Hey Guys, Im into some reading here and I have discovered some excercises that I dont know. Can anyone help me with descriptions of these excercises: commando chins, mountain climbers, cross-over pushups, plyo pushup, chinee`s, hammer curls, and zottman curls.
Ive been searching the past issues but I could not find these - it is possible i missed something so if you have an issue number that would be great! I know this seems like a lot, maybe one person could tackle each excercise or something. Thanks a lot to everyone, Ive gotten more help from this forum than I ever would have anywhere else.
Hammer Curls - grab the dumbbell like you would grab a hammer (thumb side up) and do a curl that way.
Zottman Curls - curl a dumbell with a regular supinated (palms up) grip for the concentric part of the contraction then switch to a pronated grip (palms down) for the eccentric part of the contraction.
Plyo push-up - do a push-up in a regular position but accelerate through the concentric part of the movement. If you do it correctly, you will be able to make your hands lose contact with the ground. Some people like to clap while they are in the air, but this is not necessary. You should use enough force to leave the ground.
These are some of the exercises that Coach Davies uses with his athletes. I’ll try to help you with what I have learnt from Coach D. Commando Chins: Chin-ups but with your fingers inter-locked over the bar. Mountain Climbers: Get into push-up position with your ass in the air and explode your knees up to your chest, one at a time. Cross-over push-up: Once again, get into push-up position, and ‘walk’ with your hands side-ways, onto a 45 pound plate and then to the other side of it, then return to the starting position. Your feet stay in the same place. Works the rear delts and your abdominal stablisers (TA). Plyo-pushup: Just like a regular push-up except that you want to do it as explosively as possible. You can do them with the traditional clap at the top, or push-up and jump your hands up onto plates on either sides of you, or just do them the normal way where you push yourself up and your hands leave the ground slightly. I’ve seen a rugby video where the athletes were doing plyo-pushups where their whole body leaves the ground so I guess you could do that too. Chinees: Lie on the ground, and bring one bent knee to your chest explosively while simutaniously crunching up your chest to meet it. Repeat with other knee. Hammer Curls: I think these are just hammer bicep curls, a bicep curl with your palms facing towards your body when the dumbells are at your sides. Zottman Curls: The concentric is like a normal bicep curl, but when you get to the top of the movement, you lower with your palms facing down (but your thumb slightly higher than your pinky finger). Thats how Zottman curls are done by most people I think, but some people do it so that you bend your wrist right back when you are in the concentric portion of the lift to take the forearms out of the equation and isolate the biceps.
Hammer curls are just curls performed with a neutral grip (the end/hexagonal part of the dumbbell should be close to touching your anterior deltoid at the top of each rep). Zottman curls are regular curls for the concentric portion of the movement, and then you roll your wrist into a pronated grip for the eccentric, thus shifting the emphasis. There’s a picture description of the Zottman curl in “The One Day Arm Cure.” Do a search of previous issues.
Thanks guys!!! That was quick, and now I know more than I did yesterday! I can now re-read what I was looking at yesterday and have some idea what it was talking about. Thanks again.
Sorry Bob, the video I was talking about was actually some footage from your American show “Jackass” where they were training with a pro-rugby team in Britain, the London Irish. There wasn’t anything interesting on it (except the fact that for pro-rugby players, the London Irish are horrible tacklers) except that I noticed the players warming up together using the type of plyo-pushups that I mentioned before where their feet and hands leave the ground.