Triple Extension Movements for Football Using Strongman Training
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.
What’s Best for Increasing Muscle Mass and Strength—Linear or Reverse L...
“Training is an exact science.” —Mike Mentzer
Abdominal Training for the Power Athlete
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.
“Sport-Specific” Training for Youth: Athlete and Parents Beware, Part 1
“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 Return of Hardcore
That’s it. I can’t take it anymore. These sissified commercial gyms and their clipboard holding trainers have just about ruined the weightlifting world.
30 Days Without Weights: Part II
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.
Extreme Hamstrings: High-Tension Hamstring Training
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.
Extreme Hamstrings: High-Tension Hamstring Training
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.
The “Devil” Bench Workout
Why is it that whenever I’m in a gym I see people benching the same weight at each workout? It usually goes like this—a person performs a few reps at 185 lbs, then at 205 lbs, and maybe at 225 lbs.
EliteFTS Spotlight: Jim Steel
This week’s EliteFTS Spotlight features University of Pennsylvania strength and conditioning coach Jim Steel. Coach Steel is a former college football player with an extensive powerlifting background.
My Top Five Strength Movements for Basketball Players
Players need overall lower body strength, single leg strength, upper back and shoulder strength, mobility, and a solid core. The game also subjects players to pounding and stress on the lower body.
Lessons Learned from Training Young Kids
I have spent this past winter training young hockey players, often as young as 11-years-old and often by myself in groups of 12–15 kids at one time.
Making the Most of College Lifting
College is a wonderful place. It’s the transitional phase between being nestled securely at home close to your mother’s teat and being thrust out into the real world, which I can assure you, is an awful place once you truly appreciate your time in college.
My Journey to the Grappler's Quest: Part 2
The nerves didn’t hit until I walked into the Las Vegas Sports Center for Friday night weigh-ins.
The Prowler Challenge
It’s the perfect conditioning device for anyone looking to cut the B.S., start training like a man again and not waste time.
A Strength Coach’s Guide to Dealing with Pain: Part 2, Knee Pain
In part 1 of this series, I introduced some ways in which a strength and conditioning coach can deal with an athlete’s shoulder pain.
My Journey to the Grappler's Quest: Part 1
Thud! Snap! Pop, pop! These were the first sounds I heard before I felt the searing pain of two dislocated ribs.
Top 11 Exercises for Athletes
Here are the top 11 movements for athletes. Add them to your rotation and work them hard.
EliteFTS Spotlight: Shannon Turley
EliteFTS Spotlight is a new weekly feature here on EliteFTS.com where Q&A member The Angry Coach interviews athletes and strength and sport coaches from various disciplines in order to find out more about what they do, how they train and how they do business.
EliteFTS Spotlight: Julia Ladewski
EliteFTS Spotlight is a weekly feature here on EliteFTS.com where Q&A member The Angry Coach interviews athletes and strength and sport coaches from various disciplines in order to find out more about what they do, how they train and how they do business.
Strongman Versus Power Cleans for Football, Part 3: (How to Integrate S...
At this point, we’ve discovered how Strongman training can be a viable substitute for Olympic weightlifting to develop brutally strong football players who not only display explosive physical capacities but have explosive attitudes as well. If you’re anything like me, you’ve become excited at the prospect of training your athletes with the fun and highly effective exercises like tractor tire
Making the Switch from Powerlifting to Fighting, Part II
There’s no question that strength is a huge asset in any sport. In “Making the Switch from Powerlifting to Fighting, Part I,” we established the carryover of strength developed specifically for the platform. It can relate to fighting in a big way. Clearly, there are changes that need to be made to harness this strength and make it useful on
Work Capacity: Do It Stronger, Faster, Harder, and Longer
There are many elements to strength and conditioning (S&C) training as it relates to mixed martial arts (MMA). Most folks think that it’s all about “strength” or “cardio.”
The Top Five Mistakes Made by Basketball Players
There is a cornucopia of training information for almost every athletic endeavor that you can imagine partaking in. This information can be found online, in books, and from seminars. You don’t have to go very far to learn about training for your sport.
