Written by Hunter Eisenhower:

Associate Head Coach, Men's Basketball - Sports Performance - Arizona State University
Co-Owner - Move The Needle Performance Podcast
Founder - The Force System LLC


Typically, when I receive questions about The Force System, the questions are High, Fast or Slow Force themed. And for good reason! High, Fast, and Slow Force training are important pillars within The Force System that will cover almost everything your athletes will need from a training perspective. However, they will be missing the glue that holds everything together, the thing to fill in the cracks of a solid program to make it a great program; Human Force.

I’ve said this before, but the Squat, Hinge, Push, Pull is great to learn as a new coach in the field to provide some structure and checklist of what a program should include within the weight room, I still use this thought process within my own programming. But when you are exposed to other aspects of performance, you begin to realize these may not be the answer to everything. I found as I was developing The Force System, and designed High, Fast & Slow Force, I was missing something. Something outside the box, that could give me the Yin & Yang style to my methodology that I believe all good Methodologies have. Very good coaches that I respect to the upmost, like Trevor Harris and Bobby Stroupe had this Human Force concept figured out and implemented way before me, but because of their direction I realized not only the importance but also the practical application of this training.

Today, I’d like to go through some of the categories and programming principles I use, to give you confidence in programming this elusive, untraditional form of training.

We’ll start with a breakdown of the categories of Human Force I typically use and some of my favorite exercises from each.

Crawl

We’ll start with the most Human Force exercise category of them all, Crawling. What is every single human beings first form of locomotion? That’s right, crawling. This foundational movement pattern is incredible for reinforcing Cross Crawl patterning, especially when most athletes are ‘drowned’ in bilateral movements. You are also able to change variation in ways to elicit stress in different areas of the body, such as a Bear Crawl for overhead positions or a Lizard Crawl for a strong stimulus to the Hip's and T-Spine’s fluidity of movement. Below is a list of some of my favourite, go to Crawls. (All/most can be performed forward, backward & lateral)

• Linear Crawl

• Lizard Crawl

• Lizard Crawl + Push Up

• Low Lizard Crawl

*Lizard Crawl variations are great for Hip & T-Spine mobility and upper and lower body connection. Add the Push Up or Low variation for some added stimulus to the upper body!

• Bear Crawl

• Crossover Crawl

• Inchworm

*Bear, Crossover Crawl, and Inchworm are targeted to expose athletes to overhead positions. If I am going to load overhead positions later in a session, I will typically begin with one of these three crawl variations.

• Scorpion Crawl

• Roll Crawl

*Scorpion and Roll Crawls are great variations to introduce fairly intense rotation to the body at various portions (Shoulder, T-Spine, Hip). Typically, I will program these when I can tell athletes are feeling “stiff” (I.e In season GD+1), or when rotational/frontal plane movements are an emphasis later on in training session.

• Hop Crawl

• Crab Walk

*I would consider Hop Crawls & Crab Walks to have a total body aspect from both a mobility and strength standpoint. Hop as the upper body ‘pulls’ the lower body into each hop + you are sitting in a deep squat. The Crab Walk places high demand on shoulder mobility and if hips are raised, creates mobility on front side of hips, which most/all athletes can benefit from because of how sedentary life is nowadays!

• Crawl w/PVC Avoid

*Fun and different, bring aliveness to a session. No strict structure to the crawl, one partner has a PVC pipe and it moving it all over on the ground and the individual crawling cannot get touched!

If you made me choose only one crawl variation for the rest of my life, I think I would choose a Lizard Crawl + Push Up. I believe it to be the perfect combination of fluidity, mobility and strength, especially when programmed at a fairly high volume! I think allowing athletes enough volume of a specific crawl can allow them to understand the movement and get more out of each variation.

Hang / Climb

Next, we’ll assess another one of my favorite categories with Human Force, Climb/Hang.

Another staple of childhood, but slightly later on in life than crawling. My oldest daughter crawled, has since learned to walk and is now beginning to want to hang & climb on everything. It is a progression through life, that I also feel athletes need later on and can benefit greatly for a host of different reasons. Let’s look at some of my go to variations below.

