Have an even better one!

Have an excellent weekend, and thanks again!

Thanks for stopping by once again, and I’d be more than happy to answer your questions.

In response to your first question, it all depends on how much you change things up. For example, if you go from doing wide-grip bench press to a close grip bench press, you’ve certainly changed the stimulus as a close grip focuses more on the tricpes than the chest, even though you’re still staying within the same movement pattern. While this is fine and dandy, if your goal is to have a stronger bench and your chest, not your triceps are your weakest link, then you would be focusing on the wrong thing entirely. In general though, small changes like the ones you suggested do change the exercise, but then again is there anything wrong with that? Not as long as you’re continuing to play with the variables in addition to changing the exercise.

I will say this though, only because you mentioned it in the second part: if you’re continuing to see progress on a given lift, I wouldn’t change a thing as long as you’re making sure to address the imbalances that could occur overtime by doing one particular exercise. For example, if you spend your days straight bar benching until the cows come home, you had better be addressing your external rotation as well otherwise you could be setting yourself up for injury further down the line.

For bilateral deadlifts (except for the Romanian Deadlift), I would say that they are more knee dominant than hip dominant, my reason being that even if your posterior chain is strong, you need that knee extension to lockout that bar, similar to squats. For single leg variations however, I would label them as hip dominant since you’re really taking the knee out of the equation for the most part.

At Cressey Performance I haven’t seen burpees used as much as mountain climbers, but neither of them have been used to the extent that sleds, kettlebells, and medicine balls have in terms of conditioning, and I think injury prevention is one of the reasons for that. Fatigue tends to make everything worse in general, so if you take someone who already has questionable form and then stick them in a situation where its only going to get worse over time, then that is a recipe for disaster. I havent seen a single athlete do a burpee or a mountain climber, but some of the regular clients have been and they’ve been fine, mainly because the staff keeps such a watchful eye on them, correcting their form when necessary. Nor are they usually doing any one exercise long enough for form to beak down to such a degree.

In general though, I think they’re great if you don’t have any back problems – just learn the correct form and go for it. I wouldn’t program that into someones program who has flexion based back problems, as the risk of getting injured by doing those exercises far outweighs the benefit, especially when there are other options.

No need to apologize about being wordy, Jack. As you can see I am equally as loquacious*

* I haven’t been able to use that word since I learned it a long time ago. VICTORY!

If you have anymore questions, feel free to drop ‘em on me.

- Rog

Regarding the comment from Alwyn Cosgrove about the body adapting to the rep range the fastest and not needing to change exercises all that often…….do you consider making small changes (by keeping the general movement patterns but changing something, be it incline, grip width or type, etc.) to truly be changing an exercise or merely altering it just enough to avoid stagnation and pattern overload while maintaining the gains made from previous versions?

Put differently, lets say that you were continuing to see progress on a given lift, but you’d already been using it for quite some time (less likely the more advanced you are, I suppose). Would it still be a smart idea to alter things slightly (example: switching from a flat bench press to a 10 or 20-degree incline press) since it alters the movement pattern slightly and prevents one particular movement from being done over and over and over? This is assuming that you’re not competing in a competition where the initial lift is the one that will be used.

I also have a few more questions, if you don’t mind…..

snatch-grip deadlifts or snatch grip deadlifts from a deficit- while a still a deadlift, would you categorize these as more of a quad-dominant or hip dominant lift?

Trap bar deadlifts- same question……I see some say that these are still a deadlift, and hence hip dominant, while others say that they are much more akin to squats, and thus quad dominant.

Burpees and Mountain Climbers- Having interned at Cressey Performance, what is your general feeling on the low back flexion often seen with these? Is it not a big deal/perfectly fine for many folks, sine it is unloaded, or should it still be kept to a minimum and even left out for those who are flexion intolerant?

I apologize for being so verbose and do thank you for your time. Any feedback would be appreciated, although I understand if you are swamped with work and don’t find the time.