How's Your Posterior?
How's Your Posterior?
I was at a seminar a while back and was asked how important it was to train the anterior chain of muscles. My response was, “It’s great to train them if you want to be a bodybuilder, but to be a great powerlifter it’s more important to train the posterior!” Now I’m not talking about your rear end and I’m not saying it’s not important to train the anterior muscles. I’m simply saying the posterior is MORE important.
For example, look at the squat. The most important muscle groups in the squat are the hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. Quads and abs are important too, but in my opinion, are secondary muscles.
What about the deadlift? Primary muscles are lower and upper back, hamstrings and glutes. Secondary muscles are forearm flexors and abs. The bench press primary muscles are the triceps, pecs, lats and delts. I would include the biceps as a secondary muscle.
All three competitive lifts involve more posterior than anterior, yet I constantly see more beginners and even advanced lifters spending so much time on there anterior muscles. My only guess as to why this is, might be due to the fact that so many of us can see our anterior in the mirror and our physiques are judged by the anterior as well.
I think all of us, somewhere deep in our minds, would like to have a great physique as well as be freaky strong. But in many ways, that involves conflict in your training. Hell, we could all get on the treadmill or stair climber and lower our bodyfat a little. But then again, I could also choose to lower my total!! Or, I could spend countless hours grinding out curls, cable crossovers and rep after rep on the ab wheel. These are pointless exercises for powerlifting.
So, to train your posterior more effectively, how do you do it? First, the one common muscle that you see mentioned in all three lifts is the back. Your lower back and lats must be trained for peak performance in all three lifts. Rowing exercises are needed for bench press and deadlifts. Pulling and arching movements are needed for lower back strength in the squat and dead.
Hamstring work is crucial for the squat and dead also. For hamstrings you can do pull throughs, glute ham bench, sled pulling, stiff legged deadlifts and good mornings. Finally, tricep work should be included for the posterior in the form of skull crushers, pushdowns, rope extensions, close grip presses, J.M. Presses and overhead dumbbell extensions.
Second, build priority in your posterior by organizing your workouts. After you are done with your main lift training, you should immediately go to a posterior exercise to train one of the above mentioned muscles. A portion of a sample workout might look something like this:
- Bench: Flat with bands, 8 sets of 3, with 45% of max.
- Tricep Pushdowns: 3 sets of 10 reps.
- Squat: 8 sets of 2 with bands at 50% of max followed by:
- Reverse Hyper: 2 sets of 8-10 reps.
- Deadlift: Warm-up, followed by 6 sets of 2.
- Good Mornings: 2 sets of 5, heavy.
Notice how each main lift is followed by a posterior exercise. Always do triceps after benching. Always do lower back work after squatting, then go to your hamstrings. Again, lower back work after deadlifting followed by hamstrings.
Prioritize muscle groups according to their priority in the lift. Prioritize? What is that you ask? Yes, prioritize. Football coaches do the same thing with the personnel they have on their team. Often times, coaches will rank their players from 1-50 going all the way down to the last guy on the team. Guys ranked in the top 4 are often 2 way players and can never leave the field except for special teams (only in highs school!). And it goes on from there…..you get the idea.
Begin with the squat. What would you consider the most important muscle in the squat? Everybody disagrees on this, so it only matters what you think. But whatever that muscle is that you rate the highest, that is the one that should get the attention first. For me, the lower back/glutes are rated #1. Why? Because without a lower back, there is no squat. All you have without a lower back is a heavy good morning or a bar dump on the platform. And, it doesn’t matter how strong the other muscle groups are that are needed to squat, the lower back is what holds the bar in line to allow the other muscles to be used.
I also believe, that glutes are primarily responsible for keeping your knees out. Once your knees come in, your back will round. Hence, I always start with reverse hypers after squatting. Next, rank the #2 muscle you think is important for the squat. I have hamstrings ranked as number 2 on my list. I go immediately from hypers to the glute ham bench. Follow the list down until all the muscles are gone that need training for that lift.
How about the bench press? Pick your #1 muscle and that is the one that should be trained first. Did you come up with triceps? If you did, those should be next in your bench training program, only to be followed by the next important muscle you have ranked for that lift. Your number two muscle should be trained next. So, if you had lats/upper back listed as number 2, that would become your second assistance exercise after your main lift training.
Following is another example of what any lifter might consider to use based on his/her prioritizing:
- Bench: Flat with bands, 8 sets of 3, with 45% of max.
1. Tricep Pushdowns: 3 sets of 10 reps.
2. Seated Cable Rows: 3 sets of 8. - Squat: 8 sets of 2 with bands at 50% of max followed by:
1. Reverse Hypers: 2 sets of 8-10 reps.
2. Glute Ham Raises: 2 sets of 15. - Deadlift: Warm-up, followed by 6 sets of 2.
1. Good Mornings: 2 sets of 5, heavy.
2. Reverse Hypers: 2 sets of 8-10 reps.
I want you to notice that on this list, all six secondary exercises are posterior muscle groups and they could easily be replaced by other exercises or muscle groups that would still train the posterior group.
For many years earlier in my career, I subscribed to the bodybuilding philosophy of training your weak points first, then train other muscles. I learned in powerlifting, this did not work. Why? Because the muscles that are the most important in the lift should be trained first, regardless of weak points.
Suppose a lifter analyzed his weak points for the bench press and decided that his back was fairly weak relatively compared to his chest, shoulders and triceps. He decides to train his back before his triceps. His back may improve in strength and size over time, but then he now has to train triceps after heavy rowing movements and increased fatigue. Will this lifter benefit from this type of training? Of course he will! Strengthening weak points will help. It’s my opinion, though, that he would improve faster by training his triceps first and his back second. The muscles that are prioritized first (by you, and that’s the key), should be trained first and then the following muscles trained in descending order of importance.
All of us as competitors may disagree on what muscles are the most important in each lift. That’s the beauty of competition and individualized training. Each of us knows our own body’s responses to training better than anyone else. So the final priority of muscle groups rests on your shoulders. Whatever you decide your priority muscles are, do all of your training intensely and with purpose. Without those two things, the priorities don’t matter.
