It’s been a long day of travel that required an enormous amount of patience and deep breathes.  But we made it to paradise and get to spend the next 5 days here playing in University of Hawaii’s Tournament at the Kapalua Bay Course!  In honor of my return to the Hawaiian Islands for the second time this year, here is one of my favorite exercises that I just happened to film near the ocean in Kona.

Meet the Cossack Squat!  I swear that’s the name!  This is an incredible variation on the squat that challenges both the sagittal and frontal planes.  In addition, it works on hip mobility, dorsiflexion, core stability, ninja skills and well, it looks cool.

Now I’m doing a little different version in this video, more of how we use it in martial arts.  This baby packs a lot of punch though and can be regressed and progressed to the moon and back.  It’s all about knowing your limits with it and then working from there.  If you have difficulty with the range of motion, you don’t have to drop quite so low and can even place your hands on the ground as an assist.  If you want to make it more challenging, you can load weight in one or both hands.  This was actually part of day 4 of the Jen Sinkler #30daysofkbs challenge.  It was one of the first times I have loaded with exercise and boy are my glutes feeling it today!

Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Aloha, S