There are two exercises that have the lamest of lame connotations when I think of them. Maybe you too. The step-up and the clamshell. At least when I think of the clamshell, I think of the Eric Prydz Call On Me video:

But the step-up. Holy hell what a lame exercise, right? Invariably you see it demonstrated like this:

How many repetitions do you think our friend would have to complete to affect a stimulus? My guess is somewhere between 1500 and 15,000.

Almost any time you have an exercise that seems lame or ineffectual, you can find out if that’s true or not by making it heavier. When it doubt, go really heavy.

What happens when you go really, really heavy on a step-up? You get:

• Massive core stability demands due to the offset position and asymmetrical force transfer.
• Huge end range hip extension requirement.
• Less ankle dorsiflexion requirement than a comparable squat – can be good for people with poor ankle movement.
• Depending on the loading position & implement, upper back recruitment comparable to a similar squat or carry.
• Less lower back stress than a squat or a deadlift due to the more upright torso position.

You’ll find many people raving about heavy carries and for good reason. Ambulating with a heavy load is a fantastic way to build strength in a useful, usable range of motion. Heavy step-ups are like dialing carrying up to 11, and I think they’re an underrated strength exercise.

If you have access to one my favorite way to do heavy step-ups is with a safety squat bar. The next heaviest option is in a back squat position. Finally, if you want to work on your grip strength or you already have ferocious grip strength then very heavy kettlebells or dumbbells can be a good option as well.

It seems like a simple exercise, and it is, but there is a coaching point that I think is useful that I picked up from Nick Tumminello. In short, Nick teaches to lean forward onto the working leg, and then lift the heel on the non-working leg. This combined with driving through the heel of the working leg virtually eliminates the cheating, double-leg step-up you often see.

Here is a guideline I tell my gym members when it comes to the relationship between box height and weight:

If a tall box tests well, go lighter.
If a short box test well, go heavier.

Tall-light, short-heavy.

Different heights have different benefits and are in many ways very different movements from each other. Do what tests the best.

Get it on with some heavy step-ups and let me know what it does for you.

Here’s a demo of a heavy-ish set:

 

A few weeks ago I noticed my friends Hunter Cook and Jen Comas Keck posting videos on Instagram of themselves doing various fun feats of strength and challenging the other to attempt what they had just done. It looked like they were having fun, I liked the photos, and didn’t give it  much more thought.

Then a couple days ago my training partner and colleague Mark chimed in and asked, “Are these challenges open to anyone?”

Mark is one strong S.O.B. so I decided that if he was going to throw his hat into the ring I would  beat him to it. At the moment, the challenges involved rope pull-ups, so I laid my cards on the table with this:

Since that moment, this little challenge has absolutely EXPLODED. As of this moment there are over 40 videos on Instagram with the tag #instabattle2014 and Facebook is littered with the posts as well. You can see all of the tagged entries (Hunter went back and tagged the ones that pre-dated having a hashtag for it) by searching on Instagram for #instabattle2014.

The general idea is that someone posts a video of a challenging feat of strength, and you seek to one-up it in some way. It might be more weight, or it might be a variation like today I riffed on Jessi Kneeland’s very impressive barbell Sots press with a one-arm bottoms-up Sots press. Not least because I don’t have the mobility to do a barbell Sots press. Everyone has been incredibly encouraging and respectful of others, often reiterating that you should just try it before saying “I can’t do that.” I have to say it pairs pretty well with Jen’s post about the question “Can I do that?” 

There’s no one keeping score, there’s no governing body. Just people having fun training “together”, separately.

I’ve said this on Facebook but I want to reiterate it here .The camaraderie that has emerged is a perfect representation of physical culture and what it should be about. Using your body for one of the things it is best suited to doing: playing and being physically active. Coming up with new ways to challenge and push the limits is the best part of having training partners. I often miss training with Adam T. Glass in part because he had such a knack for coming up with creative changes to make things more challenging to constantly drive our strength forward. I made almost unbelievable progress during that time with the questions he’d ask that usually started with “Can you…”

My challenge to you is: Can you join in?

If I love deadlifts, and I do, then pull-ups are like the awkward third wheel that comes along for the ride but no one ever talks about. I’ve often joked that you could characterize my training as deadlifts and pull-ups.

But I digress. The purpose of this article is to give you an example of how doing “less” can often lead to doing “more”.

If you worked your way up from not being able to do a pull-up at all, you may have used bands or a pull-up station to de-load the movement along the way. Once you got past the point of being able to do bodyweight pull-ups, it’s unlikely that you ever gave another look at the bands.

A quick story. For several years I really enjoyed competing in the Tactical Strength Challenge. For those unfamiliar, it is a worldwide informal competition held in the spring and fall of every year. Any gym can participate and the results are posted online. The events are a 1-rep max deadlift, as many pull-ups as you can in 1 set, and a 5-minute kettlbell snatch test (24kg men, 16kg women).

For several competitions (so figure spanning at least a year and a half) I was unable to budge my pull-up score from 17. Despite my maximum strength consistently rising, and my maximum pull-up strength nearing +100 pounds I wasn’t able to budge my max-reps score.

Until I changed my training. 

Instead of getting better at pulling more weight, I thought maybe I should get better at doing more reps. Specificity. How was I going to do more reps? By making it easier. I deloaded it. The next contest I did 23 reps.

Since then I have used this technique with countless clients and it always goes the same way. The first workout they always do the same number of  reps as they could do without the band. Then the next workout there is a rep or two bump, and so on  for the next few workouts until they need a change of direction.

If you’ve long since discarded the resistance bands or pull-up station it might be worth reconsidering. Of course, this example is about pull-ups but there are two bigger ideas to keep in mind:

1. Specific Adaptations to Imposed Demands. You adapt to exactly what you do including how you do it. If you’re always going heavy and doing fewer reps, it’s going to impact your ability to do many reps.
2. Do less. Make it easier. Heavier and harder is only one direction to make progress in, but neglecting the opposite direction will leave you stuck and frustrated.

 And let me know when you double your max pull-ups.