elitefts columnist Ashley Jones is Australian by birth, a New Zealander by choice and marriage, but first and foremost, he’s a strength and conditioning coach with 40 years of experience under his belt with plenty of passion and advice to spare to future coaches.
If speed is what we’re going after, then why do the weights on both our heavy and light days continue to climb, and bar speed continues to fall? As we get deeper into the competitive season and continue to put more tonnage on the athletes, we are burning the candle at both ends.
Reading Al Miller’s “The System” made me think about my most successful program. I’ve dubbed this hodgepodge of six years in strength and conditioning “Performance Drive Response,” which is a culmination of a bunch of different systems I’ve used, seen, and been in or part of.
Coaches, athletic trainers, physical therapists, equipment personnel, and league officials all have distinctly different vantage points on the same subject matter. Somewhere along the lines, one of the most critical perspectives gets lost in the shuffle: the players’.
With all of the information we have at our fingertips, it’s easy to lose track of some of the basic principles of strength training. One that’s easy to forget: Balance training and recovery as evenly as possible.
Live and learn from your failures and mistakes. Be willing to learn, and maybe more importantly, be willing to be wrong. Now go and pass that along.
Is Dave still following Dr. Rusin’s protocol? What are Dr. Rusin’s top-two training takeaways working with Dave? In this Q&A, Dave Tate and Dr. John Rusin share their overall experiences from video series “Fixing Dave Tate” and “Breaking John Rusin,” and more.
Since most units don’t really allow for rest days other than the weekend, I’m looking for the biggest-bang-for-my-buck exercises that I could be able to fit into a morning training session. Also, I’m working based on the assumption that Fridays are company/battery runs.
For the record, I’m not writing this article to bash box programming; I’m writing this to present an alternative way of doing things while STILL utilizing the best aspects of box programming. Our strength training model is what we’ve used with nearly 20,000 athletes (in a group setting) worldwide with great success.
After reading Conjugate U, I moved forward with implementing the Conjugate Method with my women’s tennis team. Here’s what we accomplished this past season.
The main reason I would suggest you engage in exercise is happiness. You might ask, “You mean managing depression?” No. I mean simple and plain happiness, although I’ll discuss depression and mental health, too.
We as strength coaches have a way of screwing training up even with this ancient, written-in-stone principle.
If an athlete is training on heavy squats but is unable to get into a good technique, he is risking injury, plus he is not getting the most of his training because he is in bad positions. First things first, let’s start with an assessment.
At some point Dave will make it to his destination, but until then, he’s got a few more questions to answer.
What did your training look like before you began this training? Give us a sample week/template that would be fairly typical of what you did.
If you aren’t willing to change and grow, you won’t survive. Here are the ways my perspective on strength coaching rules has changed since my previous article on the topic.
I love the ideals of hard work, being hardcore, and oozing intensity, but over the years I have learned there are many ways to perceive these things.
Neuromuscular training can be implemented early in the youth physical development process, but age-appropriate speed and strength training must account for the process of growth and maturation, motor learning, and physical development.
I’m here to spread the true secret of strength, if you think you can handle it.
Without question, the number one reason most lifters don’t lift the weights that they are able to is…
The goal is to get an inactive child on the spectrum socially and physically strong through movement. This initial type of training, the first in a progression of eight, takes place in the gym.
These are the gyms of Sub-Saharan Africa, where the training environment is unsheltered and un-floored and the equipment is made of scrap iron, car parts, cement, and anything else that works.
There is so much information that you could spend days, weeks, and months learning, without ever actually lifting a damn thing. Don’t become paralyzed trying to weed through all of the varying perspectives.
A union operates to give a group of individuals one voice, empowering them to lead in the right direction. This fully-equipped facility aims to provide exactly that for each of its members as they become the strongest versions of themselves.
The longer the season goes on, the more important it is to maintain performance. Don’t spend the season losing the physical abilities built during the off-season.
Continuing their conversation, Shoop and Dave talk about the past and what brought them back together.
If you’ve read Under the Bar you know who Bill Shoop is — he’s the high school football coach Dave credits with changing his life forever.
Everyone trains hard but few do the things that are boring and tedious. It is the willingness to do the mundane that separates those top athletes from the hordes of others training away in the gym right now.
When we first shared his story in 2014, Tim Ingram had just opened his first training facility. Now he’s back with another story of growth — and an even bigger gym.
This is the most important time in an athlete’s career for learning motor patterns, and it’s the age range that can set up athletes for long-term success in their sport.
You’ve probably been told to focus on the process rather than the outcome, but the thing is, no one tells you how; you’re simply chastised for focusing on the wrong thing, then told to go on your merry way.
Thinking back to these two activities and my time in college, I find myself wondering if the concept of working in with strangers is a concept lost on today’s youth.
Nick Showman built his facility with a purpose and, in the process of growing, has found a niche in softball, welcomed serious lifters, and expanded the services he and his coaches provide.
I have had more tweaks and muscle strains occur during the first week of getting back into training than any other time. If I’d known how to use an intro week, this never would’ve happened.
After our recent bowl game, all-time great Denver Bronco and two-time Pro Bowler Rod Smith spoke to my team and shared an important message that got me thinking about my athletes and my personal mission statement.
Although we have had a number of 1000-pound squatters and 800-pound benchers at the Monster Garage Gym, I can tell you—and so would the majority of the powerlifters at the gym—that Jerry is the strongest man in the gym.
How do you determine if your program is too easy, too hard, or just right? Here are some things to look for to see if your coach is the real deal or full of shit.
There’s nothing that will ever replace good old-fashioned hard work and practice. Not only that, this is where your life happens one plateau at a time.
Let me introduce you to a young gentleman from my gym. Like a lot of inexperienced lifters, he didn’t understand what it really means to keep your nose to the grindstone.
There are four components of a weight room atmosphere: coaching, equipment, training, and athletes.
In part two of this series, the topic is the big three for recovery, which allows athletes to experience better performance, resistance to injury, and longevity in their sport.
Understanding the role of recovery is the first step to improving your health, longevity, and performance as a strength athlete. Think of it like this: your training is the sledgehammer and your recovery is the raw materials and blueprints for improvement.
Through their four pillars and a growing nationwide network, BIRTHFIT is helping thousands of expecting moms prepare themselves for childbirth while staying healthy, mobile, and strong.
During the second double of a floor press training session, his pec tears. The bar crashes to the safety pins, inches above his face. For at least the twentieth time, the Collegiate Power Rack saves his ass.
In part one I addressed some general definitions and discussed the issues of age group, level of activity, previous training experience, and body fat. Now we address muscularity, injuries, bone density, and the lifestyle factors that impact your health.
With the exponential growth of the fitness industry over the past 20 years, the roots of elitefts still hold strong: a foundational trunk of knowledge sprouting enough branches to accommodate nearly every training discipline imaginable.
In this piece I reflect on my stepfather and his impact on me, trying to understand how a person who loved his children so much could also inadvertently created a great deal of difficulty and strife in their lives.
Each time I use this method myself I feel like I could run through a wall come meet day. Now after six years of using this cycle, we have proof that it works for our athletes.
The vigilant lifter wants to be a student of strength. They do not just want to be told what to do to get stronger. They want to learn and understand how to get stronger.
Sometimes we get so caught up in the physical nature of training we forget about the other impacts it has.
A big yoke equals instant respect. No one wants to screw with a guy that has a big neck and a thick yoke.