Why youth athletes should be doing landmine variations | Alex Wollschleger Strength and Conditioning

I got a barbell fever, the only prescription? More landmine

If you have followed my or my businesses I’ve owned there is always one constant, change. Yes I never wanted to get pigeon holed into something simply because “thats the way we have always done it”. I am always looking to improve or learn on certain things that either aren’t very smart or aren’t done properly.

One thing I have always felt needs some improvement is high school and college weight room shenanigans. Yes generally these are shenanigans and yes they are improving and getting slightly better. You will usually see a history or gym teacher assigning some random program they used to do 40 years ago to the whole school and every sport athlete. (as of this post things are getting better and more professional strength coaches are being hired and paid)

Specifically I am talking about the main lifts being incorporated way too much or improperly. For instance we celebrate way too much that weight going up even if it was poor movement or incomplete movement pattern. The goal isn’t to see how much you can lift its to get stronger and move better, ya know become more athletic. Yep here is one way we can get get some variance with our program, use landmine variations. Not only will you be able to add some variance to your programming but you will also be able to properly assess an athletes movement patterns. Take the squat for example the landmine force their hips back into a good position so they are forced to load their glutes as opposed to their knees.

What is a landmine variation?

We set up a barbell in the corner and hold just one side of it while the other is on the ground. You can literally do any barbell movement with this set up. It tends to be less awkward and bulky than a regular barbell. Specifically for younger athletes it puts them in a better, more comfortable position so they can load the right muscle groups and not be stuck trying to manage the barbell on their back or in the front rack position.

I have pretty much gotten rid of the “big 3” barbell movements for athletes under the age of 15 unless they can demonstrate proper movement patterns with it. With that, here are some easy transitions and variations to incorporate the landmine press. I will have most athletes do these first.

Overhead pressing

Split Stance Landmine Press