The HIIT Bible by Steve Barrett

Author:Steve Barrett
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781472932181
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2017-02-17T16:00:00+00:00

Move: Bangbang Firing

This truly explosive move massively enhances agilty, balance and body core – and works every part of the body for impressive results.

The brief

Stand in a ‘braced’ position, which means that your stance is so strong and grounded that if someone were to run into you they would canon off you and you’d remain upright. Stand with your feet wide apart, knees slightly bent and leaning slightly forwards. Bend your elbows and raise your hands, shoulder-width apart, to chest height with your palms facing downwards.

Jump up in the air and propel yourself so that you rotate 180 degrees, resisting the urge to use your hand and arms to help you twist.

Instantly jump back the other way to your starting position, thus avoiding doing a full 360 degrees and making yourself dizzy. Repeat for 30 seconds.

The detail

This move was taught to me by a physiotherapist in the USA who was working with a 2.21m- (7ft 3in-) tall basketball player with a weak core. The player’s job was to be fast and agile for just a few seconds at a time – no mean feat when you weigh more than 136kg (300lb) since quickly pivoting that amount of weight isn’t an option because he just stuck to the ground. In response to this problem, the jump-turn ‘firing’ move was born.

It’s extremely hard not to use your arms when performing this move, but you must resist the temptation since doing so helps to build up momentum and thus reduces the workload for the core. The ‘secret’ is to momentarily turn in the ‘wrong’ direction, as if to wind up your torso ready for action (it’s debatable whether this is the torsion or recoil phase of the move once you get past the first repetition, since all the phases will blend into each other). It is also important to exhale when you initiate the rotation by turning the ‘wrong’ way; if you don’t, you’ll have so much intra-abdominal pressure that your torso won’t be ‘fluid’ enough to let the upper and lower body disassociate from each other.

What goes on with your hips, knees and feet is also critical for this move. Imagine that you have an elastic band wrapped around your ankles and at knee height, both of which have to be kept stretched tight. If either band becomes loose then you haven’t kept your knees and feet wide enough apart during the jump or landed phase of this move. This isn’t just a hypothetical suggestion, either: if you have a set of thera-bands or resistance tubes then you can wrap them around your ankles and knees and instantly intensify the manoeuvre by ensuring that they stay taunt throughout the jump, rotation and landing stages.

The payback

Your heart rate will go sky high during this exercise, making it one of the kings of all HIIT moves, although the balance, coordination and muscle-recruitment gains are equally impressive. This is one of those exercises that you have to do for yourself to be able to understand

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