Doing Olympic lifts and martial arts has taught me that real strength comes from the hip and the back. When doing olympic lifting the strength, hold and the ability all come from the strength of the back taking the load, but the power comes from the transfer of the hip shooting the bar up and away. In martial arts the strength comes from the position of the feet and spine being stable with the core and the power comes from sparking the hips dynamically which then ends in the strike of the arm or leg… usually.

So what’s this got to do with anything if your not into olympic lifting or martial arts. well, everything really, because no matter what style of training your into whether it’s dance, rock climbing or bodybuilding, the information shouts out two clear points as strength and power are essential to any skill set including being a healthy mother, gardener, builder or office worker.

  • If you want to be physically strong and healthy work your back
  • If you want to be physically strong and healthy work your glutes

So what that means is to simply find one exercise for each of those body parts that works effectively for the person you want to train, ok, everyone has different challenges in posture, strength and flexibility and injury history, but there are so many movements all you need is TWO good movement you can work and progress in.

A lot of my new clients gel well with the hex bar deadlifts for spinal strength and strong feet, and the abductor machine is another exercise that shapes glutes quickly and gets muscles switching on, so for beginners I would start on those two as long as they can move properly into these positions with correct form.

Intermediate people would advance to deadlifts and back squats.

Advanced would do snatch and high pulls.

These are only two exercises as in a bare minimum towards someones program, you could easily add an extra 3-4 exercises on each body part in sync to the skill set you or a client is at.