Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 314: The 13 Best Exercises for a STRONG Posterior Chain

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

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Hey, everybody, welcome in to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in this episode, I'm going to be outlining 13 of my favorite exercises for developing a strong, powerful and functional posterior chain. The posterior chain are the muscles on the back or posterior side of the body. Things like your traps, lats, rhomboids, glutes, hamstrings, calves, all of these muscles comprise the posterior chain. And a lot of the movement dysfunctions, pain, and immobility we struggle with as a species comes from having weak posterior chains. A lot of the injuries that we suffer come from having

weak posterior chains. So today's episode is all about what you should include in your training and activity to strengthen your posterior chain, to fortify your body against future injury. Hopefully we can never say with any degree of certainty that we're going to reduce the risk of injury. But one thing we can say for sure is when we have a balance between the anterior and posterior sides of the body, we have equilibrium and strength and capacity that we are setting ourselves up for success. And the posterior chain is one of those areas that tends to get neglected. So enjoy the episode. This episode is brought to you in special part, thanks to our awesome partners over at Ice Barrel. If you're like me, So, enjoy the episode. is sharp and I like to make sure that I'm doing what I can to maintain my long-term health. And cold water immersion is a phenomenal tool I use and have used for a while to help me do this.

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sessions a week. An ice barrel is the sleekest, best looking, cleanest, and most affordable way to do it reliably. You can head over to icebarrel.com slash Danny to take advantage of their 100% satisfaction guaranteed with again, a 30 day money back guarantee and save 125 bucks on your Ice Barrel using the promo code Danny. So again, icebarrel.com slash Danny your ice barrel using the promo code DANNY. So again, icebarrel.com slash DANNY and check out using the promo code DANNY to save $125. Before we get into things, I think it's important to just discuss, you need to have a foundation of strength across the entire body. And you need to try to include as many exercises as you can that contribute to overall fitness, stability, range of motion, strength, aerobic capacity, et cetera. No single podcast

is going to fix your fitness problems, even if you do have a weak posterior chain. This means training chest, even if you don't want to, despite it being an anterior chain muscle, doing cardio, even if you don't like it because your heart is still important, right? This is all inside the context of taking care of the entire body. And in doing this, it's important to acknowledge that we're probably going to incorporate a variety of different exercises to achieve a well-rounded physique and a well-rounded workout routine. And that the ones we go over today on their own, aren't enough to fix any singular problem. However, I do have 13 here for the posterior chain that I think you should do more of whether or not your physique focused strength focused, or you just want a body that moves a little better and functions a little better.

You can never go wrong with having a strong posterior chain. So the first and least, I'd say, surprising inclusion on this list are heavy deadlifts. So the deadlift is more of a hinge than it is a squat, which therefore makes it a hip dominant movement. And the muscles of the hip primarily are the glutes and the hamstrings. Of course, the quads play a role in flexing the hip, but the quads are not on the posterior chain or the posterior side of the body. The cool thing about deadlifts and the reason we start with them is because while they do primarily work the posterior chain, specifically the glutes, hamstrings, lats, and erectors, they do challenge the quads and the core and really help us integrate our anterior and posterior chain together. Now I'm specifically talking about

conventional or hex bar deadlifts here that are done with the goal of developing posterior chain strength. I'm not isolating in that I will talk about other deadlifts and other deadlift like patterns. I think it's important to do that, but specifically we're talking about using a hinge like the conventional deadlift or even a hex bar deadlift to go fairly heavy and develop posterior chain strength. I think that this is something power lififters, crossfitters really get right. A lot of athletes, of course, include deadlifts, hex bar deadlifts into their routine because having a well-developed hypertrophied posterior chain, just having a lot of muscle is great, but it's not enough at its face. It is a really good idea to get all of those posterior chain muscles capable of producing force together.

