Good Morning: Loaded Hinge at Your Own Weight
The good morning trains the hip hinge under your own bodyweight — hands behind your head, hinge forward, stand back up. Simple. Humbling. Essential.
Hip Hinge: The Movement Pattern You’re Missing
The hip hinge is T1 in the hinge progression — the foundational posterior chain loading pattern that most people never learn, can't identify in their own movement, and desperately need.
Nordic Curl: The King of Hamstring Training
The Nordic curl is the most effective bodyweight hamstring exercise and one of the most demanding movements in the hinge progression. Here's how to approach it from zero.
Single-Leg RDL: The Unilateral Hinge
The single-leg RDL trains the hinge pattern on one leg — balance, hamstring loading, and glute stabilization simultaneously. The movement that makes athletes durable.
Glute Bridge and Hip Thrust: Posterior Chain from the Floor
The glute bridge trains hip extension from the floor — activating and loading the glutes in a pattern that squats and hinges supplement but don't replace.
Jefferson Curl: Loaded Spinal Flexion
The Jefferson curl is a loaded spinal flexion mobility drill — standing on an elevated surface, slowly curling down vertebra by vertebra with weight in your hands. Controversial and effective.
Reverse Hyperextension: Decompress and Strengthen
The reverse hyperextension trains hip extension against gravity from a prone position — decompressing the lumbar spine while strengthening the posterior chain. The most underused recovery movement in calisthenics.
Box Step-Up: Lower The Bar, Build the Foundation
The box step-up is T1 in the jump progression — single-leg loading at a controlled height. The first step toward box jumps, depth jumps, and plyometric work.
Box Jump: Bilateral Power Expression
The box jump is T2 — bilateral explosive jumping to a target. Here's the landing mechanics, box height standards, and why stepping down (not jumping down) is the rule.
Jump Rope: The Cardio Foundation for Jumping Athletes
Jump rope is T1 plyometric conditioning — low-amplitude, high-rep ground contact training that builds the Achilles tendon, calf elasticity, and coordination jump training requires.