Hanging Toes to Bar

Hanging Toes to Bar

Trunk: Flexion
Challenge
Level: 9
Target Action: Flexion
Trunk
Kit: Body Weight
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This exercise demands strength and control of the entire anterior chain of muscles from hands and wrists all the way to toes. Toes to bar is exercise commonly seen in gymnastics conditioning circuits and also popular in Crossfit workouts but in this training system we chase the benefits of this exercise for improving segmental flexion of the lumbar spine and achieving deep posterior tilting of the pelvis.

Strict Toes to Bar require straightened knees and a complete, whole body flexion pattern from dead hang to develop strength through the entire anterior chain of muscles including latissimus dorsi, rectus abdominins, internal obliques and the hip flexor group of illiopsoas and rectus femoris.

Segmental lumbar flexion is important in optimising hip flexion motion but it is arguably most important for overhead athletes such as the Javelin. In the split seconds following Javelin release we see the entire torso flex as energy is evenly dissipated across the posterior chain. An inability to flex the spine dissipates energy across smaller spans of muscles. While the muscle actions are vastly different between throwing and Toes to Bar, think of it more as retraining or recapturing full posterior tilt the pelvis which requires high levels of muscle strength and good mobility between lumbar vertebrae.

Trunk Flexion The vast majority of our S&C work is (quite rightly) done in a ‘braced neutral’ position when under load. As a result athletes often resort to moving their lumbar spine as a single block. The problem is that sports skills often require a pelvis that is mobile and a lumbar spine which can move and adjust. Lumbar Flexion focuses on segmental mobility of the lumbar spine with a strong posterior tilt of the pelvis and most importantly developing the strength to control that mobility and coordination.
The Challenge Theme is where Low Constraints and Exercise Intensity converge to test dynamic postural control under maximal loads. Here we use an array of movement tasks to actually encourage movement skills to crumble and ask athletes to defend optimal coordination using intense load or speed. Excelling in the Challenge Theme demonstrates an extremely trainable athlete across the 14 Exercise Categories. Every % increase in strength with these techniques demonstrates an increase in robustness and readiness to perform high quality movement at ever higher standards of performance.

PROGRESSION-REGRESSION LADDER

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