• Dead Hang

• Hang w/ Twist

• Hang w/ Side to side movement

*I like to use these three variations as a way to introduce hanging to athletes before transition to more intense variations that involve taking a hand off of a bar or hanging from one hand. It also gives you the ability to evaluate athletes comfort level and strength from a hanging position. If and athlete can barely hang for 30 seconds, you probably don’t want to move on to the next category below.

• Alternating Hang

• PVC Avoid Hang

• Shoulder Tap Hang

• Rotating Hang

• SA Hang

*This next group of Hang variations presents the challenge of removing one hand from the bar. From minimal time without both hands like a Alternating Hang, to transitioning to climbing with a Rotating Hang. This category of hanging prepares us for true climbing that you can transition to in our next category.

• Bar Climb Across

• Random Fat Grip Bar Climb Across

• SA Towel Hang

• Grip Change Climb

*This next grouping allows you to experience climbing without having actual climbing set ups (Rock Wall, Monkey Bars, etc.)

*If an option in or around your facility, the ultimate climbing options

• Rock Wall

• Monkey Bars

• Rope

If I had to choose one Hang/Climb variation for the rest of my career it would be Rock Climbing, but I understand that is not accessible in most weight rooms across the US. So, if I had to choose a logistically relevant variation I would choose a SA Hang. While some/most athletes may not even be able to hang from one hand at all initially, it is a great variation to evaluate “Human Force” objectively. It is a challenge for the weakest of individuals and also a challenge for the strongest of athletes, the only variable that needs adjusted is the time in which they hang.

Carry

What’s next? After crawling & climbing, it’s about time to go to school, help with chores!

That means carrying a backpack or helping to take out the trash! (Thank you for bearing with me during these life examples, you understand if you are currently watching your kids grow up & you’ll understand one day if you are still waiting to have some little ones of your own!)

Carrying is a basic human quality if my opinion and that it is a mainstay in my Human Force library. A typical Human Force complex or warm up will often follow the flow of Crawl, Climb, Carry. Below is a breakdown of some of my favorite variations of Carries.

In no specific order:

• DB Farmer Carry

• DB Suitcase Carry

• DB High Low Carry

• Sandbag Hug Carry

• Sandbag Zercher Carry

• SA DB OH Carry

• 2 DB OH Carry

• Trap bar Carry

• Offset Trap Bar Carry

• SA KB Front Rack Carry

• SA KB Front Rack Carry + DB Suitcase Carry

• SA KB Front Rack Carry +OH Carry

If I had to choose only one Carry variation to program, I would choose a Sandbag Hug Carry. Maybe it’s because I’m on a big Sandbag ‘kick’ right now but I believe the full body tension that must be created to hug and carry a heavy sandbag is immense. I will also explain later in this article how something similar to this is a great way to quantify Human Force!

Gymnastics

As we transition through this article, we are really just transitioning through life. First, we learn to crawl, then we begin to reach for things to hang from and then climb on. Where do we go next? What is almost every young athletes first sport? Yes, Soccer is a good answer, but most of the time even before that? If you guessed Gymnastics, we are on the same ‘train of thought’. There is a reason that most experts encourage parents to put their children in Gymnastics at a young age. It is the ultimate expression of general and relative strength and layers upon what we’ve already spoke about so far, and contributes to more specific strength and skill later on in a training progression, or within The Force System, it contributes to High, Fast and Slow Execution. While I don’t feel comfortable programming, or encouraging anybody to program back flips, there are low level Gymnastic movements that I feel fit perfectly within Human Force training. Below are some of my ‘most used’ variations.

• Rollback to SL Stand (can elevate surface)

• Segmental Roll

• KB Arm Bar

Feet Elevated Downdog

*Allow this first category of exercises to expose athletes to the precursors for more difficult Gymnastic movements, progressed below.

