Before the start of the garage gym:
After Phase 1 – Squat stand, Olympic Bar, and Bumper Plates:
This garage gym will eventually be awesome – equipped with rubber flooring, kettlebells, TRX mounted on the ceiling, medicine balls, and more.
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Congratulations to two ASAP athletes: Josh Heinz of West Ranch Baseball for being named 1st Team 2010 All Santa Clarita Valley Baseball Team and J.C Cloney of West Ranch Baseball for being named 2nd Team 2010 All Santa Clarita Valley Baseball Team. Impressively both were only sophomores this past season. Once school ended they immediately started up on a training program again. The goal will be to take their performance to the next level this upcoming season.
Check out the article on the All Santa Clarita Valley Baseball Team.
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Check out a training sessions with the women’s volleyball team at Pierce College. They are getting ready for the upcoming fall season by out working all other JC volleyball programs in the weight room and on the court.
I use the workout tracks by Workout Muse – make sure to check them out.
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To spice up workouts with my teams I have introduced high intensity circuits to the beat of Workout Muse. It’s great to have a cadence during metabolic training in the weight room. I used this music during parts of the football metabolic circuit. Also, I will be posting a volleyball metabolic circuit shortly and used one of these sound tracks to guide the workout. Check it out.
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I went to LA Fitness this morning with the intention of doing front squats. When I got to the weight room I realized that all 3 half squat racks were being used by meat-heads doing bicep curls. Are you kidding?! You really need to take up an entire squat rack to do bicep curls with an Olympic Bar. I was trying to get some real work in while these pathetic individuals would do a set of bicep curls, rest 3 or 4 minutes and then do another set. The funny thing is I would bet these guys go to the gym and only do biceps the entire workout. What a waste of time and energy…
This should be outlawed at the gym.
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The semester is coming to an end here at Pierce. Therefore, it was time to retest the football team. Results after 6 weeks since the pretesting took place:
Average increase per player – Back Squat: 48 pounds
Average increase per player – Bench Press: 19 pounds
Average increase per player – Clean: 10 pounds
I was very impressed with the squat results. We really worked on lower body strength with squats – bilateral, split stance and unilateral squats. I personally do not put much merit on the bench press, but it was nice to see about a 20 pounds increase across the board. I thought for sure we would have more successful results for the clean. It is a very technical lift and what we saw was a huge increase with athletes who had very little experience performing this lift before. At the same time, many of the athletes who have been performing the clean for many years (through high school) had very little improvement. This could be do to a few different factors: taught incorrectly how to clean in the first place (many times this is true when high school football coaches are not trained and educated to teach Olympic lifts), athletes did not take the first 4-5 weeks of the semester serious when we only performed skill transfer complexes (jump shrugs, RDLs, front squats, light weight/bar only Olympic movements), and finally it could be my fault because of program design or coaching effectiveness. Either way this will improve with the next group of incoming freshmen.
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Check out a few action shots at Pierce College.
Every program at Pierce College is designed with these training principles in mind (Training philosophies I and Training philosophies II). Every program is 3-6 weeks in length – depending on the training goal and phase of the program.
I have heard some strength and conditioning coaches question the effectiveness of ladder training. They feel like doing ladder drills only gets you better at ladders drills – it does not improve sport performance. I think this is completely ridiculous. If ladder drills are executed properly athletes are improving their foot work, coordination, center of gravity management/control, speed, quickness, running technique, and explosiveness (if performing plyometric drills).
I do see some coaches abusing the ladder – it is the only training tool they use to improve athletic performance for their athletes. For myself, the ladder is simply a tool in my big box of tools just like kettlebells, Olympic lifts, medicine balls, TRX’s, body weight training, hurdles, agility rings, etc. The ladder has proven to be a great training tool for younger athletes to learn movement control and coordination. For my advanced athletes I use the ladders to improve foot work. Most times I have athletes perform ladder drills to a sprint or other agility drill. The ladder alone is just a tool.
Make sure to use the right tool for the job.
Here is a quick clip of a Friday “Fun” Day circuit with a few football players at Pierce College.
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A few things I have noticed since training with the Vibram Five Fingers for about a week and a half during workouts (strength training and running):
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