Goatbag

One of my new favorites, this is the perfect exercise for grooving on the movement I like to call "hinging." Push your butt back and keep pushing back until your knees have to bend so you can push your butt back even more. Keep a flat back and only let your face come down because you have to keep pushing your butt back. Those things on the back of your legs are called "hamstrings." Use a stick at first (pictured) so you can see that your back is flat. And do it in front of a wall so you can keep touching the wall with your butt, stepping forward a little, then repeating. The goal is to keep touching the wall, not to get low. "Hinging" is a back-and-forth motion, not an up-and-down motion. Once you're comfortable, hold a weight on your chest, squeeze your shoulder blades together and prepare to walk funny tomorrow.

Coach Stevo's Top Tips

• Keep repeating, "Butt back," over and over.
• Squeeze your shoulder blades together the entire time.
• Don't be afraid to put your torso between your legs if your butt can go back that far.

Gulbis Glute Twists

This is a weird exercise, but I don't know any others that light up my glutes like "the Gulbis." If you do not have properly firing glutes, you might not feel these at all and insist that I am crazy. Bret Contreras (inventor, but bad at naming stuff) is particularly verbose in his explanation, but if I had to summarize in a single queue, it would be, "squeeze the cheek closest to the band and bring your hips around fast and hard like a golf swing."

Coach Stevo's Top Tips

• Leg closest to the band is further back.
• Pivot at the hips. This is not an oblique exercise.
• Squeeze the glute and hold for a few seconds.
• Drive the hip around and down. Like a golf swing.

Bret Contreras Demonstrates

Step Up

An introduction into unsupported, single-leg work, the step up is also a life-long skill you want to be able to do well when your 90. Focus just as hard on the lowering as the raising and make sure you bring your hips all the way through at the top. Keep the angle of your torso identical to the angle of your shin. And if this is too easy, work on making the step higher (increasing the range-of-motion) before you work on adding weight.

Coach Stevo's Top Tips

• Engage your core.
• Squeeze your butt and hip flexor at the same time to brace the pelvis.
• Don't drop; pull yourself down.

Lean-Fall-Run

Who has the best booties? Sprinters. Well, sprinters and pole vaulters. The "lean-fall-run" drill is your introduction to sprinting. The two things to remember are driving hard off your initial foot fall (power to the ground is speed) and turning over your feet as quickly as possible while you maintain the lean angle. Go for 5 steps and switch feet each time.

Coach Stevo's Top Tips

• Think, "Lean...Fall... DRIVE! 2,3,4,5, STOP!"
• Maintain your angle for the full 5 steps.

Deadlift

The deadlift is perhaps the most misunderstood movement in the trainer's arsenal. Most fear it, some avoid it, and nearly everyone does it wrong. But it is the quintessential "hinge" movement and there are few exercises that build more raw strength not mention build all the muscles that make you hotter (The woman in the picture is over 50 years old). It's also one of the basic human movements that you will need until the day you die (anytime you pick up something off the floor you are deadlifting). I have videos here of PhDs doing it with dumbbells, models doing it with kettlebells, and a 14 year old girl doing it with an old-school barbell. And in case you want to nerd out, there's Bret Contreras breaking the move down for a full 7 minutes.

Coach Stevo's Top Tips

• Squeeze your shoulder blades together and pack your shoulder before you touch the bar.
• Push your butt way back and load the hamstrings.
• Lock your core.
• Hinge at the hips.
• Lift with your hamstrings and glutes, stabilize with your upper back.
• As soon as the weight crests your knees, drive your hips forward HARD.

Dumbbells (PhD)

Kettlebells (Model)

Barbell (14 year-old girl)

Complete Form Breakdown