My Three Favorite Exercises

I first saw this exercise at a weekend long presentation from Dr. Craig Liebenson. Dr. Liebenson is a very successful chiropractor and has written textbooks used in some graduate programs. It appears to be very simple as you grab the horns of a kettle bell and rotate it around your head, but it may make you feel a bit uncoordinated the first time you try it. The shoulders are supposed to be one of the most mobile joints in your body and capable of all planes of motion pain free. Mine were extremely stiff and imbalanced from years of heavy benching. The mobility had gotten so bad that holding my hand straight over my head was accompanied by either pain or numbness. There were many other exercises involved, but I believe that this exercise was a crucial part of bringing pain free mobility back to my shoulders and keeping them healthy long-term. When done correctly, the sequence of activating muscles when the weight rotates behind the head and then relaxing when it is in front of the head in repetition helps to move the shoulders through its natural range while reinforcing that functional movement pattern in the brain’s motor system. It can also be a great core challenge when you do it in a half kneeling position. As the kettlebell rotates around the head, the core works to resist any movement in the spine in all planes of motion.

This exercise combines two of the most important things you need to do for your lower body, single-leg and hip-dominant exercise. Single-leg exercise addresses the imbalance between the prime movers and the lower body stabilizing muscles. It recruits very important muscles of the lower body including gluteus medius, adductors, and peroneals. It forces these muscles to stabilize the hip, knee, and ankle joints through a functional movement. When we do a traditional deadlift, our smaller stabilizing muscles don’t need to do as much, since we have a great base of support. This allows us to lift heavier weight and get the prime movers very strong. This will leave the stabilizing muscles relatively weak, if they aren’t being equally challenged. For me, having done mostly heavy deadlifting, I was experiencing this imbalance. I was prone to inversion sprains in my ankle and shin splint pain just from walking to class with a backpack on. The first time I tried this exercise I felt massive stretching in my hips and hamstrings that limited my range. After months of doing this exercise and progressing it, I had developed full range of motion, motor control, stabilizing strength, and balance in the joints that needed it. With full range and progression, I noticed that my ankles felt much, much stronger and my hips more mobile. It has been years later and I have not sprained my ankle or experienced shin splint pain again since I started doing this exercise. Also, what makes this exercise so important for everyone to do is nearly everything in life is single leg such as stairs, walking, running, or many athletic movements. So, even if you aren’t imbalanced or experiencing pain, the progressions you make in this exercise will translate very well into every day life for anyone. I consider this to be the ultimate lower body exercise, especially when you can add weights with full range for multiple reps.

I do these 3 exercises every time I workout and I am convinced that they saved me from lots of joint pain and problems, as well as continuing to keep the pain and joint problems that I had from coming back. I would consider them a necessity to anyone that wants to keep their body feeling great throughout their life whether you lift weights or not.