A 4.30 40-Yard Dash
The 4.30 journey is a story that every athlete who has had to run a 40-yard dash can relate to. It is my journey from running a 4.66 40-yard dash as a freshman in college to running a 4.30 for the New Orleans Saint scouts and the New Orleans Arena 1 football team.
EliteFTS: Top 8 Good Morning Exercises
The Good Morning Movement is one of the best movements to include in any strength program. Here are our top 8 Good Morning varieties.
The Pace of Your Stroke: Using Tempo for Gains in Size and Strength
I’ve dealt with several injuries over the last few years and it has caused me to do more research on how to get jacked (more research than I ever wanted to do in my life). However, it’s allowing me to get bigger and stronger, while still rehabbing injuries. The secret to this success has been speed.
The Fifties
For several months, I’ve been doing Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program. In it, Jim talks about doing exercises for assistance that build muscle mass. He advocates doing several reps of dips and pull-ups every week. At one point, I believe he states we should do 50 dips a week weighted or 100 dips a week with just body weight. If memory
Smith’s Got Your Back: Warm-ups for Squat Injury Prevention
Squat injuries happen more frequently without a proper warm-up. Dr. Ryan Smith discusses a few simple movements he uses that can save you from painful complications.
The ABCs of Tire Flippin’
Unless you live under a rock or in France, you know that incorporating Strongman events into training has become a popular way to add variation to any program.
Training the High School Powerlifter
Having been head coach of the Warren Central powerlifting team for almost ten years, I can tell you without hesitation that training teenagers has to be one of the most frustrating, and at the same time, rewarding jobs of my life. Many of the guys I have coached came into our weight room as freshmen having never even seen a
The Key to Reaching Athletic Achievement
The most common questions I receive are “What type of program should I be following?” and “What type of program do you follow?” In my opinion, too many athletes concern themselves far too much about what training program they’re following. They don’t focus enough on the other myriad of factors that are more influential in determining how far they’ll go
Importance of Fast Twitch Capacity in Football Training
With the beginning of football season, the long anticipated excitement for the early powerhouse match ups has finally arrived. Coaches get their first look at new players, and fans can see what they can expect from their favorite teams.
Is Your Finisher Going to Finish You?
You’ve just spent an hour doing a grueling full body workout. Your body is spent from deep, heavy squats, weighted chins, and max effort incline presses. So what do you do now? How about loading up the bar for deadlifts? Why not do them with an underhand grip while you’re at it? Or while standing on a low box?
Explosive Upper Body Training for Football Lineman
“I tell ya. His legs are as strong as an ox, but he throws a punch like a 7-year old girl!”
Top 75 Training Books
Dave asked for the best book on training that you’ve read. Here are your 75 responses:
EFS Pro Short Band Strength
Bands were first introduced to Dave Tate close to 10 years ago. After experimenting with accommodating resistance and the use of chains, Dave took his squat from 760 to 855 in 12 months.
Of Politics & Idiocy, Part 1 Strength & Conditioning at the Coll...
Why do people want to be strength coaches?
Introduction to Preparing Athletes for the Challenging Sport of Rugby U...
For those not familiar with the sport, rugby union is a professional, widespread sport in Europe and countries in the southern hemisphere (Australia).
Dual Rack Ropes
Years ago, when I was regularly conducting seminars, I began to notice a common element in many of the university weight rooms I’d visit. I’d always see towels folded over the tops of power racks and taped at their ends.
The BS of the Strength and Conditioning Field
This article isn’t going to make me any friends, but hopefully it will open the eyes of some people and help them look outside their fields of thought and expand their thinking. During the last seventeen years, I’ve been exposed to several concepts and ideas as they pertain to strength and conditioning, including Olympic lifting, powerlifting, core training, assessment based
Problem—Raw Bench Press; Solution—Plyometrics
Speed training in the bench press has become increasingly popular. Louie Simmons of Westside Barbell Club popularized this concept by advocating a speed day in the bench press. Some call it a “dynamic” day, and some call it a “light” day.
Teach Them to Land First
Plyometrics have been a part of most athletic development programs for many years.
Alleviating Ailing Ankles
Anyone who has worked with field and court sport athletes has undoubtedly dealt with his fair share of athletes with ankle injuries.
Of Politics & Idiocy, Part 2 Strength & Conditioning at the Coll...
This is part two of a two-part series.
