We made up the title of this drill because the actual description is incredibly long. However, it’s still accurate because it really is a great mobility drill.
What we’ll go over in today’s video is a front-foot-elevated split squat paired with a behind-the-neck overhead press.
The goal of this mobility drill is to improve overall hip and shoulder mobility. More specifically, the focus of this drill is to improve hip flexion on the front leg, hip extension on the rear leg, thoracic extension and shoulder flexion all at the same time.
Tips
It’s important to note that the lumbar spine should be neutral and the rib cage should be depressed for the duration of this exercise.
Neutral lumbar spine and depressed rib cage.
Progressions
There are several ways to progress this exercise. You can increase the height of elevation on the front foot, and/or slowly increase extension on the back leg.
To open up your shoulders and your thoracic spine a bit more, you can narrow up your grip on the PVC pipe. Be sure to drive your shoulder blades back and down when performing the overhead press. This should keep you from putting to much stress on the shoulder capsule.
Check out the video below:
Takeaways
This drill is excellent for addressing mobility restrictions found in the deep squat, lunge or split squat patterns as well as exercises that require you to load a weight overhead.
As part of your movement prep, I recommend doing 2×10 slow presses with each leg out front. The goal is to slowly increase range of motion over time, never force it.
If you are a coach working with an athlete that has some mobility problems in general, this is a great mobility exercise to implement as active recovery. Instead of having your athlete rest between sets, take that recovery time to improve overall movement quality with mobility drills like the front-foot-elevated split squat paired with a behind-the-neck overhead press.
A set of 3-5 reps per side is a great place to start when using this drill as active recovery.
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