Inspired Journey Fitness

Volleyball demands core strength, an explosive vertical jump, rotational power, and solid shoulder, chest, and back muscles.

A strong core is required in every action you perform during the game. A player with a weak core won’t be able to block a strong opponent’s hit, dig up a killer serve, or serve a wicked ball.

Hitting, blocking, and jump serving require powerful legs and the ability to move unilaterally. Strengthening the legs independently through single leg exercises will push your performance through the roof.

Getting the most power from your serves and hits requires strong shoulder, back, and chest muscles. Even more important is the ability to rely on the rotational ability of your core. Imagine a baseball player swinging a bat without rotating the body. It’s the same thing with volleyball. Your power comes from the rest of the body and your arms are just the means to contact the ball. If all the action comes from the arms alone, you’ll destroy your arm while making a disappointing strike.

In this video, we’ll show you a series of 6 exercises to help your game.

The workout consists of 6 different exercises designed to target various muscle groups. The exercises and the muscle groups targeted are:

• TRX Power Pull – Back, shoulders, biceps, transversus abdominis
• TRX Chest Press – Chest, shoulders, triceps
• TRX High Rotation – Abdominals, shoulders, latissimus dorsi
• TRX Balance Lunge – Quadriceps
• TRX Suspended Pike – Abdominals, hip flexors
• TRX Suspended Hip Press – Hamstrings, glutes, back extensors

If you don’t have a TRX yet, get your own TRX Suspension Trainer!

The core. That’s where it all begins. All movement begins at the core. If you’re looking to improve your daily function, your endurance, your strength, your athletic performance, train the core and you’ll make incredible gains.

There are misconceptions about the core, so let’s take a minute to straighten that out first. Many people hear “core” and immediately think of their abs. While the abs are part of the core, there’s more. The core is defined as the lumbo-pelvic hip complex and the muscles that attach to it. It’s the rectus and transversus abdominis, obliques, hip flexors, hamstrings, glutes, spinal erectors, and latissimus dorsi. It’s basically the torso with exception of the extremities. Get a strong core and you’ll be able to do more.

There are many ways to train the core, but few are as efficient, as fun, as unique, and as portable as the TRX Suspension Trainer. Fitness Anywhere is always issuing new challenges to their followers, so I thought I’d put together my own challenge. I’m calling it the Core 500.

The workout is simple in terms of the number of exercises and the complexity of those exercises. There are just five exercises in this complex designed to challenge your anterior and posterior chain and engage your core throughout the workout. You’ll do all of the reps for each exercise before moving on to the next exercise. Your goal is to do the prescribed number of reps in as few sets as possible.

Here goes:

• 100 Atomic Push Ups
• 100 Low Rows (deep angle with feet under the anchor point)
• 100 TRX Chest Presses (feet under the anchor point)
• 100 TRX Power Pulls (50 per side)
• 100 TRX Rollouts

Here’s a video demonstrating the exercises in this TRX workout.

Time yourself and leave a comment below to let me know how much time it takes you to complete the workout. If you don’t have a TRX of your own yet, get one here.

Ever wonder why there are all those mirrors in fitness centers? I’m asked that question often. Some might think it’s so you can check out the guns after your fifteenth set of bicep curls. They’re really there to check your form. Making sure you’re performing an exercise with correct form both helps stay safe and makes sure you get the greatest benefit from the exercise.

Back to the first one though. The guns. The pecs. They’re the first things people see when you’re coming at them. So, most people focus their attention on them at the expense of the other muscles that can really help these muscles grow.

It’s important to train the muscles in the front of the body that you can see in the mirror as well as the ones you can’t. The posterior chain, which includes the hamstrings, glutes, and back are critical. If your posterior chain is weak, you’ll never fully develop the “mirror muscles”.

Here is a five exercise complex that will help give you a powerful posterior. Perform this routine as a circult without rest between exercises, doing the prescribed repetitions and repeat the circuit five times

• One arm dumbbell snatch – 15 repetitions per side
• Stability ball hamstring curl – 15 repetitions
• Swimmer – 30 count
• Single arm cable row – 15 per side
• Cable pullthrough – 15 repetitions
• Reverse hyperextension – 15 repetitions

Have fun! Comment here on this blog and let me know how you like the complex.

If you’re looking for some more variety for your core workout, here’s a great exercise. Be prepared though. It requires a good amount of core stability and perfoming this one correctly requires control.

Golf season is here!

Golf is about flexibility, rotational strength and power, but many golfers aren’t sure how to develop that strength and power. I want to help you make this your best season ever and I’ve got a series of exercises that can help make it happen.

It doesn’t take a lot of equipment. There are no fancy gadgets with a golfers name on them needed. Just a little bit of time and commonly available tools.

First things first though. Let’s talk flexibility. Most golfers limit their flexibility routine to the 30 seconds while waiting at the first tee box. They take out the big dog driver, place it over their shoulders with their hands wrapped around the ends, and twist from one side to the other.

Please stop.

If you’d like to do more for your game, here’s a full body stretching routine that will take only a few minutes but if done a once a day, will shave strokes off your game.

If you’re ready to add strength, power, and speed to your game over the next 7 days, just enter your info below and you’ll be on your way to a better game with my latest video series!

If you want a faster, stronger, more powerful golf swing, you need these exercises!

7 steps to a better, faster, stronger golf swing

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Here’s a great exercise that engages the whole body. I’ve seen it called many things, some I can’t mention here, but we’ll call it a Goalie.

This dynamic exercise gets the whole body involved and gets your heart pumping, while also challenging your balance system. In this video, I’m using a 3kg medicine ball.

Watch the video right here!

I love functional training. I use it with all of my clients, in different ways.

Why?

Because your body works as a system, not in isolation. There’s a place for isolation exercises like bicep curls and calf raises, but when it comes down to it, are you trying to develop ripped calves or are you trying to develop an explosive jump. Most people work out because they want to do something with their bodies, like out-jump, out-run, or out-last the competition. If you’re trying to develop your body to work effectively as a system, functional training is the answer. Even if your goal isn’t athletic performance and you just want to move more effectively, functional training is important.

My hands down favorite tool for functional training is the TRX Suspension Trainer. You can use it for literaly hundreds of different exercises and get an amazing workout using just your own bodyweight. With every exercise, you’re training your core to stabilize your body as well as working the prime mover muscles to perform the exercise. As an added bonus, you can get that workout done in a shorter time because you don’t have to wander all over the gym switching weight plates, machines, etc.

I use it with grandmothers and I use it with athletes. Just a few small adjustments with your body position and each both the grandmother and the athlete get an equally effective workout.

Click here to get your TRX today!

Here’s a video with just a few examples of exercises you can do with the TRX Suspension Trainer.

Ever hear of “Mirror Muscle Syndrome”?

Here’s what it means.

When many people train with weights, they focus their efforts on the muscles in the front of the body, but forget about the muscles in back, the posterior chain. If you can’t see them in the mirror, they must not be important, right? Wrong.

It’s time to show the hammies some love and here’s a great exercise to work them. Give the Stability Ball Hamstring Curl a try and let me know what you think!

This week’s video is an advanced exercise that will challenge your core and balance.

Click here to learn how to do the stability ball drop and cross.

The big game is tomorrow and here’s my predicition. Check out the video below where I use my TRX Suspension Trainer to give you the prediction.

I love training with the TRX. It’s versatile and effective. You get a great total body workout and can get it quick! Drew Bress calls the TRX “the greatest piece of functional fitness equipment that exists”.

Click here now to get your own TRX and train like the pros!