What Does It Take to Be an Effective Strength Coach?
What are the attributes of an effective strength and conditioning coach? I was recently asked this question, and as I stumbled over myself for a few minutes, I thought it would make a great topic for an article.
An Interview with Pat Ivey, Assistant Athletics Director, Athletic Perfo...
It might seem like I’ve been doing many interviews lately. There’s good reason for this. A few weeks ago, I did an interview for EliteFTS, and I was asked the question, “Who do you feel is getting it done in strength and conditioning?”
The Truth about Impingement: Part 2
In Part 1 of this series, I went into some detail on why I really didn’t like the catch all term “impingement.” In Part 2, I’m going to talk about the different kinds of impingement—external and internal.
The Truth about Impingement, Part 1
Roughly 10–15 times per week, I get emails from folks who claim that they have shoulder “impingement.” Honestly, I roll my eyes the second that I read these emails.
Ten Tips for Show and Go
I’ve trained many high school athletes. They all come to me wanting to perform better, look bigger, be stronger, and run faster. I’ve seen athletes put on 30 lbs of lean muscle, increase their vertical jump by six inches or more, and slash time off of their 40 all while increasing their
agility and flexibility.
The Power of Information
As coaches, we all know about the myriad problems we’ll encounter in the course of trying to make our athletes better. These problems are generated by everyone our players come into contact with on a daily basis. From their parents, to their friends, to the ubiquitous “guys on message boards,” our kids are bombarded with stuff that’s not coming from
Five Essential Movements for Hockey Players
Hockey is a sport of intensity, physical contact, stamina, strength, and speed.
Strongman Versus Power Cleans for Football, Part 2
In part one of this series on Strongman training for athletes, I made the argument that Strongman training may be a great option for building strong and explosive athletes and a viable substitute for Olympic lifting.
Don’t Forget the Basics
As a college strength and conditioning coach for nine years, I’ve come across many different types of training programs, and I’ve used many different types of training when working with my athletes. The one thing I’ve learned is that most programs and coaches usually try and put the cart before the horse, doing too much too early and forgetting the
Olympic Lifting for the Growing Gymnast, Part 2
Figure 3 exhibits an example of the progression of strength from the developmental strength workout for the compulsory age group.
Assistance Training for Strongman and “Functional” Strength
A lot of guys who train for Strongman don’t put much thought into assistance work, if at all. Assistance exercises can improve specific attributes and get you through your sticking points in many cases.
So You Wanna Be a Fighter?: Part One
It’s been a while since I’ve contributed an article to this site and so much has changed.
Olympic Lifting for the Growing Gymnast, Part 1
As gymnastics coaches, sometimes we get caught up in sport-specific strength training because that’s what we know best. The belief is that if we strength train for sport-specific movements repetitiously, the gymnast will not only become stronger during those movements but will have less cause for injury. However, it is that frame of mind in which we fail as coaches.
What I Learned from Donovan McNabb
I’ll have to start this story with an admission—I didn’t play for the Philadelphia Eagles, but I did play a Philadelphia Eagle. Long story short, I played semi-professional football for a few seasons and made the All Star team. Campbell’s Soup took photos of all of the All Stars and selected the ones who looked most like NFL players to
Conjugated System Approach to High School Strength
This story goes back to the Pennsylvania State Football Coaches Association Clinic of 2004.
The Angry Coach Sounds Off
If you had control of everything in your football program, how would you set up your work week with regard to the organization of in-season practices? What would be the ideal way to marry the biological needs of the athletes with their game day needs (individual and group drills to implement and execute your game plan for the week)?
Dynamic Chest Training: What’s Your Upper Body Vertical?
At some point in their training careers, most people reading this have probably been asked, “What’s your bench,” as if the bench is the one and only indicator of strength.
How EliteFTS Helped Me to Lift During Football Season
If you’re still playing football, this article isn’t for you so stop reading now. Just listen to your coach.