• Half Kneeling Forward Roll

• Cartwheel

• Handstand Wall Walk

• Swing (from Chin Up Bar

*We now introduce athletes to true Gymnastic movements. I have implemented all of these early on with athletes and have had no issue. The great aspect is athletes can auto-regulate these movements. If they don’t feel comfortable getting completely inverted in a Cartwheel, they can progressively lift their legs higher and higher as they become more comfortable.

• Handstand

• 'Skin the Cat' - Hang, lift legs up through arms so you are completely inverted. You will then be hanging with your arms completely rotated 360 degrees. Pull your legs back through your arms so you end in the original hang position. This is an ADVANCED exercise for most athletes.

*This is typically as far as I’ll feel comfortable progressing in my Gymnastics progression. You can prescribe most of your variations out of these last two categories and get huge benefit in my opinion.

If I could only choose one Gymnastics variation to program, I would choose a Cartwheel. I think there are a lot of physical qualities that are beneficial, however I appreciate that there is psychological benefit to accomplishing something you couldn’t do (and most athletes can’t do a cartwheel their first try) and it is also fun! Throw Cartwheels into a warm up and I guarantee you get more ‘aliveness’ to your session.

Partner Combatives

Let’s take a look at our last main category of Human Force, ‘Partner Combatives’. While a majority of training prescribed by Performance Coaches involves moving weight on a fixed object, like a barbell or dumbbell, Partner Combatives give you the opportunity to begin to transition that form of strength, to a more applicable form of strength, where you are trying to move another human body that is trying to move you! Below are different categories of Partner Combatives that you can use.

Ground Based

• Crawl Position Lateral Shoulder Push

• Crawl Position Shoulder to Shoulder Push

• Crawl Position PVC Battle

Standing Based

• Lateral Shoulder Push

• lateral Hip Push

• Rooted Wrist Grab

• Rooted Wrestle

• Back-to-back Push

Balance Based

• PVC Circle Pullover

• SL PVC Circle Pullover

• Side by Side PVC Balance

• Side by Side Split Squat PVC Balance

If I had to choose one Partner Combative for the rest of my career, I believe I would choose the Rooted Wrestle. I believe it is the closest you can get to having athletes wrestle without anybody getting hurt. It is the ultimate display of expression rigidity and strength amongst yourself, along with the ability to move another human being. I believe this is one of my favorite displays of Human Force.

I’d like to finish this article with the objective monitoring of Human Force. I believe that most of Human Force does not & should not be quantified. You don’t need to measure joint angles during a Lizard Crawl and monitor progress, however I think the ability to show improvement confirms what you’re doing and allows the athletes you are working with to see progress. My two Human Force assessments are a Sandbag Hug for time and a SA Hang for time.

Sandbag Hug – For myself and the male athletes that I train, I believe a 150lbs sandbag to be a great weight for this assessment. I will place the sandbag on a bench or slightly elevated surface so they are able to assume a good grip on the bag. Once they are in a standing position the time starts and they hold the sandbag for as long as they can. The sandbag is not allowed to be rested on the legs, while in a squatting position. My personal record is 3:09, I’m not sure if that shows I’m strong or how weak I am!

SA Hang – This variation of hang was written about in the Climb/Hang portion of this article, however I think it is a great way to assess Human Force, along with training. You could perform a bilateral hang however with a lot of athletes that becomes a test of mental fortitude, moreso than physical ability (which also has relevance and value). The other reason I like the SA Hang, is because with advanced athletes a bilateral hang that could turn into 2-3 minutes of waiting. A SA Hang assessment takes much less time. I know there are individuals that can perform a SA Hang much longer than myself but right now I am at about 30 seconds with my right arm and 15 seconds with my laeft. Also, can highlight severe asymmetry in upper body strength, like in my situation!

I hope this article was helpful to give you more tools in your Human Force tool box to be able to be more creative, novel and specific with your Human Force application. I look forward to hearing some of your records in the Sandbag Hug and SA Hang!

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Written by Hunter Eisenhower:

Associate Head Coach, Mens Basketball - Sports Performance - Arizona State University
Co Owner - Move The Needle Performance Podcast
Founder - The Force System LLC


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