internal and external rotation, as well as flexion and extension. Even though she tests “well”, we still experienced problems when performing standard exercises such as squats, hip hinges, and glue bridges. So how can that be? How can she assess well, but still have movement deficits? Again, it’s because the assessment does not paint the full picture. Most of the things we’re looking to address stem around the lower body and using traditional lower body exercise exercises to help understand the direction we need to go into. We don’t seem to have a difficult time doing bilateral hip hinges, but when we go to unilateral things express themselves differently; when doing single leg hip hinges, we see way more motion from the spine, less movement from the hip and pelvis, as well as an inability to maintain consistent foot pressure throughout the full range of motion as we go from hip extension into hip flexion. For hip hinges in general, it is very often overlooked how different the single leg variation expresses movement deficits versus when both legs are planted on the ground. A key part in ensuring that her hips are able to function properly is that the foot can be integrated throughout the whole kinetic chain; the hip plays off of the foot and the foot facilitates the hip. Doing variations of kickstand hip hinges where we have the back foot supporting us, as well as using tactile feedback tools like the PVC pipe, allow for us to build awareness as to what our spine and pelvis is doing while practicing the act of foot pressure and hip hinging. During other lower body movements, we pay particular focus to what the pelvis is doing because the single like hip hinge seems to be so difficult for us. A really good way to promote pelvic movement is to do traditional hyper extensions, but with focus on pelvic motion, not spine motion. This starts with ensuring that the pad is beneath your front pelvic bone; having the pad above the pelvic bone, makes it nearly impossible to flex at the hip, which intern means that the spine has to move instead; keeping the pad lower will allow for the pelvis to rock as long as we can be aware of what our spine is doing so that it can just be “long for the ride”, so to speak. Our goal with doing hyper extensions like this should be not to do spine flexion extension, but rather hip flexion and extension. I like comparing this movement to a preacher curl that people do for their biceps in that they pivot their elbow on a pad to facilitate higher quality bicep engagement, this is no different, but for the glutes, hamstrings and hip extensors. Glute bridges are another movement where we want to see sufficient movement from the pelvis, there’s a million different ways to do glute bridges, whether it be with a barbell, whether it be with a Smith machine, whether it be unilateral or whether we use a plate loaded machine like the Nautilus Glute Bridge. I’m a fan of the Nautilus glute bridge because it allows for the back pad to support you and can create a cleaner environment to practice achieving full hip extension. When someone struggles with doing bridges and feeling sufficient engagement from their glutes, they often will feel themselves overly extending at the spine and/or feeling their quads contribute to the movement more. This is often because they are essentially uncoordinated at the ability to apply pressure through their feet and turn integrate the pelvis motion with said foot pressure.The other aspect of getting the pelvis to move, particularly into an your pelvic tilt, is how the lumbar spine contributes to things. The drill we did at the end of the workout is a lower back focused extension isometric where we are simply learning to contract and recruit the spine extensor that contribute to tilting the pelvis anteriorly. This could be done for repetitions or as an extended isometric.If you want to learn more about the joint training you see here, check out our Skool Community through the link in bio.
Spine CARs #mobility #athlete #gymworkout #strengthtraining #stretching #fitness #yoga #bodybuilding B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-26 | Spine Stuff: CARs 2/2, Similar to segmentation, CARs are a way to explore full range at your spine; in this case it adds lateral flexion and rotation, not just flexion and extension. The goal here is to de-couple the spine from the hips and pelvis, while feeling abdominal tissue contribute to each component of the sequence (abs, obliques and spinal extensors). This stuff is a daily movement practice to maintain your ranges and ought to be used as a warm up, but this alone will not expand your range. If you want more usable range in any particular direction, then you need additional spine specific training tools and force on static stretch or eccentric loading to build that out. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Don’t CatCow, Segment Your Spine #mobility #gymworkout #strengthtraining #stretching #athlete #yoga B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-25 | Spine Stuff: Segmentation 1/2, Our spines are meant to move way more than most gym goers actually move it; the spine has 24 moveable joints, yet people still view it as one thing. CatCows are the industry standard for getting the spine to move but they are rarely intentional enough to promote the quality of movement we should actually be training for. The practice of spine segmentation accomplishes this in the same traditional quadruped, just with more focus. This is usually really tedious at first and often gets BS’d by doing it too quickly. If you feel lost or can’t move at a particular segment, then you should be treating this as a skill that is developed over time, with other spine specific training supporting it. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