Defensive Position Specific Football Coaching Drills
In football, a defensive player’s success will depend on whether or not he can position his feet correctly to place himself in the best possible position to make plays. Foot speed is critical for improving athletic performance on the field. If a defensive lineman’s first step is exaggerated or slow, he will lose balance and be driven off the line
Developing Explosive Power for MMA
In almost every sport, the ability to be explosive and powerful often goes hand in hand with success, and this is especially true in mixed martial arts (MMA). Being a faster and more explosive fighter gives you the ability to overpower, outwork, and outgun your opponent from start to finish.
Off-Ice Conditioning for Hockey Players
For years, coaches have been failing to attain maximum results when putting their hockey players on an off-ice conditioning program. Much of this comes from misunderstandings. Typically, an unknowing coach will put far too much emphasis on aerobic training despite its near uselessness in hockey specific conditioning. For example, timed miles, which I have performed as a player and have
An Interview With The Angry Coach
The Angry Coach is the newest member of the Elite Fitness Systems Q&A Staff. I first met this guy at a seminar back in 2005, and I was immediately impressed with his life experience, his training knowledge and his ability to communicate the things he felt were right and wrong with both athletics coaching and the fitness industry.
A Strength Coaches Guide to Dealing with Pain, Part 1: Shoulder Pain
As a strength coach, I work with many athletes who suffer from chronic joint pain. When I hear them complain about shoulder and knee pain, my first reaction is to blow them off and tell them to go stretch. However, after suffering from the same types of nagging pains myself, I know that their pain is very real.
Strongman Versus Power Cleans for Football, Part 1
You might disagree, but hear me out on this. As an ex-college football player and currently a strength coach, I’ve found the utilization and teaching of Olympic lifts to be tedious, inefficient, and downright boring. As a college athlete, I hardly found the patience to learn the correct lifting technique for the power clean. Although I held the St. John’s
Off-Season/Pre-Season Training for the High School Athlete
It seems that the terms off-season and pre-season are synonymous in the world of high school athletics. Most of the athletes who I train play multiple sports or participate in the same sport in multiple seasons. Unlike the college athlete, the high school athlete doesn’t have 16–24 plus weeks in the off-season/pre-season to devote to a comprehensive strength and conditioning
Making the Switch from Powerlifting to Fighting
A competitive powerlifter has one goal—to get as strong as hell. We try to perform GPP, eat healthy, and do all of the other little things to stay in shape. However, the bottom line is if it isn’t increasing the total, it’s not really high on the priority list. This is my mindset as a powerlifter, and most of the
An Interview with Cal Dietz
I’m the head Olympic strength and conditioning coach at the University of Minnesota and am currently working with eight sports. These include men’s and women’s hockey, men’s basketball, men’s track and field, men’s swimming, baseball, and men’s and women’s golf.
Interview with Strength Coach Todd Hamer
Todd Hamer is the head strength and conditioning coach at Robert Morris University.
Elitefts Spotlight: Landon Evans
As many times I’ve been made fun of because of my past, I think it’s imperative to outline so some people can see why I am the way I am.
Elitefts Spotlight: Yosef Johnson
Yosef Johnson is the owner and president of Ultimate Athlete Concepts, a company he founded in Muskegon, Michigan in 2001 with the goal of bringing together the best scientists from a variety of fields and incorporating their knowledge into a comprehensive line of products which were previously unavailable to North American athletics coaches.
Oblique Strains and Rotational Power
Earlier this season, Josh Hamilton put on an amazing show with 28 homeruns in the first round of the major league baseball (MLB) Homerun Derby.
My Five “Ah-ha” Moments of Becoming a Strength Coach
Lately, a few of the leaders in our business (Cosgrove, Cressey, and Robertson to name a few) have published articles with this catchy “ah-ha” title. I’m sure they’ve made each one of us sit in front of our computers and say, “Dang, he’s right.”
Life of a Cyclone Wrestler
I wake up at the crack of dawn, put on my sweats, suck down a shake, and I’m out the door. Time to hit the road. It’s early. It’s dark. It’s cold. But I can feel only one thing—my adrenaline pumping as “Eye of the Tiger” pumps through my headphones.