Performance training for improved looks is a concept that seems to get lost behind the dozens of magazines that promote your favorite bodybuilder and the supplements they’re trying to sell us.

In my last article, I outlined the four qualities that must be trained to improve speed—relative body strength, hip stability, elasticity/reactivity, and rate of force development. I quickly touched on the subject of developing strength in a hip hyperextended position. In my opinion, this can unlock the speed potential of any athlete.

Coaches on various levels are trying to find the latest workouts to improve strength and speed in their athletes.

Everyone has a different training program.

At Northwestern State, we inform our teams that their off-season begins once their season completes but not as a means of max effort or dynamic effort. This block solely works to reestablish their initial general physical preparedness (GPP).

One of the first things we learn in the fitness industry—whether you’re a trainer, a gym rat, or that “newbie” who is still wet behind the ears—is that more isn’t always better.

“Heredity only deals the cards; environment and training plays the hand”(1). It’s possible for an athlete to improve in every phase of playing speed, whether it be maximum miles per hour, stopping and starting, feinting, faking and cutting, or multi-directional high speed acceleration with a complete “holistic” speed development plan (1). Genetically gifted athletes may be fast with little work or preparation, but they are nowhere near their genetic limitations with regards to maximum speed.

By now, you should know what a kettlebell is, or at the very least, you should have heard of kettlebells. They are popping up everywhere, and you can even purchase them from your local sporting goods retailer. There are kettlebell fitness trainers, kettlebell boot camps, kettlebell gyms, and even kettlebell infomercials. Kettlebells certainly have broken into the mainstream. Some might say this is good while others might say this is bad.

We believe the initial year in our program is the most critical to an athletes’ over all development. During this period, the strength and conditioning staff must implement the foundation for development.

For every sport, there are certain key lifts that when performed by the athlete will tell you how well he or she will do in the sport. Once a predictor lift is improved, it will correlate with an improvement in performance.

Just recently, a man who was very well acquainted with Vince Gironda contacted me. He told me some stories about the old “Iron Guru” that I hadn’t heard before. It got me thinking about Vince.

I’ve been to a ton of seminars in the past year, and every single time I came away confused on the most effective way to design a strength and conditioning program for high school athletes. One of the most conflicting methods used when talking about speed training is overspeed.

If we all simply followed this one, there’d be better results and more time for real training. Jogging has no place in a football training program. None. Not as a warm up, not as a cool down, and definitely not as punishment

In recent years, strength and conditioning has became more and more popular among the soccer populations. The benefits have been seen in many other sports, and it’s finally showing up in soccer.

National high school signing day was February 4, 2009. After listening to all the “gurus” discuss recruiting, one thing stood out—speed.

The cookie cutter approach to exercise doesn’t make sense to me, especially when people are stuck behind desks (sustained lumbar flexion, shortened hip flexors) all day or opt to train with movement impairments. Corrective strategies are necessary, and everyone needs to have a static and dynamic evaluation. It’s common to confuse being strong with being healthy.

As your old high school gym teacher might have led you to believe, stretching before weight training isn’t the best way to warm up. Recent reports show that static stretching before exercise can reduce muscle strength. Stretching relaxes your muscles, so why would you want to relax your muscles when you need to lift explosively during weight training?

When Elite asked me to write an article about pull-ups, I thought, no problem. This will take about one line—grab a bar and give it a tug. That’s it. Finished. Done! Then I thought, well, no…

When you watch the world’s strongest man contests on television, it should be obvious that these athletes are not only aggressive, fast, explosive, athletic, and flexible, but they have a great anaerobic threshold.

“Training is an exact science.” —Mike Mentzer

“Sport-specific” is the new marketing buzzword when it comes to strength and conditioning programs for youth. Uneducated masses of parents and coaches herd their sports teams at a young age into “athletic performance” programs that supposedly address the strength, movement, and speed demands of one specific sport.

The other day I had to suffer the great indignity of paying for a day pass at a commercial gym. Lifting in a commercial place isn’t all that bad. It can actually be good from time to time to expose you to new equipment or just get a change of scenery.

In my first article on body weight training titled “30 Days Without Weights,” I spoke about the many benefits of using body weight training during a training phase.

Hamstring injuries are common among sprinters. One of the biggest challenges that I face as a strength coach is helping an athlete overcome a hamstring injury and at the same time improving performance.