The Foot, Hip & Hinging #mobility #gymworkout #stretching #strengthtraining #homeworkout #athlete B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-23 | Hip Hinging & The Foot, Most back issues during hip hinges are the byproduct of the hip not doing its job, so the body looks for the path of least resistance, which is usually a spine dominant strategy. All close chain lower body exercises start at the foot, and most people have a foot that both can’t move nor maintain balance on. If the foot can’t do its job, then the hip can’t; if the hip can’t do its job, the spine has to. The full workshop can be found in our Skool community where we also have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos, exclusive training footage and access to coaching feedback. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Split Squat Options #athlete #futbol #soccer #gymworkout #strengthtraining #fitness #legday B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-19 | Athlete Knee Stuff: Split Squats 4/4,Split squats are irrefutably the best squatting variation we can do, it has more flexibility and utility than barbell squats, legs presses and machine squats, while being highly modifiable by being able to promote quad versus glute bias. If we drive the knee forward that will bias the quads by facilitating knee flexion, if we sit back that will bias the glutes into hip flexion; if you do ipsilateral loading by holding the weight on the same side you’re training then that creates quad bias, while doing contralateral loading by holding it on the opposing side will make it glute bias. Regardless of which variation you do, the movement can be used to align with a variety of training goals. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Nordic Hamstring Curls #athlete #futbol #soccer #strengthtraining #gymworkout #fitness #sports B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-17 | Athlete Knee Stuff: Nordic Curls 3/4,Nordics are hard, hard doesn’t always mean good though, but it’s a good first box to check. These are put on a pedestal as the GOAT hamstring movement, which I get; if someone can rep these out with full ROM then chances are they’re pretty well off. The goal of completing a full Nordic Curl is not exactly the same thing as getting the most hamstring involvement; task training gets misconstrued with tissue training, there’s a balance to be had. Most people force full ROM when they can’t really manage it, using a bench like this allows for someone to better control their range to get more meaningful stimulus from each rep. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Wall Sit Quad Isometrics #athlete #futbol #soccer #strengthtraining #gymworkout #mobility #fitness B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-16 | Athlete Knee Stuff: Wall Sits 2/4,Back in the day when I worked at a daycare we would punish kids who didn’t follow directions during sports practice with wall sits. After a few minutes there would be lots of tears, the parents loved it but the kids definitely did not. At the time “the hard” was trained, although little did I understand how effective isometrics are for connective tissue training.We always did them as extended time under tension sets, but I have yet to see people really do them loaded or unilaterally. Seems logical that if we want to progress a movement, longer sets is just one way amongst many options. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
The Only Two Spine Exercises You Need B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-14 | In the context of training within a traditional gym, the spine is a funny thing, so many people are played with back pain, both during and outside of exercise; so many people want developed core muscles, and yet so many people don’t train their spine and enough different positions and ranges of motion.Regardless of what our goal is, it’s important to acknowledge that our spine has 24 vertebrae that act as individual functioning joints. How these bones move relative to one another is what ultimately dictates how well someone’s spine feels, how strong their back/core is and what level of muscle engagement can be seen with the muscles that attached to the spine.If you’re trying to train your spine's ability to move, then we must ensure that we have established segmental control of our spine. This is usually done and what is known as a traditional “Catcow”, what is rarely done is it with enough intentionality to promote the quality of movement that we must see to optimize how we feel and function. This practice is done in the same quadruped position, with the goal being to either star at the top or bottom of our spine and move each vertebrae with as much isolated motion as possible, ensuring that other vertebrae move as little as possible relative to the segment that you are at when perform performing the movement. This is something that could be extremely tedious for somebody who has never done it before and/or has history of injury, surgery or generalized back pain. If you find yourself being lost within this movement, you’re not alone. I encourage you to not let perfection get in the way of progress. If you find yourself routinely "cheating" by moving other vertebrae unintentionally, then that’s OK and this should be treated as a skill that is practiced on overtime; having a training partner give you feedback can be useful, as well as videoing yourself so you can see it firsthand.The other tool in our tool belt are spine CARs, controlled articular rotations. These are a demonstration of how well the spine moves through flexion, extension, rotation and lateral flexion, without moving at the pelvis; the goal here is to move through the outer ranges of motion of your spine, while simultaneously decoupling itself from the pelvis; a body that cannot decouple the spine from the pelvis is destined to have poor movement quality and performance. This exercise can also be very tedious for someone who lacks spatial awareness and/or has history of spine injury, surgery or generalized back pain. This also should be treated like a skill that is developed overtime, which can be improved upon by videoing yourself or having a training partner give you feedback to ensure that you are not moving from the pelvis and you’re doing your best to solely move at just the spine. It’s important to acknowledge that these two exercises are simply a demonstration of what your current ranges of motion and movement capabilities look like, but they do not inherently expand how much range of motion you have; learning to move through your current available range of motion is different than attempting to expand and strengthen your ranges of motion. If you want to improve how much range of motion is available to you, you need to be performing other spine specific training exercises that are geared towards lengthening tissue that is restricting ranges of motion. If you want to learn more about this approach to training, join our Skool community through the link in our bio. We have a lot to offer there, an exercise library, programs, concept videos and access to coaching feedback, all for either $25/month or $250/year, both with a 7-day free trial.
