POWERED BY:

Here’s everything you can look forward to in today’s edition:

• Get explosive with 5 unusual exercises

• Use your kettlebell to power your newer, stronger glutes

• Agility exercises for the aspiring strength athlete

Exercise Selection

‘Cause You’re TNT

For many of us, our maximum strength is only really useful if it can also increase our maximum power during athletic endeavors. If your in-gym lifting routine isn't helping you run faster, jump higher, or bring all of your groceries inside in one trip, it's not really that beneficial, is it?

So why not just train that explosive power separately to make the most of your training? Whether you care about winning a trophy or not, these five less-heralded exercises will help you be more explosive in everything you do.

You don’t need to wade through the vagaries of strength-speed or speed-strength to do some simple power work, either. (For our purposes, power means fast strength.) Moving some lighter weight around as fast as possible is a really good place to start. 

Simple tools like kettlebells, battle ropes, or even your own body weight can help propel you through the cosmos like a comet. Light that fire in your tail and start your journey by clicking below.

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Workouts

Butts by Kettlebells

A powerful backside doesn’t just look good in a pair of painted-on jeans; it’s essential for every kind of strength and performance metric.

When the barbells can’t help you get over your glute training hump, turn to the collection of kettlebells you thought were just for cardio classes. Kettlebells contain a heaping pile of glute-strengthening potential hidden within their ball-and-handle design, and the three workouts below will help you get the most out of kicking your own ass.

Nobody will ever knock barbell training, but you can't always go heavy. Using the relatively lighter load of a kettlebell can help build up the muscles of the butt without the training wear and tear. You'll also find yourself getting into unfamiliar positions (like with the Turkish get-up) or harnessing your explosive power with swings. Think of this type of kettlebell training as a new vantage point on your (perhaps stale) strength routine.

Agility

Move Through All Space and Time

Ok, doing some plyo jumps might not give you the ability to bounce around alternate realities battling a series of increasingly ineffectual villains, but they darn sure might help you get around better in this, our very own corporeal world.

Whether you’re a competitive athlete or just a participant in the game of life, having more fluidity of movement is probably something you could use (maybe even more than an extra half-inch on your biceps). Here, we’ve got 10 simple movements to get your feet moving faster and your body working within its dimensions more fully.

Turning to field sports for inspiration, these drills require a little bit of open space and some sort of cone or cone replacement device. By taking the best the world of track and athletics has to offer, you can integrate these simple drills into your warm-up or workout to improve your footwork.

Take some time to work on being a complete athlete, whether you paint on a number or just need a little help sliding through closing subway doors.

Big Lifts

We’re Very Impressed

There’s strength, and then there’s this 405-pound strict press from @alvin_lsu. Talk about a guy who can get all the groceries inside in one trip.

You probably won’t be pressing 405 pounds any time soon, but you can give your strength a bit of a boost by avoiding these pressing mistakes.

Quick Hits

🛷 Push It: There is sometimes a simple way to judge how useful an exercise is —  just note on a scale of 1-10 how much it sucks to do it, and that number will correspond to how effective it probably is on the same scale. Sled pushes fit this to a T. Given the absolute horror you have to embrace by doing them, it should be no surprise that they might actually be the ultimate in leg-building technology.

💪 Carry This: Weight vests are the ultimate tool for casually adding more workouts to your week. Just throw on a few extra pounds and walk around the neighborhood. These six weighted vests are the perfect addition to your life, whether living the urban dream, casually succeeding in the suburbs, or carving out a niche somewhere in the backcountry.

🤖 Machines in Motion: Around 12,000 flesh-and-blood runners and 21 bipedal robots recently took part in a half-marathon in Beijing. According to WIRED, the fastest robot, Tiangong Ultra, “finished the race in 2 hours and 40 minutes after assistants changed its batteries three times and it fell down once.” Relatable.

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