Happy Tuesday Friend,

How are your legs feeling today?

I ask because yesterday was the start of progression week in Change Your Body Boot Camps and we did a Metabolic Strength Workout that included the DB 1-Leg Dead Lift.  The DB 1-Leg Dead Lift is a great exercise for "lifting your glutes", strengthening your posterior chain and enhancing your sprint & vertical jump speed, power and explosiveness and I highly recommend cycling it into your programming every year and multiple times at that. 

Here's a picture of what it looks like.  Notice how the butt is sticking out, with a nice straight line from my ears to my hip joint and the majority of my weight is over my front leg (right).  This puts the posterior chain (mainly the back, glutes & hamstrings) under tension and specifically lengthens the glutes and hamstrings.  Imagine holding this crouched & loaded position for time.  Your legs would burn and you'd want to explode out of the position as fast as possible to avoid discomfort.  Well that's why this exercise is effective for increasing sprint & vertical jump speed, power and explosiveness, because it puts your posterior chain muscles under tension (lifting your butt) and you want to get out of this position as quickly as possibly, teaching you how to explode upwards fast.

Last Monday, Alicia S, a 6am super teammate and super client, wrote me a candid email, "less sore week my a**!...", that inspired an article on the 1-Leg Dead Lift and I thought you might enjoy learning more about this super easy to learn (you can do it in front of your screen right now) and super effective exercise for shaping your backside and also what the heck Metabolic Strength means.

To read the article and watch the video demonstrations, click here. 

Your coach,

Mike Alves

p.s. here's the link again, 1-leg-dead-lifts.