To all our guys 'n gals involved at the Moorabin comp on Saturday. Start to prepare now, get the body and mind right. Start planning your meals for the day (remember to stick to foods that you're lard used to digesting). And get more sleep than usual this week too. It'll stand you in good stead. Lastly keep your day to day nutrition in check. You can treat yourself after you're in done on Saturday. In the meantime A): Barbell Bent Over Row 3 x 10. NOTES: try to get heavier than last week but only on the condition that the form is PERFECT. We're looking for a straight, flat, tight back and for the barbell to make clear and concise contact with your body each rep. Retract your shoulder blades as you draw the bar toward you. Keep your legs slightly unlocked. Don't go stiff legged. This movement is majorly important for building a strong and stable upper back which will in turn transfer over to many different movements such as pull ups, cleans, etc. B): Trunk Time! 4 minutes of the "Dead Bug" (2 rounds of 2 mins! Rest 4 mins between sets). NOTES: We had this in the main programming last week, and for most people it was their first exposure to the Dead Bug. What I took from that is the strength values of every athlete's trunk and midsection needs improving! Unfortunately I did not see a single athlete able to execute it efficiently. Think about this for a second, you are able to throw large sums of weight overhead. Even larger sums of weight can be moved up and down in a squat. And even larger sums still can be pulled off of the ground! All this is being done with a far from optimal trunk. We need to be so much more rock solid in our midline stabilisation than we currently are. Now last week I tested out a progressive version of the Dead Bug. It gave me a lot of feedback, most notably that everyone needs to scale it back to the beginning. So below is the instructions (courtesy of CFFB) for the beginning progression, the "home position". Get good at this and it'll be time to take this to the next level. “the home position” of the Dead Bug and give you an extremely effective method to develop the ability to mobilize your trunk while actively stretching your hamstrings How do you get better at Dead Bugs? Do more Dead Bugs. The primary thing to focus on as you work on these is trunk position. You need to keep your “spine painted on the ground.” If your:

1. low back starts to come off the ground
2. ribs elevate
3. tailbone comes off the ground
4. neck “cranes” / cervical spine goes into extension
5. head comes off the ground
6. knees go into flexion to release the hammy stretch
7. hips go into extension to release the hammy stretch

… then you have failed. Basically, if your position changes, you fail. Either get back into position immediately or rest until you are capable of regaining the good position. Now, assuming you have good trunk position we need to challenge that. How we do that is by flexing your hips as much as you can with your tail bone on the ground while maintaining locked quads and dorsiflexed feet. Your feet should also be “forward” relative to a standing position. If you are duck footed may God have mercy on your soul you will need to actively internally rotate your legs from your hips. Your ability to mobilize your trunk during the active hamstring stretch in “the home position” and in any subsequent progression of the Dead Bug will transfer over to your ability to mobilize your trunk in the primary lifts: Squat, deadlift, press, bench, and power clean. Try it out. How long can you hold the home position of the Dead Bug without breaking? Fun fact, when we refer to the trunk we refer to everything from your head to your hips. Some people call this a core but John Welbourn hates it when people refer to his mid-section as a “core”…

“Apples have cores. Don’t compare me to an apple.”

P.S: Avoiding this will do you no good, this will be around for a fair while yet. Main programming and ROD programming. 😉