Glute Bridges & Hamstrings #mobility #athlete #futbol #strengthtraining #soccer #gymworkout #fitness B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-13 | Athlete Knee Stuff: Bridges 1/4,Glute bridges are the gold standard for shortening hip extensors, which ought to be strengthened over time but I think there’s a diminishing return on loading them at some point (in the 300lb range imo). Aside from doing them unilaterally, adding other dynamics like knee extension eccentrics and/or velocity work makes more sense than just focusing on progressive overload, again, to a point. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Foot Pressure #mobility #stretching #strengthtraining #gymworkout #running #yoga #homeworkout B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-09 | Finding Your Foot: Pressure 4/4,With all the talk about foot training being focused on moving the feet, the way in which we move our feet matters. Like all things movement, the body looks for the path of least resistance. For the foot, least resistance is to pull up parts of the forefoot, heel and outer foot to accomplish the task of training to move the toes with any meaningful degree of dexterity. If you’re having a hard time moving your feet as it is, don’t go too crazy trying to be this intrinsic with it. If you have the basics down, this type of stuff is what I would be working on next. 👊🏼You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
The Adductors Always Get Skipped Over B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-08 | When people train their inner thighs, the only two things that we usually see done are people just static stretching into the middle splits or people using an ad machine. Both of which are great options for training the adductor in different scenarios but also don’t exactly paint the full picture and doesn’t exhaust all of your options that you contribute to building both flexibility and strength through the adductors and groin. Static stretching is a very important part of building more range of motion overtime, but if we want to get the most out of our training, we should be building strength within our ranges, which means performing a combination of isometrics and eccentrics to ensure we are “backfilling the space". Static stretching is a form of strength training; it's also a form of mobility training; we have multiple tools in our tool belt and it’s simply just one tool. Isometric can be added with in traditional static stretching while you’re doing a traditional middle split. You can perform isometrics by dragging your feet together, essentially trying to adduct your hip out of the abducted position; this could be done in bilateral middle split stretching or in a quadruped unilateral abductor stretch. The length of time in which stretch, the duration and intensity of the isometric can vary, depending on what other training you’re doing and what makes sense within your program. Loading varies compared to isometrics because we are loading this tissue to length rather than at length, this is training strength in the middle-end range of motion, and not just the absolute end range; we have a phrase, "strength builds trust, trust builds range", loading the same tissue in different ways, like this build strength, which intern builds trust, which intern builds range. The way in which you eccentrically load can also vary, similar to the isometrics, all exercises there is variations with different base positions and using different equipment. What matters at the end of the day is that we feel productive tissue engagement, with no pain and the ability to progress either range of motion and or strength overtime. Access to equipment and preferences do matter, which is why I like providing alternatives to most movements. When people are looking at improving their flexibility or strength with their inner thighs, it’s rare that they give any thought to their glutes, even though it’s the other half of the joint which we know does matter. When people are looking at shoulder health, they often will look at their scapula, when people think of lower back health, they often look at their core/abs; inner thighs influence glutes, glutes influence inner thighs. There’s a million ways to train your glutes/outer hips in the context of trying to improve general inner thigh flexibility, and we decided to do an eccentric loading of hip abduction, which is a different focus than what most people are used to. When performing sideline abduction, most people are focused on shortening their glutes, which can make sense as an effective movement, but rarely do we see people thinking about length in their glutes in a similar position/range of motion. For this drill as an extended time under tension and simply did one set until the lateral hip tissue was sufficiently exhausted. People will often brute force their way through static stretching. There is a time in place to do this, and I don’t want anyone to think that intensity of their structure does not matter, because it does. Where the problem usually lies is someone does very intense static stretching but little to no regard for the other qualities of movement which enhance control and strength within the space opened up; if the space is never backfilled, people will have inherent “dead space", which is generally not good for the health and robustness of your joints, long-term and in the context of injury prevention. But as usual, there’s a lot of ways to go about things, as they say, “there’s a million ways to skin a cat”. The exercises we use here do not need to be part of your program necessarily, but they can be. They make sense to use in logical succession of one another because generally the best approach to opening up joints is following the length loading progression. The length loading progression implies that we should be training tissue at-length, to-length and then shortening; this broadly covers all ends of the loading spectrum to ensure that no stone is unturned.If you want to learn more about this, join our Skool community through the link in our bio. We have a lot to offer there, an exercise library, programs, concept videos and access to coaching feedback, all for either $25/month or $250/year, both with a 7-day free trial.
