Lateral Strength: Muscle Training Twists & Turns

You probably realize the importance of maintaining proportionate strength among various muscle groups. It’s common knowledge that if you let your hamstrings fall behind your quads, you’ll have problems in the form of strains or pulled muscles. The same deal applies to the muscles that make up the upper portion of the chest and those in the top of the back. Understanding the traps’ relationship to the pecs and deltoids helps you lay out a program that produces results and limits the risk of injury. Additionally, you need balance between your upper and lower body if you want to keep making strength gains.

These facts are generally acknowledged and applied to programs. When people ask me to review a routine, however, I find they overlook working some muscles that are extremely critical for success in their chosen sport. Some muscles are completely neglected, and others just aren’t getting enough direct work.

The muscle groups I’m referring to are the ones that form the lateral parts of the body. They’re essential to athletes because they’re responsible for stabilizing the body both at rest and in motion – in other words, balance. They’re also needed for turning the trunk and lower body dynamically. Of course, some sports use those groups more than others, but nearly every athletic activity you can imagine uses them to some degree.

Consider the wrestler trying to twist out of a pin, the tennis player blasting into a serve, the swimmer rotating from side to side during the backstroke or freestyle, the basketball player whirling to make or block a shot, the violent motion of a pitcher or batter in baseball, the hockey player releasing a slap shot, the pole vaulter turning at the precise moment to glide over the crossbar – and on and on and so forth.

No group of athletes relies on these lateral muscles as much as throwers in the field events: shot put, discus, javelin and hammer. I was reminded of that when I took part in a thrower’s clinic for High School athletes and coaches at Newport Harbor High School in Newport Beach, California. It was the brainchild of Tony Ciarelli and Erik Johnson. My function was to instruct the young athletes on some basics of strength training.

The main reason I agreed to make the long trip across country and put up with the miseries of flying – other than to take a break from the freezing temperatures in Maryland – was to spend time with two of my favorite people, Tony and Stephanie Ciarelli. We go back to when I was the strength coach at the University of Hawaii. Tony was a javelin thrower. Stephanie was neither a student nor an athlete, but she tagged along with Tony to the weight room and announced that she wanted me to train her. Just what I needed – another person to train. I already had more than 150 to deal with in a variety of sports, and without the benefit of any assistants. Plus, the room was small, with only one pulling and squatting station.

I figured that if I gave her no quarter, she’d quit, so she got exactly the same treatment as the men. She took her turn in the squat rack along with the athletes handling 400-plus pounds. She had to unload the weights, reload for her set, and spot while waiting for her next turn. The more I abused her, the more determined she became. She never begged off any exercise I gave her, and she never missed a workout. So she was christened Herculette, and it proved to be a very apt nickname. Currently she’s the strength coach at Newport Harbor High School and is the head coach for the Women’s Junior Olympic Weightlifting team, which went to Prague in June.

Besides getting to visit with Herc and Tony, I got to meet some of the top discus throwers and shot-putters in the country. Those were the only two events on the agenda; javelin and hammer throw aren’t up for scholastic competition. I also had the pleasure of hanging out with two Olympic gold medalists: Mac Wilkins, discus in ’76, and Stacy Dragila, pole vault, ’00. Mac was there to instruct. Stacy came to party with friends and did an admirable job of being the belle of the ball.

The instructors put on a throwing exhibition, and I got to study their technique. I made sure to ask them all about their strength training programs because I wanted to find out if they were stronger than some of the throwers I had trained with: Gary Gubner, Al Feuerbach, Terry Albritton, Al Oerter, Harold Connolly, Ken Patera and Bruce Wilhelm. From what they told me, I determined that they had ample strength in all the basic lifts – back and front squats, power cleans, deadlifts, flat and incline benches. That wasn’t a problem as far as I could tell.

So, I wondered, why weren’t they throwing farther? The only flaw I noticed was that some of them didn’t seem to move across the ring very quickly. Since there were so many things going on, I forgot all about it until I was traveling home. Then it dawned on me that I’d dealt with a similar situation before, in my first year at John Hopkins. One of the first athletes to adopt my program was Glen Saban, a discus thrower and shot putter. The track program at Hopkins was more of an afterthought than a serious sports endeavor, and the coach was an assistant football coach who knew very little about the individual events. It was simply a way to make a few extra bucks – a necessary move because the athletic department is stingy with money for its coaches.

That meant Glen didn’t have the advantage of any technical advice for his two throwing events. He did for his lifting, though, and he made great progress in the weight room, becoming the first Hopkins athlete to back-squat 500 pounds. His other lifts all improved as well, but he wasn’t throwing either the discus or the shot any farther – at least not as far as he should, given his gains in strength. It seemed to me that even if he didn’t refine his technique, his added strength should be enough to make him add distance to his throws.

