Last week I was in San Diego, and I had lunch with my friend Melissa Hartwig who is the capo di familia of the Whole 30. For those unaware the Whole30 is essentially a 30-day elimination diet designed to drastically reset your eating by limiting you to plants and things that eat plants. It’s quite difficult to do, and it’s also quite effective. It’s certainly not for everybody but for those who it’s for it’s Very Good.

ANYWAY, the Whole30 strictly forbids things such as Girl Scout cookies and this is important to our story.

I was walking down the Embarcadero in SD to retrieve my car and I passed a little girl dragging a wagon full of GS cookies. As I got a few feet away from her I realized it would be a perfect opportunity to buy a gift to troll Melissa with a joke that she has heard I am sure no less than three trillion times asking if something is W30-compliant. But really they were just for her kid, or sister, or whomever.

So I doubled back to buy some cookies and I was blown away because I met myself, if I was reincarnated as a 9 year old Mexican girl.

“Hi, I’m Paloma, I’m 9 years old and I am sick and tired of this other girl in my troop winning the cookie selling contest so this year I am going to sell the most boxes.”

Say no more. I’ll take all the boxes. We chatted about how when I was a young Boy Scout I took home the top awards for selling the most popcorn in my troop by hustling in the same way, going door to door to every house for miles in every direction from my house. But that wasn’t even the best part.

Her mom was keeping an eye on her and she really wanted me to know that she had basically nothing to do with this, it was all Paloma who decided she wanted to win the contest.

But as a result ALL the girls in her troop had been spurred into action by Paloma’s drive to be number one. Their sales numbers across the board were through the roof compared to previous years just because one girl decided she wants to really start competing.

I think there’s a lesson there for all of us.

What driven pursuit of yours might drive those around you?

And if there isn’t one, why not?

Last week I stopped by to visit at a friend at Invictus (Crossfit) in San Diego and it just happened to be the first Friday night of the CF Open so naturally I got to watch a bunch of freakshow athletes suffer through something you couldn’t pay me any price to do.

And it got me thinking about something with regards to resilience and injury.

One of the movements in this open WOD was the one-arm dumbbell snatch, naturally for high reps. Now you might look at this (combined with burpees and box jumps) and you might think man that is a great way to jack up a back.

Yet I have been paying attention to open workouts for many years now, and through observing trends on Facebook I can see which ones are jacking people up and which ones (sometimes surprisingly) aren’t.

And this one isn’t.

Why? And how does it relate to the deadlift?

Well first of all you have to recognize that the dumbbell snatch is basically a one-arm deadlift done with a light weight and brisk movement. It’s nothing like a barbell snatch, and with the light weight done for high reps it’s simply a hip-dominant movement with minimal knee bend done explosively. In other words a deadlift.

And it doesn’t jack up peoples backs because it’s asymmetrical.

Perfectly symmetrical movements force a body that is not symmetrical (in the vast majority of people) into a position of symmetry that is not natural to begin with, and then there’s no room to move or to move away from tension or stress because of the symmetry. Check out this screen cap:

All that rotation and asymmetry allows the body to involve more tissue and more variability in the movement. Sure there’s some rotation in the spine, but it’s ok for the spine to move like that. What little risk there is in rotation is more than offset by the fact that there is so much more tissue involved to bear the stress of the movement.

So what’s the takeaway?

Don’t be afraid to stagger your position or otherwise introduce asymmetry. One of the places I always start when I’m nursing someone back to health after a back injury is with asymmetrical deadlifts because they are almost universally well tolerated. Not so for conventional symmetry. This is why I’m such a fan of asymmetrical deadlift options like the Jefferson.

Even if you don’t have any issues, I’ll wager that it’ll feel better with a bit of asymmetry. Ideally, you can always test and find the best option with biofeedback.

I had a quick session with a client yesterday who had asked me to take a look at their deadlift and let them know what they needed to do to take their deadlift strength past the next milestone.

Immediately I was reminded of something that I see as a weak link for so many people: The upper back! Lower back always gets the attention (especially when it’s hurt) but I’m telling you that time and time again it’s actually the upper back that is the limiting factor in people’s strength – and not just for deadlifting. It blows me away how many people neglect training this area specifically.

Your upper back is naturally a point of more movement than the lower back – the thoracic spine is intended to be more mobile than the lumbar – and with your arms and neck attached here the number and complexity of articulations is infinitely more than the lower back. It becomes either an anchor point or a hinge point for tons of movements – preferably an anchor if you’re strong enough.

And guess what I’ve found to be one of the best kept secrets in building upper back strength? Kettlebells.

Of course, of course barbells are useful and various barbell movements should be a big component of any effort to increase upper back strength. But in my experience I’ve learned that kettlebells are extraordinarily useful, I believe for 3 main reasons:

• The rack position from which many KB movements start, finish, or pit-stop at is a very taxing movement for the upper back creating a lot of time under tension in pretty poor leverage. Anyone who has ever done KB front squats with the bells in the rack position knows how difficult they are, even compared to barbell front squats. Almost all KB pressing movements start from this position, and the big ballistic movements such as long cycle clean and jerk make a stop here. Unless you’re using KBs wildly inappropriately, you end up spending LOTS of time in this super-beneficial rack position.
• Speed. One of the biggest advantages of kettlebells is how well they work for explosive ballistic movements such as snatches, cleans, long cycle etc. The high speed of these movements creates momentary tremendous load that your tissues have to absorb and stabilize. I said before you become either a hinge or an anchor. Well when you spend enough time doing ballistic kettlebell movements you get very good at anchoring the arms with the upper back.
• Variety in unilateral, bi-lateral, and contra-lateral movement. If all you ever do is bilateral barbell work you’re going to be missing the strength in certain ways of moving. Same goes for only doing unilateral movement. KB training that is well-rounded tends to have you doing single-arm, double-arm, as well as alternating work. This builds tremendous ability to move in varied ways, which in turn builds tissue in a wider and more expansive distribution.

In all my years of training I have yet to find anything that is as good as training properly with kettlebells to build tremendous upper back strength – which translates directly to big deadlifts (and to a lesser extent squats). It’s a nice bonus that it also builds great work capacity, resilience to injury and tissue turnover.