Big Toe Extension & Ankle Dorsiflexion #mobility #stretching #gymworkout #strengthtraining #running B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-07 | Finding Your Foot: Big Toe Extension 3/4,Being able to extend the big toe is closely associated with being able to extend your hips, this is why a lot of “glute amnesia” problems are actually a foot pressure problem that is inhibiting engagement. The act of practicing it definitely helps, but usually more stimulus is needed to bring things up to par; this can be done a few ways, isometrics and eccentrics of course being the go-to. How you prop up your big toe doesn’t really matter as long as it’s stable, and ensuring we get engagement through the arch, achilles and calf. If we feel closing joint angle restriction in the front of the ankle (sometimes a pinch), then we need you to either reduce the range you’re working with or readjust positioning. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
The Foot Stretch You Didn’t Know You Need #mobility #running #kneepain #stretching #yoga #strength B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-06 | Finding Your Foot: Bridge Stretching 2/4,For foot health everyone talks about how well the toes move and the condition your arches are in (high versus flat), but hardly ever do we hear anyone mention the bridge of their feet. By far my favorite drill for it is this funky static stretch. I don’t do isometrics or eccentrics here, just spending long bouts of time stretching. Rotating the foot one way or the other can change the lines of tissue being targeted, and I encourage you to use a mat of some kind because it keeps the floors hardness from limiting your ability to stretch. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage.Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Learning to Move Your Feet #mobility #gymworkout #homeworkout #balance #strengthtraining #running B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-04 | Finding Your Foot: The Basics 1/4,Most people don’t move their feet enough, and almost certainly nobody is going to the gym to train their feet. Don’t be like most people and do the bare minimum, learn to move them. There’s a handful of attributes I would look for, the simple act of making an intentional effort to do this is usually a good start. If you find you struggle with any particular quality, daily practice and other foot training is done to create stimulus that would carry over to this dexterity. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking
Finding Glutes in Hip Hinges #bodybuilding #gymworkout #strengthtraining #backpain #mobility #yoga B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-03 | Hip Hinging,Hip hinging is notoriously tedious for most people and is arguably one of the most technical movements in the gym.In 9/10 cases if someone feels their back too much when performing them, they probably are moving through their spine more than their hips and pelvis.Trainers often cue “squeeze your glutes”, assuming that the conscious focus of doing it is enough. If you didn’t move into your hip to begin with, how can you expect for the hip to pull you out? If you went into the movement using your spine, your spine is likely going to be what pulls you out of it. The full workshop can be found in our Skool community where we also have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos, exclusive training footage and access to coaching feedback. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Dumbbell Pullovers for Lats #bodybuilding #gymworkout #weightlifting #strengthtraining #mobility B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-02 | Learning To Lat: Dumbbell Pullovers 4/4,Dumbbell pullovers are a forgotten exercise in the 21st century; “science based” lifters will say it’s a chest exercise, bodybuilders claim it’s lats and joint-centric trainers use it for stretching shoulder flexion. Regardless of what your thoughts are on them, how you do them matters more than anything (like most exercises); although with these you are more likely to get chest engagement than on the cable pullover that we did in part two of this series. A few cues that usually help people “find” engagement: flexing the wrist slightly, keeping the elbows fixed (doesn’t necessarily need to be locked out) and reaching as far back as you can, not down to the floor beneath you. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Tight Pecs? Tight Shoulders? Watch This. B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-08-01 | Having tight pecs something that so many people struggle with which can largely be attributed to our daily postural tendencies. More often than not having tight packs is the byproduct of having a spine specifically thoracic spine that cannot extend well scapula that does not glide well or shoulders that do not rotate well, but sometimes simply just working on better shoulder, warm-ups and putting your chest muscles in a stretch routinely is enough to make someone feel and perform better as a simple quick fix. While I’m sure your shoulder warm up probably covers most of the bases you need. I think one thing that everyone can do better within their warm-ups is just explore the outer edges of their full range of motion. Our go to approach for this is to be performing CARs, controlled, articular rotations, which are simply an expression of the full outermost ranges of motion you possess at a joint. when performing these, we want to ensure that we are radiating tension throughout the entire movement sequence, as well as being very mindful of what compensations we are seeing at the torso and neck.; if you struggle with end ranges of motion at a joint, you will always see neighboring joints attempting to put you into the path of least resistance, when performing cars, I encourage you to push into the path of most resistance, but that doesn’t necessarily mean, forcing any ranges of motion. The sequence of this takes some getting used to if you’re unfamiliar with it but otherwise it’s just like any of the exercise the more practice you get the better you get. Stretching your pack is nothing new for most people now when we’re thinking about putting our packs in a length and position that would mean that we should be putting our arms and shoulder extension as well as shoulder abduction, putting our shoulder in these positions will allow for us to lengthen the pack in what is essentially all the positions the pack could actually lengthen in. We did this by doing shoulder abduction with her arm on a wall, leveraging a solid surface that would allow for us to use our opposing arm to force us into a deeper stretch, creating more intensity in the length and position on the target tissue. We did a similar trail with our arms elevated on a surface behind us, in this case a table that would allow for us to lengthen the chest into shoulder extension. In both instances, we followed the same sequence, which was simply spending time in a intense static stretch, followed by performing isometric contractions of the stretch tissue at a moderate high intensity for an extended period of time. These isometrics are what essentially builds the gap between strength and range of motion, when you have strength at end ranges of motion, your body is more willing to grant you said, ranges of motion as well as reinforcing that space by being able to produce and with stand force. This approach is what largely sets our training perspective apart from standard static stretching or things you would see in yoga practices.This stuff was the warm-up before doing traditional weightlifting to facilitate better quality movement and more muscle recruitment. But this should be treated as more than a warm-up; a warm-up implies there is no real intensity present, while with this training, we are searching for adaptation with tissue which requires intensity to illicit. If you want to learn more about this, join our Skool community through the link in our bio. We have a lot to offer there, an exercise library, programs, concept videos and access to coaching feedback, all for either $25/month or $250/year, both with a 7-day free trial.
