Building Your Own Gym - The Essentials: Car/RV Living Edition

-
Welcome to Part 4 of the "Building Your Own Gym" Series. This series will focus on the top 5 items I believe are best for creating your own "gym" based on your individual situation. As the title indicates, part 4 in this series is focused on best equipping the fitness needs of those living their best lives on the road, in their own cars or RVs (or any other vehicular device).  1.  Kettlebells: Incredibly versatile, a kettlebell is an absolute game-changer for your fitness if you love to travel and are living out of your RV or car. Living in your car/RV necessitates that you take maximal advantage of your space.  Kettlebells take up very little space and are extremely fun for training.  Buying one kettlebell will absolutely suffice for your nomad training. A single kettlebell will allow you to do any unilateral pressing and rowing movements for building your upper body, while also allowing for kettlebell swings, goblet squats, cleans, and snatches for training your l...
Post a Comment

The Kettlebell Front Rack Squat

-

    Many people are familiar with the Barbell Front Squat, but few have tried its sinister kettlebell cousin. Enter the Kettlebell Front Rack Squat, an exercise that will challenge you like few other movements. When done correctly, the kettlebell front rack squat humbles most individuals. The squat movement will obviously challenge your entire lower body - glutes, calves, quads, and hamstrings. The stabilization of the front rack position will work your core stabilizers, shoulders, and spinal erectors overtime. 

    Whereas the BARBELL front squat allows for a flat barbell that can fit neatly across your shoulders in the front rack position, the kettlebell front squat has the added complexity of having to stabilize two oddly shaped kettlebells in the front rack position. This challenges your smaller stabilizing muscles just a bit more. Think of squatting a 225-pound barbell in the front rack position versus front squatting with two 112.5 pound kettlebells in the front rack position. The odd shape of the kettlebell makes it much harder to balance in order to squat it up and down as you would in a front squat. In the end, both movements are excellent squat variations that can fit into many exercise programs. 

Check out the tradeoffs below to see where you can best utilize either of the exercises based on your specific training goals:



Looking to build up your home gym? In need of weights? Check out my favorite fitness manufacturers,  Rogue Fitness and Kettlebell King's, and start building the home gym you've always wanted!




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 6 Pillars of Physical Movement

-
Image
**Stay with me. This article starts off a bit abstract, but I promise it comes together! Time . the one thing we as humans value above just about everything else is our time. We are constantly looking to find better ways to maximize our time.  Why do many people like working remotely? one reason is it saves them the time they would spend commuting. Why are podcasts and audiobooks so popular? People can listen to podcasts and audiobooks and learn WHILE they are attending to less mindful tasks such as yard work, eating, or driving. They no longer need to devote specific TIME to sit down and read a book to learn. Why are "High-Intensity Interval Training" (HIIT) workouts so popular? One of the primary reasons is that people can get more exercise done in less time. They burn more calories in less time. HIIT workouts are more efficient at burning calories versus slower, steady-state cardio.  All of the above are more popular because they are more time-saving practices that allow...
Read more

Loaded Carries: Why You Should Be Doing Them

-
       With all the Instagram fitness influencers out there these days, I would think that I might see more loaded carry variations on their "stories" and "images". Loaded carries are brutal and work like magic on the individual, both physically and mentally. I wondered why I didn't see them on the fitness influencers' stories, but then I realized why. It's not their fault at all. Loaded carries aren't sexy, flashy, or even much fun when you're working hard. They don't attract much attention. No, loaded carries are simple, humbling, and direct; boring to watch but they deliver hard-to-beat results. Oh and even though they might be boring to watch, they definitely aren't boring to do. Loaded Carries demand a high level of concentration to ensure they are performed properly and safely. They also allow for many variations. You are only limited by your imagination.     With that being said, here are three of my favorite forms of loaded carri...
Read more

Why You Should Be Doing Hex-Bar Deadlifts

-
The Hex Bar Deadlift (sometimes also referred to as the Trap Bar Deadlift) is a fantastic full-body exercise that works out just about every muscle in the entire body. It does all of this while also positioning you in a much safer, more biomechanically friendly way that reduces strain on your lower back and shoulders, while also allowing for optimal force generation through the lower body. This is not to say that the conventional deadlift or sumo-deadlift (or any other deadlift you might see at the gym) are not great exercises. When performed properly with technical proficiency, any deadlift variation is an awesome exercise. Some deadlift variations simply carry a higher risk for potential injury versus others.  Here's why I believe the hex bar deadlift is the best deadlift variation for any general individual training in the gym (versus say, a powerlifter, who must train with the conventional or sumo deadlift form due to those variations being the accepted variations that the pow...
Read more