EliteFTS Spotlight: Justin Cecil
Justin Cecil is a full time staff member at St. Vincent Sports Performance in Indiana, and serves as the head strength and conditioning coach at Lawrence Central High School.
Three Football Speed Training Myths Busted
Where the hell did we go so wrong when it comes to football speed training? When did it become acceptable to pass off the hard work that entails training for football speed and replace it with fairly easy cone drills and gadgets?
So You Wanna Be a Fighter: Part 2
Let’s be very clear—I don’t know shit. Not about constructing the ultimate training paradigm, not about recovery, and certainly not about conditioning. But what I do know is that I love physical training, and I have a great passion for learning about the strength and conditioning field.
Rethinking Interval Training
I love interval training, but one of the problems we commonly run into—particularly if someone isn’t prepared physically to sprint or doesn’t have a place to do it because of weather restrictions—is that repetitive, low amplitude motions are our only options.
EliteFTS Spotlight: Josh Bryant
Josh Bryant is a speed, strength, and conditioning coach. He is also a personal trainer who has works with many clients in person at Metroflex Gym in Arlington, Texas and via the internet.
Strength and Conditioning for High School Hockey
I don’t care for the term “sport-specific.” To me, this buzzword is a clever way to market strength and conditioning programs to parents who don’t know any better.
Training Considerations for the Tactical Athlete
Many people consider sports such as golf, tennis, and martial arts to be some of the top sports that are most reluctant to buy into modern strength and conditioning techniques.
Injury Prevention Strategies for Female Basketball Players
Injuries are a major setback for any competitive athlete. It can be physically taxing to recover and mentally stressful and draining to be sitting on the bench and going through rehabilitation.
My First Three Weeks as a Strength Coach
Since I enlisted in the U.S. Army, I’ve wanted to be a coach. My drive is directly related to my high school experiences as a student athlete and the positive impact one person can have on another individual.
Things I’ve Learned
As I sat here reading the new articles on EliteFTS.com, I wondered why many of the authors weren’t female
Strongman Training for Rugby
Rugby is a fast-paced game that requires athletes to pass, kick, tackle, and run. All 15 players on the field need to be competent in these very different areas.
Muscular Development Training Bytes by Thomas Fahey and Steve Blechman
Static but not dynamic stretching decreases strength
Performance Training to Look Better
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.
Block Periodization in the Sport of Powerlifting
This program is based on the concepts outlined in Dr. Vladimir Issurin’s, Block Periodization: A Breakthrough in Sports Training.
Hip Strength for Speed Development: Part II
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.
Proper Sprinting Mechanics of the 40
Coaches on various levels are trying to find the latest workouts to improve strength and speed in their athletes.
Six Things Your Training Should Have (if It Doesn’t Already)
Everyone has a different training program.
The Perfect Program: For Lifters and Coaches Alike
Here’s the deal. All sound programs work and they work well. The best one is your preference. However, there’s a catch to everything and this has more than one.
GPP Considerations for a Six-Week Collegiate Post-Competitive Block
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).
Matt Holmes’ Journey of a Warehouse Gym
ZE: Matty, tell the readers of EliteFTS about yourself, how you started in the fitness industry, and what you have going on right now.
Sometimes More Is Better
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.
What I Wish I Knew as a Female Athlete
As an athlete, you’re taught many things—work hard, compete until the end, work together with your teammates, push yourself to the limit, and have fun.
An Introduction to the Sport of Kettlebell Lifting
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
Bridge the Gap: Sprint-Resisted Training
“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
Development of Division 1 Football
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.
Gain One Inch on Your Arms in Thirty Days
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.
The Biggest Gimmick in Strength and Conditioning
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.
Predictor Lifts for the Grappling Sports
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.
Ten Tips to Improve Your Football Training
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
Off-Season Soccer Strength
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.
Speed Development for High School Athletes, Part I
National high school signing day was February 4, 2009. After listening to all the “gurus” discuss recruiting, one thing stood out—speed.
Warm Up Essentials
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.
Seven Secrets to Better Workouts
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?
Developing an Effective Strength Training Program
The key for athletic success begins in the weight room. Studies have shown that athletes who participate in a strength training program are faster, quicker, and more explosive, and they have fewer injuries.
EliteFTS Spotlight: Joel Jamieson
My career as a strength and conditioning coach essentially began at the University of Washington when I interned under a great coach named Bill Gillespie back in the late 1990s.
Pull-up 101, Part I
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…
