Jumping into a workout without some kind of warmup is about as smart as starting your car and then hitting the pedal to the medal. When it comes to warming up there are many ways to give it a go. From some light calisthenics, to steady state cardio, to warm up sets before big lifts, but our favorite is joint mobility training. 

Mobility training through dynamic joint mobility drills or using a more in depth system such as FRC will prepare and lubricate the joints before putting them through the rigors of strength training. 

Mobility drills allow you to assess where your body is at the given time so you have a map to move through. It’s not just about your muscles, ligaments, and tendons. It’s also about your nervous system so putting each joint complex through the ranges you feel comfortable with will allow you to push harder through your session or scale back where you should. 

It’s important to find the capacity that you have so that you...

The kettlebell snatch is a powerful movement that builds full body strength and power. Once you’ve mastered the basics it’s time to get some rotation in! Here are three variations that will give you a new movement to master as well as build rotational power. 

For each of these variations it’s crucial to have the “float” at the top to allow for the bell to finish in the overhead position without slamming on your forearm. Regardless of what orientation or degree of rotation you’re in, maintain enough tension throughout your torso and during the movement itself to avoid putting too much pressure on your lower back. 

 1. Deadstart Rotational Snatch

This variation will require the least amount of coordination since you’ll be moving the bell vertically and across the body. There is no drop in the variation so you’ll only be getting the concentric pull.

2. Half Rotational Snatch

This variation will have the bell...

8 Hamstrings Stretches to Boost Your Yoga Practice

Jacquelyn Umof 

Hamstring flexibility plays a major role in your yoga practice development. Many people are after poses, like handstands, that require the posterior chain to be loose enough to achieve those challenging poses.

To access the full movement of your hamstrings, the yoga practice presents a series of increasingly difficult forward folds. Even reaching full boat pose (navasana) when working your core requires hamstring flexibility.

Two key principles are needed in order to safely attempt this movement — how to safely go deeper in your hamstring stretch, and how to relax all of the muscles that surround your hamstring — neither of the two is as easy as it sounds.

Each pose below will target a different area of the back of the legs to help loosen you up.

Most importantly, it’s important to never quickly enter or exit a stretch. Give the pose and your body the respect it deserves, and...

1. Too much ballistic work with not enough weight
2. Too many circuits that burn too many calories
3. That’s not the goal for most