Terry Albritton had been training with me when he set a world record in the shot with a 71’ 8½” effort in 1976. Although I was no expert, I decided I knew more about throwing form than the assistant football coach. I watched Glen at a couple of practice sessions, looking for weak areas. I was sure there had to be some. Otherwise he’d be making more progress. His initial move was strong and his finish powerful, but he was moving through the middle too slowly. He wasn’t conveying his newfound hip, leg, back and shoulder strength into the shot or discus.

In any sport a form flaw can often be traced to the fact that some muscle group or groups that are very directly involved in the execution of the event aren’t as strong as they need to be. Once the muscles are strengthened, form improves, and gains start coming quickly.

I came up with a routine of specialized exercises for the muscles that are responsible for turning the body. There are quite a few – many more than people think until they examine the body from top to bottom. Glen’s lateral deltoids, lats, obliques, transverse abdominals, adductors and calves were the muscles I wanted him to strengthen.

Here are the exercises that I included in his routine for the various muscles, plus pointers on form.

Lateral Deltoids: lateral raises with dumbells. Try to keep your arms straight throughout the movement, as opposed to bending your elbows. Start with the dumbells against your thighs, palms facing inward. Extend your arms up and out until the weights are parallel to the floor. Resist gravity at the top, then lower the weights in a controlled manner. Do each rep in a smooth, rhythmic fashion. In other words, don’t just jerk the dumbells up and down. That’s much less productive and can be stressful to your shoulders and elbows.

Stay with light weights until you master the technique – which shouldn’t take long, since it’s a simple movement – and do 3 sets of 15-20 reps. Once you feel confident in your form, stagger the weights upward for 4 sets of 10-12 reps. It all has great carryover value for the other exercises in your routine that involve your shoulders.

The single best exercise for strengthening the lats is wide, or snatch grip, high pulls. You can use much more weight on the high pull than on any lat exercise performed in a machine, and the movement, out of necessity, has to be done dynamically, which brings many smaller groups into play. Just look at the lat development of some of the best Olympic weightlifters. They seem able to glide from tall buildings. Their wide, powerful lats are the result of all the wide grip pulls they do to improve their snatches.

Use straps. They help you hold onto the bar when the poundages get really heavy, and they allow you to concentrate fully on your form. Most Olympic bars have a score on each end of the bar, about six inches in from the collars. Wrap your ring fingers around them. Your feet should be shoulder width apart and your toes straight ahead. Pull the bar in close so that it’s snug around your shins. Flatten your back and make sure your front deltoids are out ahead of the bar.

The high pull is, in effect, a deadlift followed by a shrug, but the two movements must flow together. There shouldn’t be any hitching through the middle, for that disrupts the continuity and has a negative effect on how high you elevate the bar. The higher you pull the weights, the greater the results – and you can never pull the bar too high. If the lighter warmup sets soar over your head, all the better.

Break the bar off the floor in a controlled manner. Don’t try to jerk it upward using your arms. It must start close to your body and stay close throughout the lift. Once the bar passes your knees, drive your hips forward forcefully, and immediately shrug your traps. Then and only then do your bend your elbows. At that point, you should be high on your toes, your body vertical, with your elbows up and out.

Don’t let the bar crash back to the floor. Rather, lower it to your waist, pause, and then set it on the floor. That will enable you to maintain a flat back on both the up and down parts of the lift. Plus, the deliberate lowering of the bar helps build even more strength in the lats.

The most frequent form mistakes are rounding the back, hitching through the middle, bending the arms before contracting the traps, and turning the elbows down and back instead of up and out. Learning to coordinate all of these steps takes practice, so don’t get discouraged if you fail to achieve perfect form right away. The bar should move upward like a whip, slowly at first, picking up speed through the middle and turning into a blur at the top. When you hit everything right, the bar will jump upwards, seemingly on its own.

While learning how to high pull, do 5 sets of 5, and stay with moderate weights so you can focus on the form points. After you get the feel of what you are trying to accomplish, do a couple of sets of 5’s as warmups. Then go to triples. That will let you pay more attention to technique as well as handle more weight. More weight equals greater strength.

The wide grip high pull is your primary lat exercise, but for more work on that group wide grip chins and lat pulls on a machine are excellent auxiliary movement. Be sure to do both of them to the front and not behind the neck. As I’ve stated before, the shoulder girdle isn’t designed to deal with resistance behind the head. It’s more productive to chin and pull to the front anyway; why tempt fate?

Now we move to two groups that I consider extremely important for lateral strength: obliques and transverse abdominus, the two groups most overlooked in the process of strengthening the lateral muscles. Most people figure that if they’re working their abs regularly, they’re taking care of their obliques and transverse abs. I doubt it, for both require specific movements, and aren’t worked in conventional ab routines, which usually consist of crunches, situps, and leg raises.

First the obliques, which frame the midsection. Hold a stick or light bar overhead. Lean as far as you can to one side, come back upright, and do the same motion to the other side. How many reps you do depends on how much weight you’re holding above your head. With a stick you need to do 150-200 reps. They do take time and are quite boring; do them apart from your workout, such as while you’re watching the news on TV. You can do them every day.

