Lower Body Moves For Upper Body Strength!!!!

About 11 years ago when I first got into physical fitness, I was in a tough-as-nails Muay Thai school doing countless punches, kicks, and conditioning drills 3 nights a week. One of the drills we were made to do was little hops on the balls of our feet. I think they called them bunny hops.

Anyway, while we were doing these, Rob (one of the instructors) would ask us “What do strong legs make?” and everyone would shout “STRONG BODIES!”

Later I would learn that everyone else was actually shouting “STRONG FIGHTERS”, but who cares, my response was every bit as valid.

Strong legs make strong bodies for two reasons:

-Your legs make up half your body.

If half your body is weak, sorry chum: you’re weak, too. I don’t care how big your bench press is (actually, no one does, while we’re on that topic). And I’m no math whizz, but I think we can all agree that 1 is bigger than ½

-Your legs propel you through space.

Obviously I’m not talking about outer space (although that’d be cool), but rather the space around you. Strong legs are crucial not just for being generally strong, but are also wildly useful in increasing your upper body strength as well.

• They generate lots of tension.

Because your legs contain piles of big, powerful muscles, the bigger and stronger they are, the more tension they can produce. And because tension = strength, more tension = more strength.

• They provide a ‘sturdy base’.

This is especially important for pressing exercises (even pushups) and it builds on #1. Anybody who has ever pressed knows that pressing while sitting down or kneeling will not allow you to put as much weight overhead as standing generally will. Because you can recruit the tension and stability that powerful legs provide, heavier weights will go up easier. The same is true for one-arm pushups. If you have jelly legs, you aren’t going anywhere.

• They increase muscle-building hormones.

This is probably the biggest unsung benefit, in my humble (but accurate) opinion. Working your legs hard releases muscle-building hormones that don’t just affect the legs, but also carries over into your upper body musculature as well. In times when I have been unable to train my upper body due to a tweak or injury, I’ve worked my legs hard and not only retained my upper body musculature, but I’ve maintained my strength as well.

So what are the best lower body moves for building upper body strength? There are 4.

• Front squats.

“The granddaddy of grinds” as my friend Geoff Neupert lovingly refers to them, the front squat builds not only ruthlessly powerful legs, but also powerfully connects your core, lats, and arms together as one solid block, which teaches you how to recruit them together toward other tasks as well.

• Kettlebell swings.

Swings teach you how to move explosively under load, and they teach you how to use your hips as the “engine” with your spine as the “transmission” for the power you generate. Being able to explosively contract all your muscles toward a single task is invaluable for all sorts of strength and athletic tasks.

• Lunges.

Woefully underappreciated, lunges help iron out strength imbalances between your right and left side, help increase your balance and coordination, strengthen the split stance (i.e. one leg in front of the other), and teach you how to move through space with strength, as opposed to just moving in place with strength (like the above two).

• Single leg deadlifts.

Similar to lunges, single leg deadlifts eliminate damaging imbalances between your left and right legs, build a crap ton of stability through your ankles, knees, and hips, bulletproof your hamstrings, carve powerful glutes, and strengthen your entire posterior chain (i.e. all the muscles you can’t see in the mirror). And anecdotally, I can definitely say that my sprinting improved measurably from doing these regularly.

These are but a few of the benefits of these staple lower body drills, but you get the picture.

Start adding these into your regular rotation of moves even just 1-2 times a week and watch as your body gets stronger, leaner, looks better, AND your upper body strength increases along with it. Good things happen when you transform your legs from spindly little sticks to pillars of power.

Have fun and happy training!

Aleks "The Hebrew Hammer" Salkin

alekssalkin.com

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