I finally have a free moment to make my first post in a couple weeks. I have been busy working as a strength coach at Pierce College and running ASAP Performance Training. I am training well over 100 athletes a day and hoping to start shooting videos of the workout sessions and upload them on the blog. I also have a lot to blog about at the end of the day after coaching various skill levels. Make sure to keep checking this blog for valuable information. Thanks for checking things out.
Lessons from the trenches
I came to Pierce College with a ton of good training ideas (so I thought). One thing I got a lot of rift about from the football players was front squatting and not barbell bench pressing (this will be another post). Here is my rationale on front squatting: I believe in programming front squats into a workout routine before I introduce back squats. The front squat is a great core dominate exercise that requires the athlete to maintain a rigid torso (emphasizing core stabilization). At Pierce, we front squatted for 6 weeks. We never did heavy singles, doubles or triples because we were still in the foundation phase of our program. Even with relatively low loads on the bar, many of the athletes said their legs had never been that strong. In fact, we tested the back squat (using this number as a baseline for the next training phase which did include back squats) after 6 weeks of front squatting and most of the athletes said they beat their PR on the back squat. We didn’t even back squat though! Now this didn’t take place with every athlete, but I think it does illustrate that the front squats helps to build a stronger chain between the lower half and the torso. With back squats I tend to see a lot of hip/lumbar flexion and extension. The athletes tend to have greater forward tilt with their torso. With the front squat you don’t have that option – if there is excessive forward tilt of the torso you will miss the lift.
Train Hard-Train Smart
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