Lat Pulldowns #bodybuilding #strengthtraining #gymworkout #athlete #fitness #weightlifting #backday B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-31 | Learning To Lat: Pulldowns 3/4,Pulling vertically is always called a “lat pulldown” when half the time people are pulling with their traps, rear delts and biceps. Whether it be a pull up or a pulldown, your lats are not automatically doing the work if you give no thought to the handle you’re using or the elbow path you are pulling from. Similar to lat-focused rowing, a tight elbow to your torso will generally bias the lats while a flared elbow generally biases the traps and rear delts. The handle you use dictates the arm path your elbow takes, the length of your arms and mobility available at your shoulders both influence how comfortable and usable a given handle is. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Cable Pullovers for Lats #bodybuilding #strengthtraining #gymworkout #weightlifting #fitness #sports B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-30 | Learning To Lat: Cable Pullovers 2/4,For lat training, what comes to mind is usually pulldowns or rows of some kind, with pullovers often being overlooked. These get butchered a lot. Across the board, we see several missing links as to why someone has a hard time feeling their lats with this particular movement. For the scapula, we want it to stay protracted, the elbow we want to stay in a fixed position whether that be in full extension or near extension and for the wrist, we want to see relative flexion of the wrist to create more leverage; I encourage you to try doing reps with both the wrist flexed and extended so you can see for yourself as to how much more lat engagement you end up seeing here. The handle you use is less relevant, if one is more comfortable for you than the other then that’s a good enough reason to go with it. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Build Your Foot, Build Your Foundation B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-25 | Basic dexterity of the foot looks at the ability to be able to extend the big toe by lifting it up being able to flex the big toe by keeping it press down when the little toes are up and the ability to move each toe somewhat individually. The simple act of actually practicing to move your feet will improve your ability to move your feet it takes time but with practice you’ll feel how foot muscular contributes to movement of the toes developing this neuromuscular coordination is a pivotal part in making your foot healthier and training more productive. It’s a simple warm-up routine as well as as a daily movement exploration practice to maintain the quality of your foots movement.It’s taken a long time, but the fitness industry has finally come around to the importance of your foot and the context of your global lower body function. It’s no secret these days that the fee play a pivotal role and how the hips and pelvis move as well as how contributes to ankle mobility and what that means for unnecessary wear and tear on your knees. It’s pretty widely accepted that poor ankle mobility leads to knee going bad and poor foot function leads to hips that have a difficult time rotating and extending. Training your feet needs to be intentional just like how your intentional with all other training, but nobody wants to go to the gym to train their foot, which I get. The sooner and better you understand foot training the sooner you can economize it and implement it into your routine so that you’re at least doing something for it.Aside from doing basic to exploration movement we should be doing a combination of isometrics and eccentrics in a structure position to expand range of motion, overtime and build strength through mid and end ranges of motion. This can be done for the big toe in isolation as well as the little toes by themselves to train each quality of movement depending on what the goal is. Particularly for the big toe if pronation of the foot is difficult to achieve or closing angle restriction through the front side of the ankle is experienced than adding a wedge under the inside of your foot will allow for the foot to be put into more pronation and turn make the Achilles tendon more accessible to train. This isn’t always necessary for everybody, but for people who are stuck in a supinated position and struggle to get into pronation or finds a stretch in their calf/Achilles when in dorsiflexion then this is an effective intervention.I generally like pairing the toe extension, stretching, isometrics and eccentrics as a three part series as a way to get the most out of my time spent in the gym with myself and clients. Even if this isn’t the most effective way due to accumulated fatigue and your ability to create maximal tension at the end of the day there is a textbook way of doing things and a realistic way of doing things and I find this to be the realistic way of doing things and makes it sustainable so that I actually do it for the long haul. We followed this up with a bridge stretch to stretch the anterior side of the foot, the front, as opposed to the back, the posterior side. I’m not sure if there’s a name for the stretch, but it’s something that I’ve come to love over the years and seems to be the only real way of stretching the bridge of your foot as opposed to the arch, underside toes and Achilles. I usually just treat this as an extended static stretch and kind of randomly throw it in between other exercises without too much. Thought you could probably do more for this, but that’s how I generally approach it.In addition to what was done doing big toe, abductions really important and really difficult for most people generally speaking laying the groundwork with the exercises that were previously done will allow for better big toe abduction training to occur. Using a resistance band of some kind will allow for you to put the big toe into passive abduction and give you a trainable stimulus for that range, that you otherwise could not access. I think using this as a tool for training, big toe extension, and flexion, in addition to calf phrases, and the act of applying even foot pressure is a surefire way to see improvement overall foot function.it’s really easy to overlook the foot in the grand scheme of things when looking at someone’s fitness routine. It might not seem like much but that doesn’t mean it’s insignificant. The influence your foot has on how your entire body functions and it’s longevity for the long haul cannot be overstated.If you want to learn more about this, join our Skool community through the link in our bio. We have a lot to offer there, an exercise library, programs, concept videos and access to coaching feedback, all for either $25/month or $250/year, both with a 7-day free trial.