This would be intramuscular coordination, asking multiple muscles to get involved and come to the party and produce force. I'm not saying that all of your training needs to be about multiple muscles working together to produce force. Not a bad idea if you're an athlete, not a bad idea if you're a power lifter, probably a little bit of sub par or overkill for the general population lifter. Definitely not a great idea if you're a bodybuilder, a physique focused trainee, but it's always good to have a strong posterior chain. And I've yet to find a movement that has a higher ROI on developing this than a standard deadlift. The only real issue is it can be sometimes mildly tricky to teach, and it takes a little bit of time to master it so you can get to the point where you are lifting heavy. But it goes without saying,

a strong deadlift is a good idea for building the posterior chain. Now, moving on to point number two and really talking about, you know, the specific emphasis of growing muscle. I'd say that most people are fairly interested in growing their glutes for aesthetic reasons, or at least maintaining their size. And they wouldn't mind if the hamstrings came along for the ride. The problem is the conventional deadlift, the hex bar deadlift, while great at getting those two muscles to work together with other muscles, you know, the fatigue and the limiting factor typically is your grip, is your spinal erectors, is your ability to keep your core engaged

and, you know, protect your back. So when we look at movements for developing the muscle, your back. So when we look at movements for developing the muscle, not necessarily the strength along the posterior chain, I'm a pretty big fan of the Romanian deadlift, which mind you is a little bit different than the conventional deadlift. The Romanian deadlift is a pure hip hinge. It's not going to work your quads at all. Really not at all. It's going to work the glutes and the hamstrings. It's one where you're going to go a little lighter. You're going to focus more on the hinge. You're going to get tons of stretch into the hamstrings, get them lengthened, get them shortened. Same thing with the glutes. This is one that I really like for hypertrophy. I think it's great for supporting the traditional

deadlift, but we get a lot of gluten hamstring activation out of this. It's also a fantastic way to improve your hinging mechanics and help you develop an overall better pattern there. And we know that this one allows us to use less weight, so it can be a little easier on the lower back. Got to have RDLs in there. You can do these with dumbbells. You can do these in a B stance. You can do these with a barbell. You can even do these with a kettlebell. Tons of options. Okay. The last swing, the last exercise of the hinge group is the kettlebell swing. Now, the swing is just a fast deadlift, okay? It's just a speedy deadlift. It's a power deadlift. Now, here's what you've noticed. The first exercise was a heavy hinge. The second exercise was a hinge that we could do for a higher volume to develop muscle. The third exercise is a hinge

that's all about power and speed. That's the feature of the kettlebell swing that's different. We want to swing the bell fast because that allows us to generate snap and twitch through our hips. And that's really important for athleticism. Yes, you can definitely use the kettlebell to develop cardiovascular strength and just strength overall. It's a forceful, speedy, quick twitch posterior chain is great for athletics. It's great for sprinting, and it's just generally great for resilience. I'm a big fan of all three of these. These are my three favorite hinge patterns, and I think they make a really big difference. Let's go into a movement that involves kettlebells often, but it's one that I think really promotes extension. So this is the farmer's carry or the suitcase carry, any heavy loaded carry. So the challenge of doing this movement is maintaining an extended position and maintaining

your grip. The grip is not a component of the posterior chain. So let's focus instead on the component of extension or staying upright, not tilting, not leaning, not rounding forward as you carry one or two heavy loaded implements. The weighted carry is great because it develops grip, it develops core, but it promotes extension, extension, extension, which is something that many of us need more of when you think about just how often we sit and spend time in flexion, we're sitting and flexing when we're at the desk, we're sitting and flexing when we're in the car, we're sitting and flexing when we're gaming, we're sitting and flexing when we're on the phone, we're sitting and flexing when we're on the computer, we're sitting and flexing when we're on the couch, walking and extending

