MoreThanLifting Podcast Episode 4: Skills Training, Progressive Development & Structuring Your Workout For Maximum Results

In The MoreThanLifting Podcast Episode 4, Rhys and Chris talk skills training and how you go about developing awesome skills that will make you look awesome in front of the girlies 😉 Man we are so good to you haha! Anyway whether you want to learn a planche, lanche or some other kind of -anche extension we got you covered!

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MoreThanLifting Podcast Episode 4 Show Notes

What Skills Are We Talking About?

Today we are talking about skills training
When you get into the groove, you will naturally begin to progress towards skills
Skills are more technical exercises and advanced movements
Handstands and more strength based gymnastics skills like levers and planches
All about the Planche ramblings, pronunciation and such
Shout Out to Alex!
The Northern Border, Accents and the difference in accents between America and the UK
Muscle Ups, Handstand Push Ups, L Sits are more examples

Using Skills In The Gym

Complex Olympic lifts require the same Skill focused development and are comparable
Chris’s ability to snatch has been improved by Handstands
It requires similar tension and core stability
Handstands do weird things to your abs
Chris thought he could superset a heavy deadlift with handstands but realised how challenging it was
This is a great way to learn about what synergystic muscles are prefatigued from certain exercises and how that can change the dynamic of another exercise

Advice On Exercise Combinations and Prefatigue

A common mistake is putting the wrong exercises together
You can do a front and back split
Or you can split it upper and lower
You can put a pull up and deadlift together but you will find that the pull after deadlift is incredibly difficult because of the prefatigue of your back and shoulders
The intention is to get the most out of it, so supersetting the same muscle group is going to diminish performance in each exercise
There is a place for supersets but it tends not to be around higher strength and higher skills because of the huge demand of energy
Sometimes though we tend to mix it all up
A superset is 2 exercises back to back,
A triset is 3 back to back
Then it becomes a circuit really because of the amount of work, the more energy it takes
You could do heavy exercise mixed with mobility . . .

Supersets And Complex Sets In Bodyweight Training

What I (Rhys) like to do is mix Leg raises with Pulls and Dips
I can basically kick myself in the face with a supported leg raise – on the dipping bars
Although you are doing the opposite movements – Push and Pull – my core gets totally rinsed
You could say that each of the exercises are separate movements
But I am doing them without releasing m shoulders to dead hang so I never release fro one movement to another
You could do L sit Pulls you could do L sit Dips – kinda
But to do the leg raise, your shoulders are in the wrong position
But you can mix exercises together in this way, where you add a movement into the rest part of the main exercise, as in this example

Aligning Exercises With Your Goals

But in a gym environment it isn’t too hard
The good news is you can basically do anything
The only thing that matters is that you are doing it for a reason, there needs to be purpose in your gym sessions, what is your goal
There is a time and place for fun, but usually you want to do the most demanding exercise right from the start to get the most out of the session
Before we get into the technicals of specific skill training

Using Complex Movements And Skills To Develop Neuromuscular Connections And Muscle Activation

There are a lot of opportunities to develop your neuromuscular connections and activation by consecutively deadlifting and doing pull ups but it would need to be done as an endurance exercise
That will translate into a lot of activation ability in your muscles
The point we haven’t got into yet is that you do your specific skills training at the start
But mixing exercises like this together, when you are training skills later in your session when you have less energy
This will push you to hypertrophy and enable faster neuromuscular connection for the skill you are targeting because it will help you develop faster

Understanding How You Use Energy To Make Better Training Decisions

You need to understand how the body stores and uses energy
When you are resting your body is storing energy as ATP in muscles
Sugar and potential energy stores in your muscles are what you want to activate early at the start so do your big exercises then your big skills
It is why your first sprint is better than your 10th or 15th
The early explosive energy goes first so use that knowledge when you are training
Then anaerobic and aerobic capacity – without and then with oxygen

How This Fits Into Your Sessions

Some people go to the gym and do a run first, waste 20 minutes and then go and do weights – it’s totally backwards!
A few minutes is fine but don’t overdo it
This is the great thing about mobility work before training rather than cardio, as we spoke about in episode 1
You can do it the other way around but understand you aren’t going to be hitting PB’s
That doesn’t mean you cant do it for fun
It makes perfect sense
At the start of a session you have loads of energy, the further in, the less you will have
It only makes sense to do the more important stuff, the heavier loading and more difficult skills on the front end

Order You Workouts – Skills First

Not all exercise is performed using oxygen, most people have heard of aerobic and anaerobic exercise
You need to use these systems to your advantage
Don’t go for a 20 minute jog and then do sprints
If you want your max deadlift, do it at the start
Don’t do anything that will diminish that performance first
Now you know when to train your skills
So how can you develop skills?
A lot of people cant handstand, a lot of people cant L Sit

How Pro We Are At Podcasting And A Future Bloopers Reel

Rhys tests Chris on skill development
The theme of this episode has been professional recording
The annual bloopers reel
We are going to do bloopers reels
We think it will be fun
It might be the fail video of podcasting

Developing Skills With Progressive Training

So when you learn skills, there are various progressions to build up to them
You cant just jump into them, they are skills because they take skill, they aren’t easy
This means they take a lot of elements of your strength and control to be able to do
L sits are the first one you will learn
It all comes down to training these progression exercises
As you develop you will naturally find you can do the next one, then the next one – ta da, it’s a front lever!
I make it sound simple and it is really – but it takes a lot of time to do

