Depth drops teach you how to absorb force, protect your joints, and move like an athlete. If you want higher jumps, faster sprinting, and bulletproof knees, you need to master the landing first. Control the drop. Own the landing. Build real athleticism.

This is a great exercise to engage the serratus anterior to help with greater core engagement and pelvic stability. Laying on your back (this can be done kneeling too). With a hip band around your wrists. Lift your sternum and drop your shoulders down and back. Soft bend in the elbows (barbie arms) and pull band apart at wrists using your shoulders. Keeping arms pulling apart, soft elbows and shoulders down, inhale to raise arms up overhead, exhale to pull arms back towards hips. Maintain focus on shoulders staying down and pulling in core tight.

This is a great beginner core exercise to learn how to engage your lower core and brace the core effectively to stabilize the pelvis. Laying on your back with a ball or yoga block in your hands and your feet flat on the floor (knees bent). Squeeze object between hands and raise arms over head, stopping when ribs want to flare and shift up. Exhale and slowly pull arms back to center, over chest, pulling belly back to spine then slightly up at bottom of exhale.

These are great for continuing to build pelvic stability and control with the obliques and transverse abdominus. Keep the shoulders down to keep the serratus anterior engaged for greater core support. Kneeling on the ground with a bender ball/pillow/yoga block between your knees. Be up high on your knees with the hips stacked over the knees. Mini  band is around your wrists and you are holding tension on the mini band pulling the wrists apart. Soft bend in the elbows (barbie arms). Keeping soft bend in the elbows move arms from shoulder joint, inhale arms up. On the exhale squeeze the ball between your knees, rotate from your thoracic spine, bringing hands to the outside of one hip (keep bend in elbows and dont let arm cross body as movement should come from upper spine and not arms). Repeat, inhale arms back up then exhale and rotate to other hip. Try to pull belly up and in on the exhale and focus on lower abdomen control.

Learn how to engage your core properly and effectively with this deep core exercise. It is broken into progressions, so start with where you are at. Connecting with your body is the most important; this is a brain game, not a body game. If you cannot keep the brain engaged with the muscular control, stop doing the movement and re-engage rather than pushing through. It is important to build up the functional control of the muscle with the brain. Laying on your back with knees bent and feet on the floor. Have hands on lower abdomen so you can feel the muscles working and contracting. This helps to build more neuro-connection to control the muscles. Inhale big into the belly, expanding it wide. Then exhale, snapping it back to your spine. Once you have mastered 15-20 of these with control of the brain move onto the next progression. The next progression is to pull up the pelvic floor along with the belly snapping into the spine on the exhale. Once you have mastered 15-20 of these with control of the brain move onto the next progression. The next progression is to then snap the core up under the ribs with the belly pull back and pelvic floor pick up.

Lunge box jumps are a great introduction to single leg box jump movements. This exercise allows you to utilize some momentum to help learn the mechanics needed to do single leg explosive movements.

The Russian Twist is a great core exercise to hit your rectus abdominus, transverse abdominus, and obliques. Try this variation to get a great burn without having to use weights.

Bulgarian Jumps with a High Knee are a great exercise to build strength, power, stability, and speed. Focusing on snapping the knee high as fast as possible helps to improve step recovery which is essential to running or skating faster.

This video shows how to perform a drop set using a single arm row. Start by completing your reps with a challenging weight, aiming to get close to muscular fatigue while maintaining good form. Once you reach the end of that set, immediately reduce the weight and continue with more reps without resting. You can repeat this process for multiple ‘drops,’ each time lowering the weight and pushing out as many quality reps as you can. This same concept can be applied to many other exercises. The movement might change, but the goal stays the same: perform your reps, quickly switch to a lighter weight, and keep going to extend the set and fully challenge the muscle.