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.

Helping Jen, Martin, and her crew prepare for their launch of The Bigness Project, got me thinking about the importance of clearly defining what it is you’re training for. Maybe that sounds obvious but I can’t tell you the number of times I see someone whose training is out of alignment with what they really want. Sometimes it’s because they started out wrong, but other times your wants, desires, or needs change without your actions keeping up with them.

If you want to put on 40 pounds of muscle and look like a bodybuilder come summer time then chasing a 600 pound deadlift probably isn’t the quickest, safest, smartest route to your goal. Could getting a triple bodyweight deadlift make you jacked? Possibly? But you’re not going to end up looking like a bodybuilder unless you also get lucky and have amazing genetics. Training like a bodybuilder will make you look like a bodybuilder though.

On the flip side, if you’re training like a bodybuilder and thinking that it’s going to get you to a 600 pound deadlift you’re going to be really jacked and woefully disappointed that you haven’t hit your deadlift goal.

Bringing it down to Earth, if you’re training for general health, resilience, and capability then chasing any one particular lift or going deep into a particular training style may not be all that effective. Training for general physical preparedness is no less a goal, and your actions should reflect it.

In the case of The Bigness Project, Jen had this realization that when the pendulum swung towards training with a focus towards capability it almost became verboten to even talk about training for aesthetics. But you know what? Physical training as a healthy way to modify and accessorize your body is no less a noble goal than training to be able to do a pull-up. Neither one is strictly necessary in every day life, but damned if life isn’t better with it.

Taking a moment to reflect every so often and see if your actions are lined up with what you’re actually after can be super valuable. Try it – you might be surprised.