Things I Learned in 2009
By
Tom Sullivan
1. People who say money doesn’t matter never operated their own business. The
only thing that stresses me out on a daily basis is lack of cash. With plenty of
cash, you can upgrade equipment, spend money on marketing efforts, add staff,
and grow a business.
2. The cheapest way to attract new clients is by delivering above average
results to a client and having him tell his friends about you. Unfortunately,
it’s also a long cycle. It may take 12 weeks to get noticeable results, so you
may have to wait 3–4 months to reap the benefits of word of mouth. The quickest
way I’ve found to be effective is by offering some type of free session package
to a group of people.
3. For healthy individuals, I still like to perform heavy front squats. I can’t
explain the science, but good things happen when you front squat heavy with
excellent technique.
4. In my business, we deal with a ton of beginning trainees. Things that we’ve
had success with are hammering the basics, getting them to think about what they
eat, and teaching them to take care of themselves. In a given training week,
we’re doing hundreds of reps of push-ups, pull-ups, body weight and goblet
squats, and stability abdominal drills. We’re pushing them to eat more and
stressing the importance of nine hours of sleep. With this recipe, we average
12–15-lb gains in a typical 10–12-week period. We’ve also had kids gain 20 lbs.
5. I’d like to come up with a name for the type of circuits we perform. Once per
week (more often with general fitness clients), we’ll perform a circuit. One of
my favorites is a light, fast sled push followed by something we call a “walking
push-up” (stolen from Tony Gentilcore’s blog). This is followed by a heavy
goblet squat for five reps and a 25-foot rope climb. We catch our breath and
repeat for a number of sets or for a time period. This circuit is also great for
inspiring competition with athletes. You just have to stress perfect technique
and enforce it as well.
6. For a team of 12–16 athletes training at the same time, a set up of stations
works well for us. We go through a traditional warm up and then do some jumping
and speed work. Then we set up stations as the athletes rest for a minute or
two. Some of my favorite stations are rear foot elevated split squats, rope
climbs (or rows for weaker athletes), heavy suitcase carries, 80–100 sprints
(tempo run), wheelbarrows for distance, medicine ball slams, push-ups, and sled
pushes. Just set up a station and pair up your athletes. One athlete works while
the other rests unless you have two of everything. When they finish a station,
they move to the next one until they have finished a full round of exercises.
Then we rest and repeat as time permits.
7. Sometimes a niche can be a bad thing. My niche has been beginner trainees who
play hockey, are 13–15 years old, and live within 8–9 miles of the gym. Summer
is gangbusters for business. Fall tapers down a little bit with some athletes
choosing fall hockey or a second sport over training. Winter grinds to a slow
crawl with a couple of teams training in-season and a couple of individual
players training twice a week in-season, and spring begins to pick back up. I
must now shift the direction of my business to “building a business for all
seasons” (thanks Coach), which includes a full complement of fitness clients and
branching out into some other sports. Would lacrosse players benefit from
getting brutally strong, faster, and tougher?
8. For my fitness clients who train twice a week, we’re having success using a
barefoot dynamic warm up followed by a mini-circuit to drill simple strength
followed by a larger circuit with an emphasis on metabolic conditioning. The key
to getting all of the things you want to accomplish completed is to build them
into the warm up.
Tom Sullivan operates Sullivan Training Systems in Weymouth,
Massachusetts. He can be reached through his website at
www.sullivantrainingsystems.com or via email at
tom@sullivantrainingsystems.com.
Elite Fitness Systems strives to be a recognized leader in the strength
training industry by providing the highest quality strength training products
and services while providing the highest level of customer service in the
industry. For the best training equipment, information, and accessories, visit
us at www.EliteFTS.com.
