Last week I stopped by to visit at a friend at Invictus (Crossfit) in San Diego and it just happened to be the first Friday night of the CF Open so naturally I got to watch a bunch of freakshow athletes suffer through something you couldn’t pay me any price to do.

And it got me thinking about something with regards to resilience and injury.

One of the movements in this open WOD was the one-arm dumbbell snatch, naturally for high reps. Now you might look at this (combined with burpees and box jumps) and you might think man that is a great way to jack up a back.

Yet I have been paying attention to open workouts for many years now, and through observing trends on Facebook I can see which ones are jacking people up and which ones (sometimes surprisingly) aren’t.

And this one isn’t.

Why? And how does it relate to the deadlift?

Well first of all you have to recognize that the dumbbell snatch is basically a one-arm deadlift done with a light weight and brisk movement. It’s nothing like a barbell snatch, and with the light weight done for high reps it’s simply a hip-dominant movement with minimal knee bend done explosively. In other words a deadlift.

And it doesn’t jack up peoples backs because it’s asymmetrical.

Perfectly symmetrical movements force a body that is not symmetrical (in the vast majority of people) into a position of symmetry that is not natural to begin with, and then there’s no room to move or to move away from tension or stress because of the symmetry. Check out this screen cap:

All that rotation and asymmetry allows the body to involve more tissue and more variability in the movement. Sure there’s some rotation in the spine, but it’s ok for the spine to move like that. What little risk there is in rotation is more than offset by the fact that there is so much more tissue involved to bear the stress of the movement.

So what’s the takeaway?

Don’t be afraid to stagger your position or otherwise introduce asymmetry. One of the places I always start when I’m nursing someone back to health after a back injury is with asymmetrical deadlifts because they are almost universally well tolerated. Not so for conventional symmetry. This is why I’m such a fan of asymmetrical deadlift options like the Jefferson.

Even if you don’t have any issues, I’ll wager that it’ll feel better with a bit of asymmetry. Ideally, you can always test and find the best option with biofeedback.

I had a quick session with a client yesterday who had asked me to take a look at their deadlift and let them know what they needed to do to take their deadlift strength past the next milestone.

Immediately I was reminded of something that I see as a weak link for so many people: The upper back! Lower back always gets the attention (especially when it’s hurt) but I’m telling you that time and time again it’s actually the upper back that is the limiting factor in people’s strength – and not just for deadlifting. It blows me away how many people neglect training this area specifically.

Your upper back is naturally a point of more movement than the lower back – the thoracic spine is intended to be more mobile than the lumbar – and with your arms and neck attached here the number and complexity of articulations is infinitely more than the lower back. It becomes either an anchor point or a hinge point for tons of movements – preferably an anchor if you’re strong enough.

And guess what I’ve found to be one of the best kept secrets in building upper back strength? Kettlebells.

Of course, of course barbells are useful and various barbell movements should be a big component of any effort to increase upper back strength. But in my experience I’ve learned that kettlebells are extraordinarily useful, I believe for 3 main reasons:

• The rack position from which many KB movements start, finish, or pit-stop at is a very taxing movement for the upper back creating a lot of time under tension in pretty poor leverage. Anyone who has ever done KB front squats with the bells in the rack position knows how difficult they are, even compared to barbell front squats. Almost all KB pressing movements start from this position, and the big ballistic movements such as long cycle clean and jerk make a stop here. Unless you’re using KBs wildly inappropriately, you end up spending LOTS of time in this super-beneficial rack position.
• Speed. One of the biggest advantages of kettlebells is how well they work for explosive ballistic movements such as snatches, cleans, long cycle etc. The high speed of these movements creates momentary tremendous load that your tissues have to absorb and stabilize. I said before you become either a hinge or an anchor. Well when you spend enough time doing ballistic kettlebell movements you get very good at anchoring the arms with the upper back.
• Variety in unilateral, bi-lateral, and contra-lateral movement. If all you ever do is bilateral barbell work you’re going to be missing the strength in certain ways of moving. Same goes for only doing unilateral movement. KB training that is well-rounded tends to have you doing single-arm, double-arm, as well as alternating work. This builds tremendous ability to move in varied ways, which in turn builds tissue in a wider and more expansive distribution.

In all my years of training I have yet to find anything that is as good as training properly with kettlebells to build tremendous upper back strength – which translates directly to big deadlifts (and to a lesser extent squats). It’s a nice bonus that it also builds great work capacity, resilience to injury and tissue turnover.

When I talk to customers, clients, and readers a lot of people bring up motivation as their biggest stumbling block.

So you’ve got a plan, you have the skills and knowledge to execute the plan, but you just don’t have that oomph to get the ball rolling. I get that, believe me.

I think I struggle with motivation just as much as the next person. When I fall off my lifting routine due to travel or circumstances out of my control it’s damn hard for me to get going again.

One thing I believe about motivation is that it’s not this *thing* that can be giveth or taketh. I don’t think motivation really exists at all. You don’t need motivation to do anything. You either do the thing, or you don’t do the thing.

But, there certainly can be reasons to do the thing or not do the thing. If it makes you feel good you’re more likely to do the thing. If it makes you feel bad, you’re less likely. If there is another thing you’d rather be doing then you’d probably do that thing instead of the other thing that you’d rather NOT be doing. And so on.

Motivation, in so much that it exists at all, is not static. Buying some new workout gear might give you a reason to get after it for a week or two, but then the buzz wears off. On the other hand, the momentum of six months of regular workouts makes it a lot easier to drag yourself to the gym on Monday after a tiring weekend. Inertia is way more important than whatever motivation is.

I’m going to teach you how to build motivation the Cardigan Mark (Schneider) way.

One of the very most important concepts I try to instill is the idea of pregression and progression with exercise. I don’t care if you can’t lift 300 pounds right now because if you can lift 3 pounds I can eventually get you to lifting 300.

So here’s the big trick with motivation: Stop trying to do The Thing™.

Let’s say you have your workout plan, you have your gym membership, you have your clothes, but you can’t bring yourself to drive to the gym after work and go into the gym and do it.

Fine, no problem.

Start with driving to the gym. Park in the lot. Put your car in reverse and drive home.

Do that for a few days until it feels like a waste of time to drive to the gym just to turn around.

When you’re ready, drive to the gym, park, go inside, say hello to the front desk person get a drink of water and go home if you don’t feel like lifting.

Repeat this until you find yourself in the weight room with enough inertia to just pick up that first weight. For me, if I can get myself to do one rep I’ll probably do the whole workout. Not always, but usually.

Maybe you work out at home. Put your gym clothes on. Sit down in your home gym area. If you decide not to work out, take them off again. Keep doing that until you pick up the weight.

Yes, this might take you 7 weeks to actually do your first workout. I don’t care if it takes that long. If you’re reading this and motivation is your roadblock it has probably been 7 months or more anyway. Build the inertia and let it carry you.

The point is to take action, instead of waiting for that ephemeral motivation fairy to come grant you action.