the way that you do when you use a loaded carry is a great way to kind of work back against some of those patterns that we spend too much time in. The fifth exercise on this list is the face pull. I'm a really big fan of the face pull for keeping the shoulders happy and strengthening some of the muscles that we use for posture. Yes, posture is dynamic and simply strengthening a muscle will not fix your posture, but a lot of people will benefit from strengthening their rhomboids, their rear deltoids, their upper back, and doing a little bit of work and a little bit of TLC for their shoulder before they get into pressing. And I'm a big fan of the face pull for this. This might be the most prescribed movement in my coaching practice because I think that we spend so much

time pressing, pressing, pressing, and very little time doing the kind of dirty work that is the, the kind of external rotating, um, small shoulder muscle work. And yes, rowing can include a lot of these muscles and we can do very heavy and it can offset pressing. And some people say to row twice as much as you push, that might get you there indirectly. But I really like the face pull because it helps you develop external rotation, helps you develop the rear delts, helps you develop the rhomboids, the lower traps, a lot of the muscles that we tend to neglect. You can't go very heavy on it. Technique is important. And this is one that works before any upper body training. It can be great before squatting. This is one that I would totally

recommend sprinkling in as we talk more about kind of the upper body and the posterior aspect of the upper body. Taking a break from this episode to tell you a little bit about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method. More specifically, our app-based training. We partnered with Train Heroic to bring app-based training to you using the best technology and best user interface possible. You can join either my Home Heroes team, or you can train from home with bands and dumbbells, or Elite Physique, which is a female bodybuilding-focused program where you can train at the gym with equipments designed specifically to help you develop strength, as well as the glutes, hamstrings, quads, and back.

I have more teams coming planned for a variety of different fitness levels. But what's cool about this is when you join these programs, you get programming that's updated every single week. The sets to do, the reps to do, exercise tutorials filmed by me with me and my team. So you'll get my exact coaching expertise as to how to perform the movement, whether you're training at home or you're training in the gym. And again, these teams are somewhat specific. So you'll find other members of those communities looking to pursue similar goals at similar fitness levels. You can chat, ask questions, upload form for form review, ask for substitutions. It's a really cool training

community and you can try it completely free for seven days. Just click the link in the podcast description below. Can't wait to see you in the core coaching collective, my app-based training community. Back to the show. Going back to the lower body, we're going to talk about machine hamstring work, specifically the seated and lying hamstring curls. Now, these two are different. The seated hamstring curl is very hard when the muscle's flexing. It gets harder as the muscle is shortening. The seated hamstring curl is more of a challenge when the hamstring is lengthened. So from the, like the first 50% of the movement is harder with the lying. The last 50% of the movement's harder. Suffice to say, you do both of these together. You'll really train your

hamstrings, but you'll train them not to be good at hip extension. The first three patterns we talked about were hip hinge, hip extension. The hamstring has two functions. The first is hip extension, but the second is knee functions. The first is hip extension, but the second is knee flexion. So bending the knee, just like you bend your arm on a bicep. Now, I understand that we're talking a lot early on about the lower body. That shouldn't surprise you. The lower body is very important, specifically the posterior aspect. We will get into the upper body. I promise we've talked a little bit about that already with the face pole, but we need to talk about training the knee flexors, AKA the hamstrings. And when you are using a machine that is stable, like a lying hamstring

curl or a seated hamstring curl, it's a little bit less dynamic. There's less stability required. You're kind of creating stability using the machine. And then you're training this flexion component of the muscle, which is very important. And the cool thing about machines is they provide a more controlled, stable resistance profile. You can still go very heavy on them. You can use them in an isolated fashion. You don't have to always be using free weights, even though free weights have a ton of utility. And I'm of the opinion that when you use both, you get better results than if you just use all machines or all free weights. But I really recommend doing your hamstring machine work to be sure that you're training your hamstrings capacity to flex, not just contribute to hip extension. A lot of people go, cool, got my swings, got my deadlifts, got my RDLs,

hamstrings are done. For me and for my clients and for what I've seen in years of coaching, I would definitely recommend some machine hamstring work to supplement all the extension that you're practicing with your hinges with some flexion of that actual knee joint. Develop the knee flexors, get your hamstrings strong. Okay, another lower body muscle here, the gastrocnemius, specifically the calf muscle. Now, the straight-legged calf raise is going to hit the gastrocnemius a little harder than the bent knee calf raise, which hits the soleus a little harder. And I find most people, when they do their calf raises, they do them on the calf raise machine with the bent knee, which is fine.

