An Explosive Combination

Early last month I launched the third volume in my Dumbbell Moves DVD series. It was a momentous occasion for me, as it pulled together several concepts I had been working on since before I began Volume I. And it was especially rewarding because I had the assistance of one of the first prominent CrossFit athletes--two- time skiing Olympian Eva Twardokens--demonstrating the combination moves for the DVD. What a treat! The series is dedicated to presenting a concept of conditioning that combines agility training with full-body resistance movements. To my knowledge, this has been unusual in the athletic conditioning world. Since the early 198px0s, while I was working with athletes ranging from luge participants to collegiate volleyball players, I have employed both agility work and functional full-body movements, but it wasn't until more recently, with the influence of CrossFit, that I put them together on a regular basis.

Taking my cue from CrossFit, I shredded the conventional rule books and combined what many traditionalists would not combine. I took power movements using barbells and dumbbells (such as Olympic lifts) and traditional agility drills and concocted workouts that combined the two.