Rowing For Lats #bodybuilding #strengthtraining #gymworkout #backworkout #mobility #fitness #athlete B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-23 | Learning To Lat: Rowing 1/4If you’re trying to target the lats when rowing, elbow path and spine position is everything. A good rule of thumb for all lat focused rowing movements is to keep the elbow tight by your side, think of pulling your elbow to your hip and not allowing the elbow to go back as far as possible; in this instance, more range of motion usually isn’t better because the further back the elbow goes, the more trap recruitment we see.The spine also matters quite a bit here. We generally want to see some lateral flexion, but not an excessive amount where we end up making it an oblique crunch. Maintaining some extension through this definitely helps too. You can find the whole breakdown on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Hip Flexor Strength Training #mobility #gymworkout #legday #athlete #fitness #fitness #stretching B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-19 | Hip Flexors: Straight Knee 3/3,If we static stretch and do eccentrics, shortening the target tissue would be the last piece of the puzzle. We also previously did bent knee work versus straight leg work, we probably want to cover both bases here too. Traditional leg lifts train this quality, I’m a fan of both adding degrees of rotation and doing them in a compression position to force end range control. As usual there’s a million ways that you could go about this and this is just one.You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Hip Flexor Strength Training #mobility #strengthtraining #gymworkout #stretching #posture #athlete B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-18 | Hip Flexors: Eccentric Loading 2/3Leg lifts are a popular hip flexor exercise but they’re always done to shorten the front of our hip, rather than lengthen; this doesn’t make one variation wrong or better, just different. Most people do some form of static stretching, eccentric loading complements this well by loading this tissue to-length, in addition to at-length. Training the same positions in different orientations ensures all bases are covered to better facilitate strength, control and improved range of motion.You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Couch Stretch for Hip Extension #mobility #gymworkout #homeworkout #fitness #strengthtraining #yoga B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-17 | Hip Flexors: Couch Stretch 1/3,For flexibility of the quads and hip flexors, the couch stretch is the gold standard. But what do we do if couch stretches hurts or is too demanding? Rather than skip it, we should be finding an appropriate entry point for what the person can do. A regressed couch stretch is the way to go about this, placing our foot on something elevated like you see here versus against a wall. This modification reduces how much bend is occurring at the knee and in turn a much easier position to manage. Isometrics ought to be added, at either the knee or hip depending on the goal; there isn’t one way to go about this at all.You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Weak Quads & Hamstrings Make for Cranky Knees B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-17 | Athletes dealing with knee pain is no rare occurrence, most athletes manage their knee pain rather than truly trying to fix it and get ahead of it.Knee pain could be caused by a variety of reasons, but in most cases it’s multi factorial; what can tell us a lot about knee pain is the context in which the pain occurs in, knee pain simply when squatting is different than knee pain when running, which is also different than knee pain when straightening your knee versus getting pain when bending. Some potential causes of knee pain could be limited ankle or hip mobility relative to the demand you’re placing on your body, the inability to rotate your tibia/your shin and or weakness/tightness through the quads and hamstrings, in most cases it’s good practice to train all of these qualities. Training these qualities can look a million different ways depending on your access to equipment, your movement capability, your preferences and/or what your other training looks like (volume management). For this workout, we focused on two exercises for both the quads and hamstrings.Our first hamstring exercise was a glute bridge/hamstring curl variation where we are essentially doing a hamstring curl wall in a standard glute bridge. This was treated as a time under tension, warm-up exercise to prepare us for the Nordic curl, which was going to be our heavy hitting movement for the day. Our first quad exercise had the similar intent, in that it was a primer before we went into a rear foot elevated Bulgarian split squat. We did this for two sets with moderate intensity as an extended isometric, both unilateral and bilaterally. What’s often not done is doing loaded wall sits, people love to go for time spent in the wall sit as a way to increase volume, but not as often do we see people, in fact, ever, do we see people using weights with wall sits. Moving into the bread and butter of the hamstring work, we did the Nordic curl. We did a few filler sets at lesser ranges of motion because we had the fortune of being able to use the specific bench designed for that. We eventually moved up to nearing full end range of motion and doing just the eccentric component of it where we were resisting the way down to place emphasis on time under tension with a movement that is very hard to do for several reps. We finished off with Bulgarian split squats, this could be done several different ways when you consider gluten and quad bias, as well as contralateral and ipsilateral load loading. decided to do contralateral loading as a way to bias the lateral hip because Suly here specifically has a history of groin problems were lateral hip work makes him feel significantly better. This type of context can be very relevant depending on the athlete and their injury history.With all that said there is not a one size fits all approach to rehab of an injury or the prevention of an injury, not all injuries can be prevented. All we can do is do our best to build a hedge against injury. Injuries occur when force exceeds loadbearing capacity. Force can be load from an exercise or momentum when running, regardless of which our goal in training is to build robustness within as much muscle and connective tissue as possible, as a way to build strength while both preserving and expanding joint ranges of motion. Static stretching alone will never be the sole answer simply because it does not train the other qualities of movement in which we care about. Stretching is a tool in our tool belt, but is not the only tool and should not be treated as such. If you’re rehabbing an injury or want start working on your mobility to hopefully prevent one from ever occurring then you should probably check out our school community through the link in our bio. We have a lot to offer there, an exercise library, programs, concept videos and access to coaching feedback, all for either $25/month or $250/year, both with a 7-day free trial.TIMESTAMPS0:00-00:54 Introduction00:54-3:20 Hamstring Curl Bridge3:20-8:22 Wall Sit8:22-11:40 Nordic Curl11:40-End Split Squat
