When an athlete performs a regular step-up, there will be many muscles of the lower legs that will be stimulated.  When you watch the video of my women’s basketball players doing a power step-up, you will see a jump stretch band attached around their waist.  This will have two main functions.  The first will be forcing them to stimulate the torso musculature.  This is desirable as we will want as many muscle fibers stimulated as possible and any additional core activation is always a good thing.  In the second function, the band is holding the athlete back and the athlete is forced to drive the hip forward and move the leg into a more aggressive triple extension firing pattern.  This triple extension will occur in the hip, knee, and ankle.  It is this powerful motion that accelerates an athlete forward explosively.

When performing a power step-up you will need a light or medium jump stretch band and something sturdy to step-up onto at a height of approximately 18-24″.  Loop the jump stretch band around an immoveable object at waist height.  I use my cable machines because there is no sharp edges to cut into the band.  Position a step-up platform about 2 feet from the end of the band.  In the video, the ladies are stepping onto a Legend foam plyo box.  This will give this exercise an added bonus because the athletes will have to stabilize their ankles and maintain balance.  The athlete will then step into the loop of the band and place the loop around their waist.  Place one foot onto the box so that the entire foot is on the box.  In a running motion, drive the heel of the foot that is on the box down hard into the box and drive the body forward.  Again emphasize a running motion with good arm swing and knee drive.  Keep the foot on the box and step back down with the other foot to the floor.  Repeat this motion for the desired number of reps or time of the exercise.

Typically I will have athletes perform 4 sets of 6-10 reps per leg.  An alternative would be to have the athlete step both feet down back to the floor and alternate the step-ups.  In this fashion, I would normally go for a timed session of 30-60 seconds.

If first step acceleration is something you need to improve on then you will want to give this one a try.  As a strength coach, I always believe this is an area that can be improved on.

Hope this helps.

To your health,

Jerry

How to execute a dead lift power shrug is as easy as combining a dead lift and a power shrug together.  OK right now you might be thinking..”really!”   But seriously, someone who is reading this right now might not know exactly how to dead lift or has done shrugs but is not familiar with the term “power shrug”.  So I think it would be good to give a quick review of each exercise and then talk about how and why we would combine the two.

Look at the picture to the right of Franco Columbu performing a conventional dead lift.  Mr. Columbu was known for bodybuilding but he also did some power lifting on the side.  Did I mention that he is one of my favorite strength athletes of all time!  Well if you didn’t know-you do now.

Here are some of my coaching ques I tell my athletes when they dead lift a bar bell:

• Start with your feet shoulder width apart with your toes forward or slightly turned out
• The bar should be right up close to the shins
• Squat down and position the arms just outside of your knees and grab the bar bell.  You can use a double over hand grip or  have one hand as an overhand grip and the other as an underhand grip.  In the picture Franco’s left hand is in the over hand grip position and his right is in the under grip positions.  This type of grip is usually used when maxing out or just learning how to dead lift as it is easier to keep the bar closer to your legs.  I will talk more about the double over hand grip later
• Grasp the bar tightly and position your back in a neutral position with your head up and shoulders directly over the bar.  You want to try to not round your back at all during the lift
• Keep your weight positioned in your heels of your feet as you start to stand up, take a breath and feel the weight in your hands before you stand up
• Tighten up your entire mid-section and begin extending your legs maintaining form throughout the motion as you stand up
• Do not hyper extend your back to try to lock it out at the top.  This can be very risky to your low back if you are not an experienced power lifter
• Return the weight back to the floor by squatting the weight down in reverse order
• Remember to always keep the weight close to your legs at all times during the dead lift

This is Part II of a three part post.  We filmed video clips of a 6am workout that I ran a mixed group of athletes through. There were athletes from wrestling, women’s volleyball, men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s water polo, and field hockey who participated in the voluntary workout.  Per NCAA rules, all workouts held by a college strength coach in the summer are voluntary.

The set of video clips in this post is of our quick feet line drills.  I put our athletes through this right after our functional or dynamic warm-up.  I also ended these drills with some basic deceleration and landing drills.  These are great for learning body awareness and preventing ACL tears.

Most of these drills are very short and quick.  Roughly 7-12 seconds each depending on the exercise.  The athletes are instructed to perform each exercise to the best of their ability and as fast as possible without compromising technique.

