3 full body exercises for crazy amounts of strength

mm Paul Verbiton July 16, 2019
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man during workout

I’ve been training with weights for several years. I’ve gained a lot of real world in the gym experience, and we’ve figured out a lot of things when it comes to building serious amounts of strength. For starters, there isn’t just one type of “strength” when it comes to resistance training.

Some trainees can lift heavy for a few reps. Some can crank out an amazing number of reps with their body weight on exercises like dips, chin ups or push ups. Others are explosive and do really well with plyometric work or ‘explosive’ activities like the Olympic lifts like the snatch, or track and field events like the long jump.

To maximize your training, we’re going to talk about three different types of exercises, all of which will help you build more speed, muscle mass, endurance and pure power.

3 Full Body Exercises For Crazy Amounts of Strength

1. Barbell Dead Lift

This is the ultimate strength training exercise. There is nothing that screams pure strength like picking up a heavy weight from a dead stop on the ground. The deadlift will not only help you develop serious amounts of strength but it’s the ultimate mass building exercise as well.

The deadlift really targets the back but it will help put muscle all of the body as it hits just about every muscle there is from head to toe, including the legs, glutes, hips, arms and shoulders in addition to the back. Believe it or not, the barbell deadlift even works the abs since you have to keep the entire body ‘tight’ in order to perform the exercise properly.

If you’re an athlete looking to put on size or strength in order to increase performance in your sport, you absolutely must include the barbell deadlift in your training routine. If you’re just a regular guy that works out and wants to add some muscle mass, it’s the same. The deadlift needs to be in any routine where the goal is muscle mass or strength increases. Or both.

To perform the deadlift, you simply lift a barbell off the floor. This is done by placing your shins an inch or two from the bar, bending down with straight arms, a flack back and head up. Then drive your hips to full extension. The lift ends with you standing straight (no rounding of the back) and the bar against your thighs. There needs to be tension in the body, including your core and spine, through the entire rep.

There is no mass or strength builder better than the deadlift.

2. The Barbell Olympic Power Clean

Like the barbell deadlift, the Olympic Power Clean is a fantastic exercise that can build mass and strength. But it’s even better for gains in power from the entire body. It’s a more technical exercise that includes an emphasis on speed, quickness and power. You can’t complete any reps in the Olympic Power clean without great technique, speed or power. It’s not a “slow” exercise. While you can grind out reps in the deadlift as you tire, you can’t do the same with the Olympic Power Clean. The deadlift is more about pure strength. The power clean is more about pure power.

You start the exercise in the same position as the deadlift. But instead of just lifting the weight to a standing position, you’re going to lift the bar in one ‘clean’ motion from the ground to the chest without stopping. In order to flip the bar as you pull up so you can stop it against your chest, you need good technique but also a lot of power and speed.

If you don’t generate enough speed you won’t be able to get the weight to a high enough height where you can quickly get our body underneath the bar and catch it against your chest, in what’s called the rack position.

There are numerous ways to perform the power clean but as a strength and conditioning specialist, we like to focus on using this exercise to help improve the trainee’s speed and power. Another version of this lift is what is known as the hang clean. With the hang clean, you start with the barbell at your waist, like in the top or completed position of the deadlift.

There are also more complex versions such as a jerk press to be performed once the barbell is in the rack position. There are all great variations but the pure barbell power clean does just fine for developing speed and power for the entire body throughout the lift, as well as more strength gains, too. This is also the lift that requires the most technique and you should take some time learning the exercise before trying to do it with any significant amount of weight on the bar. You don’t want a serious injury to set you back.

3. The Single Arm Kettlebell Snatch

This exercise is fantastic. With just the kettlebell snatch you’ll be able to develop speed and a serious amount of muscular endurance as it’s also a great conditioning exercise. The kettlebell is an amazing and versatile piece of exercise equipment for overall fitness, conditioning and improving athletic performance. Everyone should include kettlebells in their training.

The kettlebell snatch is a perfect lift in that it combines both explosive muscular power but also muscular and cardiovascular endurance. It involves swinging the kettlebell back through your legs and then pulling it in front of you and up with enough speed and power to ‘catch’ it against your arm with your arm fully extended above your head, with the arm locked out at the elbow.

The kettlebell snatch will help produce a powerful core but also incredible shoulder stability, something many athletes are missing. You’ll improve performance by strengthening your body to run, jump and throw better than you have in the past. The one arm version of this exercise is an integral part of your training program for a number of reasons.

Portability is one reason. You can train with a kettlebell practically anywhere. You don’t need to be in a gym. You don’t even need to be inside if the weather is nice. In fact, a great kettlebell snatch workout is a lot of fun in nice weather at the park.

And the technique of the exercise will help develop great motor skills and coordination throughout the body. It can be the main focus of a great training program whether your goal is simply fat loss, better overall fitness, or improved athletic performance.

No matter what your goal, the kettlebell snatch will help you get there and it will also improve your mental toughness as well. Don’t believe me? Crank out a couple of hundred kettlebell snatches and go for your best time. That’s some serious training.

By including these three exercises, you won’t just be training hard, you’ll be training smart. And the results will follow.

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Paul Verbiton

I enjoy spotting opportunities and doing my best to grab them if I can. I am eager to see the world, I love taking photos and writing, coming up with topics that are pleasant to read, funny, and interesting at the same time.

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