Most of us at one point in our athletic careers or countless hours spent in the weight room have probably thought that the most important muscles we use in our bodies are the ones you can see when you flex in front of the mirror. The truth is the muscles we “can’t see in the mirror” and of the posterior chain are the most crucial for sports performance. If you fail to focus on developing strength, power, mobility, coordination, and even to accelerate speed, then you are in a position to fail and to get injured. There has been countless times while playing sports that my rear deltoid and my hamstrings would always be tight or not working as well as they could be. I neglected training the posterior chain and it held me back from performing better on the field.
If you have never really focused on training the posterior chain, it will be awkward at first and you will feel unbalanced. “Get comfortable with being uncomfortable” is something I swear by and is what every great strength coach will always tell you. As an athlete, powerlifter, or weightlifter you got to master the basics and get strong in every single area in order to succeed. How do you get these muscles stronger, and more balanced? Pulling exercises (I will explain more later in this article). I asked Coach Dan Boothby about this. I asked him what he thought was more important when training. Is it pushing or pulling exercises? He told me that pulling is more important. When an athlete makes contact in any sport or gets physically “hit”, their body automatically falls into a fetal position. You want to do more “pulling” exercises so you are strong enough to keep yourself up as much as possible when you do get hit, or make contact with an opponent in sports.
Some of the muscles you should mainly focus on of the posterior chain are the lats, rhomboids, lower back, glutes, hamstrings, rear deltoids, and even your triceps (if you are not turning your arm in the mirror to flex those bad boys).
These are the muscles that are going to generate the most power and force in all of your movements as an athlete. They are the ones that will make you jump higher, accelerate quicker, and move better.
To further explain this article to you, let me give you some of the basic exercises you should begin doing in order to start building a strong, sturdy posterior chain which will ultimately improve your athletic career.
LOWER BODY
– Deadlifts
-Romanian Deadlifts
-Forward Lunges
-Glute-Ham Raises
-Back Squats
-Box Jumps
UPPER BODY
-Pull Ups (All variations)
-One Arm Dumbbell Rows
-Barbell Rows
-Face Pulls
-Lat Pulldowns (with bands or machine)
Those are all the basic exercises that I am going to get into today. They are easy to do, and hard to mess up! In order to go more in depth with more exercises and how to do them properly leave a comment below with your email address.