Here are the drills:

• Two Foot Line Hop-Both feet hop Shoulder width forward and back over the line
• Two Foot Side To Side Hop-Feet together, both feet hop side to side over the line
• Right Foot Line Hop-Just the right foot forward and back over the line (then left)
• Right Foot Side To Side-Just the right foot hop side to side over the line (then left)
• Right Foot 45 Degree Hop Out and Back-Keep your toes forward and hop across the line in a 45 degree angle away from the body.  Land with the toes forward not pointing in the direction you are hopping.  Then hop back (then left)
• Right Foot 45 Degree Hop In and Back-Keep your toes forward and hop across the line in a 45 degree angle across the front of the body.  Land with the toes forward not pointing in the direction you are hopping.  Then hop back (then left)
• Straddle Line Sumo Stance-Straddle the line with the feet wider than shoulders with one foot in front of the line, the other foot behind the line.  Quickly hop feet back and forth over the line.  Swing arms at the shoulder joint as well in a running motion and maintain a wider stance
• Straddle Line Semi-Lunge Position-Stand over the line with one foot on each side and get into a 1/4 lunge position or deeper.  Maintain that position as you hop the feet side to side over the line (then switch feet position)
• Step Over Forward-Stand with both feet on one side of the line, step with the outside foot over the inside foot and the line, quickly bring the other foot around as you step back over the planted foot and the line.  Repeat quickly without trying to mover forward
• Step Over Backward-Stand with both feet on one side of the line, step with the outside foot behind the inside foot and over the line, quickly bring the other foot around as you step back behind the planted foot and over the line.  Repeat quickly without trying to mover backward
• Command Step Over Forward & Backward-Start performing the step over forward but this time you travel down the line forwards.  On the “backward” command, from the strength coach, quickly reverse the movement and start stepping over backwards moving backward down the line.  The strength coach will continue to give directional commands
• Deceleration Tuck Jumps-Stand with both feet on the line shoulder width apart, squat down and explosively jump straight up into the air tucking your knees towards your chest.  Try to land back down on the line very softly as you decelerate into a squatting motion contracting your glutes.  Reset and go again.  This is NOT done in quick repetitions like the previous drills.  I usually do 2-3 sets of 10 jumps.  Athletes are instructed to do each one to the best of their ability and not to rush through them
• Deceleration 180 Degree Tuck Jumps-Stand with both feet on the line shoulder width apart, squat down and explosively jump straight up into the air twisting your body 180 degrees as you tuck your knees towards your chest.  Try to land back down on the line very softly as you decelerate into a squatting motion contracting your glutes. You will be facing the opposite direction.  Reset and go again.  Athletes are instructed to perform 2-3 sets of ten reps, 5 reps in each direction per set

These drills are not meant to be conditioning drills and are not run in a continuous circuit style fashion.  I will run a few in a row giving some rest in between each one.  After three or four drills, I will stop them and tell them to shake out their legs and give them some additional rest.  I will vary how many of these type of rests depending on how the group is doing.  I will also keep them focused on breathing through their nose an out their mouth for all the drills.

These are great drills that can be done anywhere.  These are also just a few variations of line drills.  Your imagination is the only limit as there are hundreds of different footwork patterns you can do with a line.

In Part III of this series, I will go over the rest of the workout which will include a sprint set workout and cool-down.

Hope this helps,

To your health,

Jerry

These guys are strong because they get dirty and use their hands, lift heavy objects, and carry them around.  If our goal is to get “strong”, maybe we should be looking into this a little more.  Hey, I am not telling you to quit your job to become a farmer or brick layer….unless you want to.  I am merely making a point.

Could incorporating some of these principles into a training program prove to be beneficial?  Yes, I believe they can be.  Does this mean we should neglect our weight room tools like barbells, dumbbells, kettle bells, etc?  No!

I like adding odd object lifts and strongman movements into my training programs and let me tell you something; most athletes love it!  If they are into the workouts and dedicated, then they will love to be challenged with these type of lifts.

I am talking about:

• Picking up stones
• Throwing stones
• Tires
• logs
• kegs
• sandbags
• pretty much just about anything you might see laying around

You can really get creative with this but you also must be careful because there can a risk of injury if things are carelessly approached.  Technique is just not thrown out the window.  There are techniques for every one of the movements that are associated with the list above.   The best thing to do is learn from someone who has experience with many of these techniques.  Study the movements and think about body positioning and visualize in your head what you are going to do before you do it.  Most importantly, enjoy your training and the results you get from it!!

I think these types of training challenges are FUN and I think you will to if you give them a try.  Oh, did I mention the side effect will be getting strong quick!

Now go for a hike and find yourself a few rocks!!

To your health,

Jerry

PS-If you want to learn more about how to do strongman lifts properly and fit them into your training program.  My buddy Jedd Johnson and Steve Slater just released a on-line DVD presentation that covers anything and everything you would want to know about these techniques and how to avoid injuries and reap the rewards.  You can take a look at it by clicking on the DVD

Hope that helps!

