New Sled

Santa came to Soar a few days early and brought me the baddest sled known to man! Home made by my friend Travis with a steel construction beam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrtbnogs7zQ

Run With Strength

For those of you who read my blogs/newletters on a regular basis, you already know that increasing strength will also increase your speed. But, you not only need to lift to be strong, you have to run with strength. I see nearly 40 kids per day at Soar, and lots of them make the same mistakes.

1. Lose control of their core or pillar. This is called an energy leak and basically results in them either falling down or stumbling. In order to put force in the ground, you must remain strong throughout the entire body.

2. Step instead of push. Even some of the really fast kids I train do this. Instead of pushing (putting force into the ground), they take lots of tiny steps. When they take off from a sprint start position, they just step forward with the back foot instead of pushing off the front foot. Stepping is slow, pushing is fast....end of discussion.

3. They do not finish each stride. Each stride should finish with full extension of the ankle, knee and hip. Failure to do this results in shorter strides and thus slower times.

All three of these errors are linked together. For instance, if you lose control of your core, you can't push as hard as you need to. Stepping outside your center of mass will result in folding at the core.

Bottom line, you need to train in the weight room to get strong (foundational exercises, plyometrics, sled training). Then you have to run with the strength you have built. Kids who are strong should look strong when they run.

MMA Training

This past Friday, one of my staff members, James Whiteman, was in the gym getting ready for his amateur MMA fight on Saturday December 4th. Since James does most of his strength and conditioning work on his own at his gym in Athens, he comes up to Soar on Fridays for some explosive training.

After full warm up, I had James and his partner do multi - directional single leg plyos in a ciruit format.

Box blast - 5each

rest 30 sec.

Lateral box blast 5 each

rest 30 sec

Lateral skater bound - 5 each

2 min rest and repeat

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s3jIF-DcZI


From there, we did some agility work that also involved explosive upper body MB throws. This is not something I normally do with athletes because it violates my principle of keeping drills simple. However, I like using the MB throws with agility for fighters since they are constantly moving and striking during there fights. We went with an approximate 3 to 1 work to rest ratio. The drills took about 10 sec and the rest was then 30 in between. The video clip below shows 1 set that James did. The actual workout was 4 sets in a row, then 1 :30 rest, then 4 more sets of a slightly different drill. We finished with forward and backward sled drags.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7UPFNhINyY

My Top 10 Exercise List

I hate the question...If you could only do just 1 exercise, what would it be? My answer to that question would be you are probably better off not working out.

Here is my top 10 favorite exercises for athletes in no particular order.

1. Trap Bar Dead Lift.

2. DB jump squats

3. Incline DB press

4. Vertical Chin ups or pull up variations

5. Horizontal pull ups with chains or TRX

6. 1 Leg Straight Leg Dead Lift

7. Sled pushes - or Prowler pushes

8. Single leg squats

9. Lateral single leg box jumps - to medial and lateral side of the knee

10. Prone and side bridging variaitions


These 10 exercises are not the end all be all to strength and conditioning. However, if you could only do 10 exercises in your weekly workouts, these would cover all the bases.

Equipment, Program, or Coaching

What is it that really makes an athlete stronger and faster? State of the art equipment? Expert program design? Effective coaching? If you have the budget of a division 1 university, then obviously you want it all. But, what if you are a high school basketball coach on a tight budget?

Let's address equipment first. Yes, you must have some equipment to produce speed and strength gains. Power racks, plyo boxes, sled, DBs and cable machines are all pieces that you will see at SOAR. However, if you walked in my gym for the first time, I guarantee you that the first words out of your mouth will not be "Wow, look at this beautiful facility!" In fact, its probably more like a dungeon then a palace. (For the record, it is clean and sanitary, just not pretty.)

Ask any long term client of mine how they feel about my facility and they will tell you that it doesn't matter. They are paying for my expertise and my coaching. There is no single piece of equipment that is going to make or break you as an athlete or general fitness client. In fact, I would run away from any trainer that lives and dies with one piece of equipment. Bottom line - If you are on a tight budget it would be much wiser to spend your money on good coaching instead of the newest piece of performance equipment.

Now onto program design. I spend hours per week designing programs for all my clients. As they become more advanced, that job becomes even more important. However, the best strength and power program in the world is worthless if you can't coach. You could copy all the programs in my data base, but if you don't understand human movement, it won't be the same. I see many high school programs using advanced power lifting programs to train their players. The program looks great on paper. But, if the kids are performing the lifts with poor technique and too heavy weight, the program might as well be a referral to a physical therapist.

So if I had to choose one - I would pick coaching. At SOAR, we coach.....all day long. We coach the warm-up, we coach how to jump, how to sprint, how to decelerate, how to squat, ect. Its the main reason our program is so successful for beginners and elite athletes. All clients receive a program and coaching that is tailored to their individual needs - expert coaching combined with expert program design.

In this day of age with all sorts of Internet programs, dvd's and elaborate equipment promising insane results in less then 6 weeks, the consumer needs to be wise. Will a DVD done at home really take you to the next level of athleticism if nobody is monitoring you? Can 1 piece of equipment really increase your vertical by 8 inches in 8 weeks if the seller has never seen you train before? Are you paying for a state of the art facility or the coaching that goes on inside of it?

Soar Warm Up Part 1

My client, George Bush from Strike Force MMA, performs the first part of our Warm Up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rQDeTQ5dvU

Static Stretching at Soar

Pre - warm up stretching done at Soar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3FpTw0D_fs