More Range of Motion Isn’t Always Better #gymworkout #strengthtraining #athlete #stretching #yoga B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-14 | More Range Isn’t Better, In mobility and flexibility training there’s this notion that more range is better, as if the goal is to be contortionist. Yes the goal is to build range, but within your means. Static stretching is a different training stimulus than performing isometrics and eccentrics too, not all training drills are meant to be applied the same way; just like how some exercises are done heavier or lighter versus others. If you get more engagement or simply feel better training just shy of your end ranges, then listen to your body and progress when you feel you can do so sustainably. The full workshop can be found in our Skool community where we also have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos, exclusive training footage and access to coaching feedback. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Shoulder Rotation Stability #athlete #gymworkout #fitness #strengthtraining #mobility #shoulderrehab B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-10 | Stability Stuff: Rotation 3/3,Having stability during shoulder rotation can be trained and look a million different ways, every set up has its strengths, drawbacks and may not work for everyone.Stability walking is one drill that can bias different zones of abduction and adduction, as well as with internal or external rotation bias. This was treated as one extended time under tension set where we trained the position that was the most difficult. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Trouble Feeling Your Lats? Try This. B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-10 | Training your lats might be one of the most difficult things you can do in the gym, it’s up there with performing hip hinges. this is largely due to a combination of the technicalities required to target the lats, as well as joint mobility requirements to be able to access the lots in the first place. Remember, the body is always gonna look for the path of lease resistance. Lease resistance will often be to use traps rear adults and arm muscular rather than lat when performing lat, focused exercises.There’s a handful of drills that I’ve come to love over the years that seem to be fool proof in getting people to “find” their lats, which includes some variation of a pullover, pull down and row. And while these exercise options may be used to bias the lats, if we aren’t aware of the intrinsics of the movement, then it is very easily for other muscular to become more dominant through the movement. When doing any type of pulling motion, whether it be a lat pull down, a pull-up or a row, the elbow path is what’s going to dictate everything; generally speaking a flared elbow will bias more traps and rear dealt, while having a tucked elbow, will generally bias the lats. What’s important to acknowledge with this distinction is that there is no such thing as full isolation, simply just bias of specific tissue. While elbow path is everything. When doing cable pull downs or rows, the handle attachment that is being used is facilitates the elbow path. No handle is better or worse than the other, they simply have different emphasis. If you’re using a machine, barbell or dumbbell to row, then the queue of elbow path should be a primary focus, not just simply pulling. Also a lot of times when doing row movements people focus on pulling the elbow as far back as they can, which intern will fully retract the scapula and generally bias that over the lats. The length of your arms, your general bone structure, and your mobility all play a role in what handles feel the most comfortable and what target which tissue. For pullover motions, this could be done with a cable or a dumbbell. For both movements, the positioning is essentially the same where we’re keeping the elbow straight the scapula pulled open and the wrist flexed. Having the wrist flex is likely the most important queue that you could have here because it allows for you to create leverage over the lats by reducing how much chest and tricep engagement you were getting. Another cue that helps some people is to think of themselves doing a front lat spread pose that’s done in bodybuilding.In many cases, it’s not a movement execution or mobility issue sometimes it’s surely focused on progressive overload rather than connecting with the lats. Most people are under the impression that they need to get stronger to build muscle, which means adding weight onto exercise exercises when feasible. And while this is definitely what we want to do in the macro view of training, it is very common for people to be lifting heavier than they truly can manage even if they have “good form”; remember foreign execution are different just because the exercise visually looks good does not mean the internal stimulus was created. We have an analogy that we compare this to money: just because you have the money doesn’t mean you need to spend it, just because you can lift the weight does not mean you need to move in. If you have sufficient mobility and your execution is nailed down, but you are still coming up short, try cutting the load go for significantly higher rep ranges and work backwards from there.If you want to learn more about the joint training you see here, check out our Skool Community. We have a lot to offer there, a self-assessment, programs, an exercise library, concept videos and coaching feedback; all for $25/month or $250/year, both come with a 7-day free trial.TIMESTAMPS: 0:00-3:00 Intro & Cable Pullovers3:00-6:41 Lat Pulldowns6:41-10:04 Cable Lat Rowing10:04-End Dumbbell Pullover
Overhead Press Stability #athlete #gymworkout #mobility #fitness #strengthtraining #should erworkout B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-09 | Stability Stuff: OHP 2/3,Overhead pressing can cause some people a lot of issues. Stability gets looked at as potential weak link and my favorite drill is the upside down kettlebell, that actually challenges your grip more than any real should stability. 🙄A drill like this is different because we are placing specific rotational demands on the shoulder while simultaneously going through the movement pattern that troubles them. This promotes upward and downward rotation of the scapula, and can also be done with either internal or external rotation bias. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Shoulder Abduction Stability #athlete #strengthtraining #gymworkout #mobility #stretching #rehab B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-08 | Stability Stuff: Abduction 1/3,With shoulder rotation being all the talk in the joint training space, stability sometimes gets overlooked. For most people it’s probably not the biggest ticket item, for some people it can be the missing link. Turning a standard chest fly into an abduction isometric is a simple way of making a familiar exercise more specific, the tornado band element is just icing on the cake. 