If you own a pair of parallettes, you’ve probably discovered that they are an excellent source of instability for your shoulders, and your feet if you stand on them. When you loop in a Surge (a water filled tube with handles), then you have instability in your core and shoulders as the water sloshes around. When combined, they make for a truly grueling duo.
Make sure you check out the bonus videos at the bottom. It’s a very original movement designed to provide an important progression for the pistol squat.
Movement 1:
1 Leg Glute Bridge 8/10. The parallette offers a very stable platform to work from. The only piece of equipment that’s better is probably the medball for doing 1 leg glute bridges.
Movement 2:
Parallette Bulgarian Lunge with Surge Overhead Hold 10/10. This move is tough. It works your core, shoulders, balance, everything. Tip: use a squat sponge on the parallette so the base is soft for clients. It pairs well with the 1 Leg Glute Bridge since it also works glutes.
Movements 3-6:
[sociallocker]Decline Parallette Pushups 10/10. Don’t own a bench press? This move is about as close as you can get to the real thing… and not much easier. For more fun, don a weight vest :-). Here, we demonstrate using a plyo box.Movement 4:
Parallette/plyo box Surge Step ups 10/10. Awesomely difficult and draining movement. Particularly tough when you just completed movement 2 in the previous superset.
Movement 5:
Parallette L-Hold with Scissors 10/10. The L-Hold is probably the granddaddy of parallette movement. The alternating scissors crank up the difficulty two notches for sure. If you’re clients can’t hold and L-Hold, simply have them do L-hold on the rings and then dips on the parallettes.
[/sociallocker]Movement 6:
Parallette Hurdle: In a pinch, parallettes can be used a hurdle. We opt for sandbags usually since they are a bit safer.
Bonus Movement:
The Suspended Pistol Squat: Pistols squats are tough, and progressions are hard to find. The two easy ones: The suspension trainer pistol squat or the box pistol squat are good… but it’s still a long way to a real pistol squat. So we hereby introduce the Suspended Pistol Squat. In the videos that follow: you’ll see Paul Roberts demonstrate the movement using the TRX Suspension Trainer and Jesus use the Olympic rings. The Olympic rings are easier because they do not slide back and forth.