Jedd Johnson from Diesel Crew came up with the events and ran the competition.  Unfortunately, not many stepped up to compete besides myself and two other brave men (Chance Smith & Paul Berry Jr.).  It was competitive and one heck of a great time!

There were three events:

The first event was the log press.  We had 1 minute to clean and press a 12 inch log bar as many times as possible to full lockout with your head through.  I think the bar weighted 110-120 pounds which is not extremely heavy but none of us have a log bar to train with normally, so the awkwardness of it was the difficult part.  You just do not clean a log bar like a regular barbell.

The second event was the mace swing; which proved to be even more awkward and as you seen or will see from the video, very challenging.  We also had one minute to swing the mace back and around our head to the point of attention (straight up in front of our body) as many times as possible.  I personally liked this event the most but was honestly glad when it was over.

The third event was the kettlebell sled drag.  The sled was loaded with 50 pounds and a 50-55 pound kettlebell was attached and used as a handle.  What you had to do was pinch the kettlebell between your hands and back peddle a certain distance.  Quickest time won.  This actually proved to be my worst event as I quickly found out that I need some work on my back peddling skills.  I guess I am just not as quick as I once was (getting older sucks!).

In the end; Paul, Chance, and I had a great time and had some good laughs afterwards; especially with my graceful stumble across the finish line.

I think it is great to get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself with new and different types of training and strongman lifts will definitely do just that.  They can also be dangerous if not understood and done correctly.  Always make sure you understand the techniques involved in any of these types of exercises. Jedd Johnson is releasing a new DVD soon describing how to not only execute these movements correctly but also how to implement them into a training program.  I was able to review this DVD and it is totally awesome.  I will keep you posted when that will be available.

I would like to thank Jedd Johnson for organizing and running the event and Doug Smith for putting together what some say is the best strength & conditioning conference on the east coast!

I hope you enjoyed the video!  I was glad to share that with you all.

To your health,

Jerry

Our goals are simple:

• Stay Healthy
• “Finish” Games
• Win the Patriot League Championship
• Get into the NCAA Tournament!!!

A lacrosse player is a special breed of athlete.  Some have set skills and most hold certain field positions.  They can’t get too big or bulky and they must be strong, agile and explosive.  Toughness, both physical and mental, are required at this level of play.  I try to instill this into my lacrosse athletes each time they work with me in and out of the weight room.

During our conditioning workouts I have a “stand tall” rule.  No matter how tired or gassed you are you NEVER bend over and place your hands on your knees.  If someone does, the whole team gets punished.  This is a mental game (as are most demanding sports) and if your opponent sees you are sucking wind; they will have that mental edge.

We can carry this same physical and mental toughness into the weight room.  For example, this workout is taking place during the schools spring break and there are no classes.  They could have easily slept in but we decided to keep them on schedule and hold the workouts early in the AM.

In the video, I took random clips of the team going through Day 1 of their In-season program.  I personally, was not happy with the team’s performance and intensity of this workout on this day.  Actually, I believe this to be one of our worst workouts of the year and I let the team know about it with some colorful words off camera.  Hey this is reality and this is what I filmed on this particular day.  Here was the workout:

Functional Injury Prevention Work: Internal/External Shoulder Rotation & Scapular Retraction Exercises

Functional Core: Kettle Bell or Dumbbell Oblique Raise (windmill)

Emphasis Work:

• Hang Clean To Split Jerk 5 x 2
• Incline Bar Press/DB Press 2 x 6
• Swivel Grip Pull-up 1 x Failure
• Neutral Grip Pull-up 1 x Failure

Supplemental Work:

• Manual Resistance Posterior Shoulder 1 x Failure
• Dirty Thirty Calves 2 x 10/10/10
• Banded Biceps 1 x 100
• Wrist/Grip Work

Ab/Low Back Circuit w/Strength Coach 7min 30 seconds

Team Static Stretch

As you will see in the video background, some athletes will have other exercises that they are working on in their individual programs.

To your health,

Jerry

PS-Follow us in the NCAA Tourney!!

Our pre-season weight room workouts run three days a week.  Tuesdays and Thursdays are about hitting big emphasis lifts like cleans, jerks, sumo box squats, and single arm snatches.  We also supplement in pressing movements (bench press and incline db presses), pulling movements (one arm dumbbell rows and many pull-up variations), and tons of posterior chain exercises (glute/hams and reverse hypers).   I never forget to put a good focus on grip strength development.

On Saturdays, I run them through intense circuit training circuits called the “Beast”.  This has been a tradition the last couple of years for the wrestling team and something that they really get psyched up about.  I instruct them to throw everything out the window and just go for it!  Conquer and destroy each station to the best of their abilities until they are told to move to the next station.  It is insane and we would not want it any other way.