I would just recommend including some straight-legged calf work. Try to do everything you can to train with a good tempo through a full range of motion. So you're not just developing the Achilles tendon reflex. Make sure that you're getting a good stretch. Make sure that you're doing high reps and heavyweight training across a variety of rep ranges when you train the calves, just like you would every other muscle and give your calves a little love. Ask your Achilles tendon to channel a little force. A little will go an awful long way. And while the calves aren't something that most people are concerned with developing, typically most people are fine with

their calves. It's people who have calves they think are small that will probably allocate the majority of calf training to their calves, but they're onto something because having strong calves also usually means having mobile and stable ankles, which is very helpful. So do your straight legged calf work. Okay. The final one that I have here, that's kind of a big lower body exercise, uh, is the hip thrust or the bridge. I think any hip extension variation that's done in the more horizontal plane, I think it's a little more vertical. And we talk about those hip extension hinges, deadlifts, hamstring, like RDLs, swings. Those are all standing. They get a little more hamstring than the bridge, which is done prone. It's done lying on the

ground. So you have bridges, you have hip thrust, hip thrust, or just bridges with extra range of motion. These are awesome. They're great for the glutes. I like glute bridges. I like hip thrusts. I like B stands, hip thrusts. I like hip thrusts with bands. I like hip thrusts with pauses. It's a great way to challenge your glutes in their shortened position. A 45 degree hip extension is great for this too. Um, you know, but really what we want to talk about is, you know, but really what we want to talk about is, you know, are we going to use this movement pattern? Almost always we're using hip extension. Now, do we use it from a prone position? Not all the time, but we need to do it standing.

We need to do it prone. We need to have hip extension. We need to have strong glutes and the hip thrust and the hip bridge and all the variations thereof are fantastic for this. So I'm really, really big on these. I would definitely recommend including at least one hip thruster bridge into your programming. We include all of this in elite physique, our various eBooks in home heroes, our app-based programming, all of the coaching that we do. I'm huge on the posterior chain. I can't tell you how important I think it is, but you know, I think a lot of people's posterior chain. I can't tell you how important I think it is, but, um, you know, I think a lot of people's posterior chain training begins and ends with the hip thrust. So I did push it a

little further down the list because yes, it's become so popular because it's a great glute developing movement, but I didn't want to start with it because I think sometimes it gets a little bit too much credit, uh, which isn't to say it's bad, uh bad at all. The ninth item on the list is probably the least utilized. I think nine and 10 get the least use. And this is our final, if I'm not mistaken, lower body exercise of the list. It is the Nordic hamstring curl. Now the Nordic hamstring curl is very popular for injury prevention because it's an eccentric dominant movement. You're focusing on letting the hamstring lengthen under load, and it oftentimes gets strained in these kinds of positions. So it's very popular with athletes because you're strengthening the eccentric capacity of the hamstring.

It's very difficult movement with a very high learning curve, and there's tons of regressions. So it's not something that you should freak out about or panic about if you're not good at it. Knees over toes guy is somebody who's posted about every Nordic hamstring curl regression you can think of. So you can start with these pretty much regardless of your fitness level and with almost no equipment, but it's the development of the eccentric properties of the hamstring tissue that made this one make the list. I don't rank it as highly as I do some of the other hamstring exercises, but I think it's a posterior chain exercise and a posterior chain property worthy of your time. Number 10 is the Australian pull-up, which is essentially a horizontal body weight row or horizontal body weight pull-up.

