Holistic Highlight #004
Box jump variations, The Holidays are here, Misogi
Hello everyone! Welcome back to Holistic Highlight! I am writing this post Thanksgiving and a couple pounds heavier as I’m sure most of us are.
Some quick housekeeping and announcements to go over.
First, I am excited to announce the release of one of my new strength and conditioning programs dubbed, Resilience. It is a 9 week program catered towards those with a busy schedule and will be available available via the TrainHeroic app on the Bergman Performance store front. At the end of this article there is a link and a code for 50% off the program.
I have a bunch of programs I will be releasing soon and you will be first to hear about them through this newsletter.
I have had a lot of positive feedback on the newsletter so far and am looking forward to growing it and making it better for you all!
Let’s get to it
Our topics of discussion are the following.
My top 3 box jump variations
The Holidays are here
What is a Misogi, and why should you plan one?
My top 3 box jump variations
Jumps should be a staple in any programming if you are trying to increase lower body power and explosiveness.
Box Jumps are a great option as there are numerous variations and they reduce the amount of force absorbed upon landing versus landing on the ground. Now that isn’t to say force absorption is a bad thing or shouldn’t be included in programming, but if you are looking for ways to reduce it, box jumps are a great option.
What is great is there are many ways to mix up the traditional box jump to work on various movements, starts, and landings. My 3 go to variations are the following.
Seated Box Jumps
Depth Jumps and Drop Jumps
2 to 1 and Single Leg Box Jumps
Seated Box Jumps
Seated box jumps are as they sound, you start seated on the edge of a bench or box that has your hips level or slightly below your knees. Start by rocking your weight back off your feet then driving your feet into the ground and jumping as high as you can to the box.
I love these for a couple reasons. First is they will help you develop power out of the bottom of a squat. Without the countermovement from squatting down, you have to be able to develop force at a high rate in order to overcome gravity from a static position. Second is that they are great for helping develop power in the deadlift. Both movements start from a static position without the initial countermovement like a squat.
For these reasons, I like writing supersets in my programs with this jump paired with either conventional or trap bar deadlifts, or with any squat variation. You can also program them prior to your main strength movement to get your central nervous system primed and firing on all cylinders.
Depth Jumps
Depth Jumps are mainly focused on max power output and help develop the stretch shortening cycle of the muscle in order to produce force more rapidly. This occurs when you drop off the box and absorb the force of the landing, the force turns into elastic energy and goes through a transition phase known as amortization before explosively propelling you off the ground.
Depth jumps enhance your ability to store elastic energy and transfer it into a muscle contraction, which will in turn make you faster and more explosive. This is a more advanced progression of a box jump and therefore should be later on in an athletes plyometric progression.
2 to 1 and Single Leg Box Jumps
These two types of jumps are in the same progression for me as a coach leading up to the single leg box jump.
2 to 1 jumps refer to jumping off both feet and landing on 1 foot on top of the box. These are great for working on single leg stability and force absorption. The main focus should be landing with your knee in line with your foot and your hip stacked over your knee. Typically I will include these in a day where the main squat movement in unilateral (Single leg) in nature.
Single leg box jumps are as they sound, jumping off one leg and landing on either the same leg or opposite leg. These are great for working on force production in each individual leg and helping alleviate any muscular imbalances one may have. I typically like including these in days where I am also sprinting, or performing a single leg squat pattern to work on both strength and power in the same movement pattern.
The holidays are here
The holidays are here! Everyone knows what that means. Seeing family and hoping to not get into any arguments over politics and football, holiday shopping, and of course, the food. We are coming off of thanksgiving and like everyone, I engulfed more food than I should.
I was asked a question by one of my athletes the other day though that I laughed at. He is trying to lose body fat and getting ready for a football camp coming up in order to impress coaches and scouts in attendance. He asked me during one of his sessions, “What should my strategy be for Thanksgiving? Should I eat only turkey?”
I had to refrain from shaking my head and simply said “No man, its Thanksgiving, eat whatever you want”.
Now, I understand where he was coming from, he has a goal in mind, he wants to work towards that goal and not deviate, I love that level of dedication and determination from an athlete. However, when it comes to the holidays, Thanksgiving specifically, one day isn’t going to ruin his progress.
When it comes to wanting to lose body fat, build muscle, get stronger, its never about one day of good decisions, but rather, stacking days of good decisions and developing consistency, compounding those good decisions one day after another. So one day of enjoying the holiday, not being that guy who doesn’t eat like everyone else, isn’t going to ruin his progress, he was back on his regiment the next day, stacking his daily wins.
So when it comes to thanksgiving or christmas, there are alot of sweets and the big meals that we will be subject to, but realize that one day isn’t going to hurt your progress, stay consistent working out, make the majority of your food decisions whole foods, and enjoy the holidays as they only come around once a year.
Misogi: What it is and why should you plan one?
Before I go deeper into this topic, I want to say I first learned about Misogi from arguably my favorite book, The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter.
A Misogi is a purifying ritual the Japanese invented. It generally involves making the pilgrimage to an icy waterfall. Standing underneath the cold water symbolizes intense purification.
While the Western way of looking at Misogi is best described by Jesse Itzler:
“The notion around the misogi is, you do something so hard 1 time a year, that has an impact on the other 364 days of the year.”
You are mean’t to take on challenges that radically expand your perspective of what is possible and what you are capable of. The catch is that there are two rules.
You have to have at best, a 50% chance of success
Don’t die, it shouldn’t kill you
Marcus Elliot describes it as “This is about testing your abilities in a foreign environment,” he says. “The more blind, the more bold and adventurous the effort.” There’s no entry fee. No spectators. “It’s not a ride at Disneyland or a Tough Mudder,” he says. “It’s a personal quest designed by you. And it’s really fucking hard. You have a 50 percent chance of success, at best.” Regardless of the outcome—the thinking goes—you’ll realize your potential.
50% Chance of success and don’t die, why the hell should I do that?
Growth only happens outside your comfort zone, to grow as a person you must push your boundaries to see what you are truly capable of. Being average, living in the status quo, scares the shit out of me. I never want to be equated or compared to what is considered normal these days. Normal has become a sedentary individual who is reliant on some kind of medication or has some kind of metabolic disorder, who only works to get by and survive, rather than live and thrive.
Planning and subjecting yourself to a misogi will open up your perspective and make the tasks in your day to day life seem easy, will give you the mindset that you can in fact do more. Last year I went out to scale multiple 14er’s in Colorado with a friend of mine. While I didn’t scale multiple peaks, I scaled my first ever 14er, something I never would of thought to seek out and accomplish and never knew I was capable of. Now it has only put other physical tasks into perspective and really, nothing has compared to that experience.
So if you want to truly see what you are capable of, discover something new about yourself, and have a life changing memorable experience, join me in planning a misogi for this coming year.
See y’all next week.
Cory
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