The following is the order of exercises for the “Beast” and although you might not know what each exercise is; I think you can appreciate how physically and mentally challenging this circuit really is.

1. Burpees
2. Heavy Punching Bag
3. 60 lb Kettle Bell Swing
4. Landmine Ab Bar Twist
5. 40 lb Dumbbell Curl
6. Box Depth Jumps
7. Double Arm Plank
8. Swivel Grip Pull-up
9. 65 lb Keg Power Clean To Press
10. Ring Push-up
11. Rocky Pull-up (Pipe hung from chains in a power rack)
12. Box Squat-2-Box Jump
13. D-Ball Seated Russian Twist
14. Tire Sled Push
15. Curved Fat Grip Wrist roll
16. Overhead D-Ball Box Squat
17. Rope Climb
18. Ab Roller
19. D-Ball Ab Slam-Jump-Catch
20. Double Landmine Squat Press
21. Band Triceps Extensions
22. Knees-2-Feet-2-Box Hop
23. Tire Flip
24. Softball Grip Chain Holds

Each of the 24 stations lasted for 30 seconds and they would rotate to the next station on a whistle command.  Twelve plus minutes of continuous work followed by a 5 minute rest period.  We would do three full rounds followed by a cool-down and long stretching session.

I want to stress that this is a very strenuous training circuit being done by trained Division I Collegiate athletes.  This type of training should not be done by a novice or someone who has not been prepared by training principles to attempt a circuit of this caliber.

We are looking forward to another successful wrestling season!

To your health,

Jerry

The Plate Push has the ability to do all this based off how the exercise is applied.  Before we get to all that; lets discuss the basic set up for the hands and body.

• First, make sure the plate is set down with the smooth side down on the ground or floor.
• Your hands will be places just slightly behind the mid line of the plate.
• You will get down low just like a sprinter would who is ready to explode out of the starting blocks.
• Position yourself behind the plate so that your shoulders are not over the plate but behind it.
• Contract your core by pulling in your belly button towards your spine.  This is a draw-in technique and you should still be able to breath.
• Lift your knees off the floor and you are ready to start pushing!

There are factors to be considered here which will determine the level of resistance.

• How much of your body weight will you be pushing downward onto the plate.
• Your surface area.  The plate will push much easier on a smooth surface and much harder on a surface like a rubber floor, carpet, or grass.
• How much paint is on the smooth side of the plate.  A plate with a lot of paint will tend to feel tacky when pushing on a rubber floor verses a plate with very little paint on it.

If you are looking to use this exercise for conditioning purposes; I would suggest you know the distance you want to accomplish or set a time frame and see what distance you actually did accomplish.  You may find this is be much harder than you think depending on your level of muscular and cardiovascular endurance.

If you are looking for the exercise to produce power and explosion; you would want to define your distance such as 10-20 yards.  Then perform the plate push with as much intensity and power as possible for the set yardage, followed by a good rest period before going again.

Both of these techniques work great but I do want to point out that this is much harder than it looks and should be practiced before jumping right into a solid workout with it.

To your health,

Jerry

These are some key training tips when performing this exercise:

• Before starting the first jammer press make sure you are low and there is no slack in the strap.
• As you explode into the first rep make sure you are extending through the hips, knees, and ankles until your legs are straight.
• Keep your core tight throughout the movement.
• Drive and extend your arms after you have extended through the lower body.
• Move forward quickly and get into position to repeat process.

This training drill can be done for reps or for distance and could be incorporated right into a team practice session.  This is also a great training tool to use in summer training to prepare an athlete for the upcoming football season when they are not permitted to use football designed hitting sleds.

Hey folks, this is just an awesome exercise to do just to release some steam after a hard days work.  Trust me you will feel much better after doing some reps of this and you will also know that you accomplished some great work.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

To your health,

Jerry

This is a great exercise for developing strength and power through the torso, but more importantly it trains you to load the back hip and extend through the glutes, down through the ground, while firing your torso muscles in a rotating motion.  This is the same neurological firing sequence you find in most athletic movements.  As a strength coach I find this a very desirable exercise to use with my athletes.

One of the biggest mistakes my athletes make with this exercise is not stepping far enough away from the sled to take up the slack in the strap.  You want the strap with no slack in it to start as seen in the picture.  From there you want to engage your torso musculature; particularly your abdominals as you start to load the back hip area.  Extend through the hip and knee to generate force through the ground as the torso begins it’s rotation.  Then follow through the full range of motion.

This is a training method I use to achieve rotational force and power.  It has proven itself to be a highly effect exercise over the years and I would encourage you to give it a try.  Try it even if you are no longer a participating athlete. You can slow down the power element and it will become more of a rotational strength exercise for your core.

To your health,

Jerry