If you think of the pull-up as a vertical pull, and we'll get to that in the next item, the Australian pull-up is a horizontal pull. Great for shoulder stability, great for core control, great for the back, upper back, lats, grip, and of course, preparing you for pull-ups. You could consider a TRX row a great option. Really, any row is a great option. But I wanted to start with the Australian pull-ups. You could consider a TRX row a great option. Really any row is a great option, but I wanted to start with the Australian pull-up because it is a form of body weight rowing and allows you to practice core control, core stability, and work on the posterior chain. Number 11 is pull-ups, which are probably the number one exercise people think of when they think about training back or one of them.

We know that pull-ups are fundamental for developing a strong grip and a strong upper body. A lot of people do these for strength. A lot of people do these for grip capacity. A lot of people do these for back development. What I like about pull-ups, you can do a neutral grip, wide grip, palms facing you. This would be a chin-up, of course, on rings, on TRX. You can do a neutral grip, wide grip, palms facing you. This would be a chin up, of course, on rings, on TRX. You can do them as an Australian pull up more horizontal. Really it's body weight control while we're rowing, while we're extending, while we're pulling the arms closer to the body, you're getting biceps, you're getting lats, you're getting upper back, you're getting core tough to beat. What I like about these is you can do them banded. You can do them supported. You can do them assisted. You can do them as negatives. There's so many ways to do them. Uh, 12, which is

our second to last, our penultimate item on the list is the pull down, not quite the pull up, but the pull down. This is typically done with a wider bar, sometimes a close grip bar, always done on a cable or with a band. And the pull down is a little bit different from the pull up and that you're seated, you're a little more stable. So this is great for lats and upper back development, not going to be as demanding on the grip. Great place to start if you also want to work on your pull ups. Not the same as a straight arm pull down, but I do really like a straight arm pull down as well. That's a little bit of triceps, which technically would be a posterior chain muscle. So you can include that here. Love the straight arm pull down, love close grip pull downs, love wide grip pull downs, just a big fan

of using these movements. And the last one, kind of a little bit of a late ad here, just something that I think could have some utility is snatch grip work. This is work done with the arms abducted or out to the sides a little bit. There are things like snatch grip rows, snatch grip deadlifts. I really like snatch grip shrugs. I think training the upper traps gets a bad rap because a lot of people have tight traps and they assume that means that they should not train them. But typically what I find is that whether a muscle is tight or weak, it'll probably respond well to full range of motion resistance training. And so snatch grip shrugs are one that I really like for developing the upper traps. An important component of the posterior chain does not get enough love, does not get enough respect, but one that I really,

really like. Just going over everything really quick, folks, the 13 exercises I think you should do to develop a strong posterior chain are heavy deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, kettlebell swings, loaded carries, face pulls, machine hamstring work to bias knee flexion, straight-legged calf work, all hip thrust variations, Nordic hamstring curls, Australian pull-ups, regular pull-ups, lat pull-downs, both conventional, close grip, and straight armed, and snatch grip shrug. It's very difficult to develop a strong body, period, end of story. It's much more difficult when you neglect your posterior chain. Keeping your posterior chain up to speed with the muscles you see more easily in

the mirror, like the chest, like the shoulders, like the quads takes work, takes encouragement. It takes consistency. It probably takes a properly put together program. And that's why so many of the programs we write are heavy on the posterior chain. There's no faking it. The best athletes in the world, the best physiques in the world, the least likely to get injured people in the world are developing strong posterior change. And I would recommend that you do the same. Thanks so much for tuning in to this

very fitness focused episode of the podcast. I appreciate your listenership. I know how many podcasts you have to choose from. So it means a lot that you choose this one and it would help me grow the podcast for you to share it to your Instagram story, Twitter threads, wherever you're on tag me so I can say thank you and leave me a five-star rating and review on Spotify and Apple podcast. It helps more people find the show organically to help me rise in the rankings and eventually help more people on their fitness journey. Thanks so much for tuning in. I'll catch you on the next one.