Start At The Bottom Work Your Way Up By Increasing the Leverage Over Time

When you approach it in training, you wont do front levers from day one
So start where you are
Single leg, advanced tuck
Chris loses connection
The idea is to do these progressions as isometrics held for time
As you develop you are slowly opening out, you are increasing the length of the lever
This translates to hight strength development across your body
You aren’t just building strength but control neuromuscular connectivity
Brain to muscles
Enabling you to activate your muscles and control them better

Breaking Down A Skill For Isolated Development

When you are doing the front lever you are aiming to bring your hands down into your hips,
Pressing with the shoulders to activate your musculature correctly to hold that position
So you train the lever at the earliest point, as you get further into your session you get into that movement in a form of rep exercise
Chris returns!
With a high level skill it is important to break it down into smaller movements
This helps you train it

Breaking Down Skills In The Gym

In a gym environment you have complex olympic lifts like a clean & jerk, and snatch (also clean & snatch haha!)
To build these skills there are movements like a deadlift and deep squat that need to be trained
If you are doing specific skill training, you cant just go into heavy skills without prerequisite training
This is the same for the gym and bodyweight
You have strength mobility and control
You need to work each of these elements
Just being able to do an overhead squat is difficult for most people
So a snatch is off limits
There is a huge amount of hip flexion going on
You can break that down into holding something over your head and deep squats
So then there is another level of prerequisite training
You can see how you break down these skills

Getting Proper Support From A Good Coach

There is so much detail
This is why when stress the importance of getting a good coach
You can do so much yourself
But there is a degree of feedback and adjustment you can get from a good coach that you will never get by yourself
It is important that over any other point in training, that you get coaching
This isn’t just a pitch for us, but it is true
You need educated feedback
You could be doing something wrong or doing the right thing badly and risk injury
Or like a lot of people, you could just not see any results
You could even use youtube for basic information and form with exercise
Any form of guidance is beneficial but getting a good coach is the ideal situation for you to get the results
You cant just get any coach on the internet

The Benefits Of Getting A Good Trainer

You need someone who knows what they are talking about
Like us you have probably tried something, not seen results after a week and given up
If you have a coach you can have a road map laid out for you, so you can get the results you need
There is accountability both sides
You don’t have that with youtube
If you are skipping stuff and cutting corners then you have to accept some personal responsibility
If you are then a good coach will adjust the program and work on improving it in other ways
As this translates to skills
Having the progressions and the plan laid out
You can aways get a feel of a good coach from the simplicity in how the express their expertise
One thing I love about being a coach, seeing someone achieve something and watching them get excited about it
Also give us money 😉

You Can Do It All Yourself Just Focus On The Prerequisites

You don’t need a coach to achieve a skill
On the site I have flows for the skill and strength development for levers and other tricks
Prerequisites are important because they will build that
That is why hanging leg raises are so important
Check out the article on hanging leg raises because they will half the time of your lever development
Your tiny shoulder muscles like rotator cuff muscles hardly get enough attention and your shoulders are pivotal to movement – that’s how they get injured
You can perform some skills without doing some progressions or prerequisites, but your form will often suffer and so will your results
At best its useless at worst you’ve just done you back in

Low Quality Movement Causes Injury

A handstand is a great example
A lot of people can stand on their hands but what does it look like?
You see people in a bent over in a banana-y mess almost bent over trying to stay up
Low quality movement often ends in injury that is why it is necessary to build these prerequisites
You cant do a planche without developing your shoulders and there are ways of cheating it
You see people do front levers with their arms bent hips sagging its terrible positioning
But in a back lever – the risk is a lot higher, even though it is an easier skill
Handstands are the outlier because you learn them quickly but they take a long long time to master
You could probably correct form quickly but if you learnt it right from the start you will develop the skill a lot faster

Form And Discipline In Skills

Handstands don’t take as long to learn because they don’t require the same degree of strength
Once you have a skill, and you are doing it well, there is the next ongoing pursuit of excellence
There is always improvement to be made
It is about ongoing development and dedication to your own ability
Chris compares it to martial arts – don’t be so arrogant as to think you don’t need a progression once you have it down
Learn the skill fix the posture get that feedback from your trainer
And then you can do next level developments and exercises
Never forget how important a push up is
Seek excellence

Why Skills Are Awesome – Unlocking New Exercises To Further You Development

Another cool thing about bodyweight training
When you learn a skills, it isn’t just having one skill
You can do variations and transitions into new skills and exercises
It unlocks the next level of training
Its like a tree of progressions: each skill unlocks 5 more skills and so on
The further you go the higher the complexity and physical challenge
Although some skills take a shit load of training, when you get there, there is another level and another
So it doesn’t stop at a pull up, there are loads of variations
Variations distribute the load differently and change the dynamic of a skill or movement
Pull ups, archers, typewriters,
You don’t starts at archers

Don’t Let This Overwhelm You Start With The Fundamentals

It can seem to make your training complex, but that is why we teach the fundamental movements
Knowing how you are moving gives you that awareness of the movements to enable you to balance as you see fit
There are loads of ways you can train skills outside of that initial start of the session window
You can bring other exercise variations like incorporating flutter kick movements or some other form of movement

Wrapping It Up

It think thats about it
Time for the wrap up before we start rambling
We mentioned something about progressions
Chris knows the words
Chris points out these are the foundational episodes talking about the core principles
We will come back to all of this in more detail in the future
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If you want to reach out and get hold of us send us an email of hit us up on Twitter or whatever
longer outro’s are better haha
Chris Thatcher – Rhys Morgan