Some prefer to use dumbells for this movement, and they can be effective. There is a drawback, however. The heavier weight builds muscle, but it tends to thicken the obliques and make the midsection look chunky. If you use the higher reps and lighter resistance you can strengthen your obliques, and they’ll stay trim. Also, bending from side to side with a bar or stick overhead helps you get a greater stretch than when dumbells are used. How to decide? Do ultra-high reps with one method, wait a day or two, and then try the other. The one that makes you sorest is the best for you.

In my opinion, the best way to improve the explosive turning of the trunk is to attack the transverse abs. Because they seldom receive special attention, they’ll respond quickly. I use several different exercises for them. One is to place a bar behind your neck and, while standing or seated, twist from side to side. Another is to hold either an Olympic bar or a light standard bar straight out in front of your body, then twist from side to side. For the last one you also use an Olympic bar, but you hold it vertically with one end planted on the floor. Grip the bar in front of your face with your right hand on top. Tip and turn the bar as far to your right side as you can, then return to the starting position and do it again and again, until you feel your transverse abs on that side are tired. Now reverse the position of your hands, and do the same movement to your left side. Do three sets of as many of these as you can handle, and see if your sides are sore the following day. If they aren’t, do even more. The number of sets and reps for the two twisting exercises depends on how strong your transverse abs are to start with. Keep running the reps until you feel the muscle fatigue, and you’ll know you’re on the right track.

Like the side-to-side bends for the obliques, these can all be done on your non-training days. That way you won’t be tempted to cut back on the reps or hurry through them.

Although the leg abductors play an important role in turning and stabilizing the body, they receive sufficient work in most programs. On the other hand, it’s fairly common for the adductors to be out of proportion, strength-wise, to the outer leg muscles.

I’m a huge fan of the adductor machine. Within only a few weeks athletes can bring their lagging adductors up to par by doing 2 sets of 20, three times a week.

Problem is, those machines aren’t readily available. There wasn’t one at Hopkins, so I had Glen do very wide stance back squats. I put them in his routine as backoff sets of 10 on his medium and heavy day, and 5 sets of 5 on his light days. They hit the adductors very directly, but only if you go really deep, way below parallel. Staying higher isn’t nearly as effective.

We did have an apparatus in the training room that I put to use: the slide used by speed skaters. It hits the abductors and adductors specifically, and because it’s a low-stress movement you can do it a lot. Glen used it at the end of every workout. The slide is very demanding; short bouts are in order.

The final groups to consider are the calves – often overlooked because coaches and athletes believe they’re getting all the work they need from the other exercises in their program, such as power cleans, high pulls, shrugs, jerks and push presses. But the larger of the two muscles that make up the calf – the gastrocnemius – carries the bulk of the burden on those lifts. Its smaller partner, the soleus, isn’t nearly as involved in most exercises – or other athletic activities, for that matter, since it contracts fully only when you bend your knees. That’s because the soleus originates below the knee at the posterior surfaces of the tibia and fibula, the two bones of the lower leg.

Some discount the soleus, contending that if the gastrocnemius is strong, all is well. Not so. The soleus must be proportionately as strong as the gastrocnemius, creating a functional unit known as the triceps surae. Together, they assist in the plantar flexing of the foot – that is, pushing the toes down forcefully. Both help keep the ankles strong and steady, whether you’re standing or in motion. In short, the calves are critical to balance, and the act of turning dynamically requires a high degree of balance.

So your program should include both standing and seated calf raises. Keep the reps high – 30’s – and the last 10 should bring tears to your eyes. The calves won’t respond to comfortable workouts; they have to be abused. Do no fewer than three sets. You can mix the variations at the same session or do them on alternate days. Be sure to stretch your calves after each set. Don’t wait until you’ve finished. That will lower the risk of injury and make the next set easier.

Soon after Glen started doing the lateral strength exercises, his distances improved – not dramatically, since he worked them for less than a month. Then track season ended, and he graduated. Yet I was certain that the idea had merit, and the following year I got to put it to a true test.

Sylke Knuppel was one of the best athletes I ever trained at Hopkins. By the time she ended her basketball career, she owned nearly all of the school records in the sport. When she told me she planned on throwing the javelin in the spring, I put her on the lateral exercises right away. At her first meet she threw 125 feet. At her final one she’d improved to a staggering 190 feet and was ranked sixth in the nation, all without the benefit of technical coaching. What she learned, she picked up watching the other throwers. I encouraged her to relocate to Southern California and hook up with one of the many excellent throwing coaches there, but she wasn’t that interested. It was just a hobby.

Lateral strength and balance are critical to success in any sport as in almost every aspect of everyday life. Even though you may not feel that you need to do any of them, keep them in mind in case you come across someone who does.