🍰You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Creating Tension #strengthtraining #athlete #gymworkout #stretching #mobility #bodybuilding #yoga B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-07 | Creating Tension,Creating tension is the single most important thing in exercise, yet it’s so rare that anyone actually places emphasis on it. Without tension, no actual stimulus can be created. Most people should read that again. If you’ve ever finished a set and didn’t really feel as much muscle engagement as you wanted, you didn’t create tension in that tissue. If you have a muscle that’s underdeveloped, weak and/or has a hard time connecting with, you inherently struggle with the creation of tension within that movement. The ability to create tension is position specific, where you struggle to create tension is usually where you’re the most functionally deficient (although not always); most people have a “sweet spot”. Creating tension is a skill and should be treated as such, and the skill of creating tension within movement is how most training should be went about. The full workshop can be found in our Skool community where we also have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos, exclusive training footage and access to coaching feedback. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
The Couch Stretch is Not Everything, Well It Kind of Is B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-03 | Hip flexor training usually done with the traditional couch stretch and hip flexor raises. These are great movements, but there's more that can be done if yours still seem to be giving you problems. The couch stretch is very intense, it's outrageously demanding because it fully "double lengthens" the quads in both hip extension and knee flexion. When people express having issues with their quads, whether it be knee pain, hip flexor pain, weakness or poor muscle engagement, it can almost always be exposed by following the length loading progression; this means following a three part process of training a muscle (this goes for all muscles) at-length in the fully stretched position with isometrics, to-length with eccentric loading and shortened. This essentially trains the quads and hip flexors through the entire loading spectrum, so in narrows things down pretty quickly. If pain is seen with any movements, then we want to work within our means until capacity is built. In this instance, we want to provide graded exposure over time. This means controlling volume in a way that keeps intensity within your means by modifying time within a stretch, time under tension, intensity of a contraction or frequency of training; we want no pain both during and after training. If a standard couch stretch is too intense, we modify it by placing our foot on however many yoga blocks you can handle. Isometrics at both the hip and knee can be done here to build strength and reinforce whatever space you're training in, some people are weaker/more vulnerable at the knee versus the hip and this distinction should drive your decision making for how you go about it. People with knee issues usually need knee flexion but not always, people with hip issues usually need extension, but again, not always. This is always person dependent and should be explored upon doing this for the time. This is considered "at-length" because the front of the hip is full lengthened. Eccentric loading follows by training "to-length", training a muscle from the shortened-midrange to the end of the lengthened range. This is similar to the standard hip flexor raise you think of traditionally done, but it has lengthened emphasis, not shortened. I like doing this as a time under tension focused set and going until sufficient fatigue is accumulated. If you get hip flexor or knee pain here, modify the load or range of motion used. If you feel your lower back, ensure you are using your core to push your lower back into the table so you can better resist spine extension. Shortening the hip flexors can be done with the knee bent or straight, depending on preferences, what your hip needs more and how you want to go about your training. Doing isometrics holds here or repeated eccentrics is simple enough to get the job done. Our side of these movements, the only other quad/hip flexor exercises you should be doing are leg extensions and squats. Do you need to do all of these? No. Should you be cycling them in and out over time to train many qualities of the front of your hip? Yes. I think working up towards a full couch stretch and developing some baseline strength within the mid and shortened ranges is usually enough.If you want to learn more about the joint training you see here, check out our Skool Community. We have a lot to offer there, a self-assessment, programs, an exercise library, concept videos and coaching feedback; all for $25/month or $250/year, both come with a 7-day free trial.TIMESTAMPS:0:00-1:21 Introduction1:21-7:08 Couch Stretch Regression, Hip Extension/Knee Flexion Isometrics7:08-10:24 Knee Bent Hip Flexor Eccentric Loading10:24-End Straight Leg Hip Flexion & Shortening
Curtsey Squats for Ankle Mobility #athlete #strengthtraining #running #soccer #football #gymworkout B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-07-01 | Athlete Foot Rebuild: Curtsey Squats 6/6,Squatting is usually looked at as a quad or glute focused exercise, and rarely is it ever done with the ankles in mind. We always hear about how important ankle mobility is for squatting depth, but never anything about how we can use the squat to train the ankles mobility itself.Standard squatting trains the posterior ankle/achilles to-length, curtsey squatting trains the medial ankle to-length. Depending on the person, they may get closing angle restriction on the outer side of the ankle. If that’s you, we probably shouldn’t use this movement until that restriction is addressed. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
Triple Flexion #athlete #mobility #strengthtraining #gymworkout #fitness #soccer #football #running B4 Fitness: BodyBUILDING B4 BodyBreaking 2026-06-28 | Athlete Foot Rebuild: Triple Flexion 5/6,Triple flexion is where we have flexion of the ankle, knee and hip; it’s part of our gait cycle, running and a great isometric based drill to link everything together. Toe/foot pressure is a big part of this, a wedge can be used to skew emphasis to the big or little toes, depending on what you need. Some people have a tendency to pronate and dump into their inner foot, some people have a tendency to supinate and dump into their outer foot, while other people have one foot of each.Context like this ought to be a consideration for how to go about not just this drill, but all drills; it’s not what exercises you’re doing, it’s how we do them. You can find the whole workout on the BodyBUILDING, not BodyBreaking Youtube channel and more about what we do in our Skool community where we have an extensive exercise library, programs, concepts videos and exclusive training footage. Comment “Skool” and I’ll send over a free invite. 🫡#BodyBuildingB4BodyBreaking #RedefiningThePractice #BrawnMeetsBrain
