Tighten Up!

The core is by far the most important part of an athlete’s body. It allows you the stability to make cuts, jump high, throw faster, and hit harder. It is also a much neglected body part in most strength training programs. When it is included it is called functional training and they use wobble boards and buso balls. We have found that a mixture of heavy abs training twice a week with abs circuit training twice a week has done wonders for our athletes. After implementing this into our programs we have guys lifting heavier and running faster. Here is a video of one of our athletes performing an abs circuit with a keg.

Deadlift Technique

I have been getting a lot of questions lately about increasing your deadlift. The first thing I would tell you is to practice your technique. After my next contest I will go on a three week hypertrophy/technique phase of training. If done properly it will give you the most increase in your deadlift. There are a lot of common mistakes when doing a conventional deadlift that we will dispel right now.
1) Jerking the weight up. This will put you in a bad position and will have you start your lift off with a rounded back.
2) Not getting air the correct way. You are supposed to expand your abs and tighten them, not expand your chest.
3) Pull the bar straight up. I see a lot of people fully extend their legs before the bar ever leaves the ground this is a clear sign of weak legs.
Those are the three most common mistakes; here are some things to fix that.
1) You want to pull the tension out of the bar before lifting it.
2) When getting air your stomach should expand not your chest.
3) Pull the bar back and drive your heels into the floor and try to pull through the floor.
Here is a quick tutorial on what I am talking about. I hope you can learn something to help you perform better. Feel free to ask any questions and post some comments.

Tour the Facility

We are just about done with everything and we are expecting our new equipment within the month. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Congratulations

Today was a huge day for Samson S&C. We had three of our triathletes go down to Miami and dominate the Key Biscayne Trilogy Triathlon today. Mike Montgomery, Rick and Susan Weidner have been training with us for the last two months and have really made some excellent gains. Rick was shooting for finishing in 1hr and 30min and he finished in 1hr and 24min, great job today. His wife Susan was shooting for 1hr and 40min and finished in 1hr and 30min, another great job. Mike was shooting for 1hr and 1min and managed 1hr and 23secs and took home fifth place. Congrats to those three athletes and we expect much more from them in the near future. Now sit back and enjoy some football and your family.

Here is some of their training that got them to be where they are today.

Football Power

It is football season and all my athletes are cleating up and hitting the field. It is an awesome feeling to see your guys out there busting their butts on the field and making a name for themselves. These are the same ones who never miss a workout and come to train hard everyday. I find that the worst thing you can have at your gym is someone who complains about everything. These are the same people who need you to hold their hand through the entire workout and can not motivate themselves. These people will pollute your gym and ruin your reputation. There comes a time when you have to put the money aside and say enough is enough. This is when I tell them this gym is not the place for you and send them on their way. Sorry about that little rant, now on to my football players preparing for an Elite Combine next year. Here is a video of one player performing a Max Effort Upper Body day, check it out.


Now normally I would not have any of my football players perform heavy push presses, because you do not want to beat up their shoulders any more than necessary. With this football player, his season was over a year ago and he has already graduated, so there is no football for him in the foreseeable future. He came to me to prepare him for a combine in May and he is an experienced lifter with no shoulder problems. He has also been with us for a while, so with all that being said we feel comfortable going on a three week wave of push presses.

P.S. I learned the triceps death from Joe Defranco when I went up there to train it is a great way to build up triceps strength and endurance.

Max Effort Lower Body

Like I have said numerous times on this blog we like to do a conjugated periodization protocol for everyone in our program including my self. This consists of a max effort upper and lower body and a dynamic/repetition upper and lower body days. We will go from training 3 to 5 days a week depending on how close the upcoming season is. Here is a video of me and some football guys doing some serious Max Effort work check it out.

Dynamic Upper Body

About a week ago I posted an article on dynamic effort for lower body. Today we move onto dynamic effort upper body. Dynamic lifts are using submaximal weights and lifting them as fast as possible. We like to do that using accommodated resistance with chains and bands for the bench press and log presses. Our athletes also perform plyometrics on dynamic days such as med ball tosses, partner tire pushes, sledge hammer chops, overhand med ball throws, and plyometric push ups. This is the wave we set up for upper body days.

Week 1: Ballistic Bench w/ mini bands 50% of 1RM- 6x3
Week 2: Ballistic Bench w/ mini bands 55% of 1RM- 6x3
Week 3: Ballistic Bench w/ mini bands 60% of 1RM- 6x3
Week 1: Med ball Slams - 10x5
Week 2: Plyo Push ups- 10x3
Week 3: Partner Tire Pushes- 10x1

Here is some Samson Athletes performing ballistic bench with a mini band and some med ball slams with 20lbs.

New Facility

Here are a few pictures of the new facility. We will have new equipment shipped throughtout the next month. I will post more pics when everything is set up.

Accommodated Resistance

Accommodated resistance is a great way to improve on your lockout strength and overall strength. It allows the athlete to lift heavier weights at the top of the lift. This works with the athlete’s natural strength curve. When the weight is at the eccentric portion or the part where the athlete is the weakest, the weight is at its lightest. On the concentric portion of the lift the weight starts to increase until it is at its max weight at the top of the lift or where the athlete is at their strongest. You can use bands or chains for the accommodated resistance. This is only used by our advanced athletes, this is not for everyone. Check out this deadlift video using chains for my resistance.

Bodyweight Progressions

A lot of the athletes we get are pretty weak when they first arrive. Some can barely do a pull-up. There are certain bodyweight progressions they can go through to build that up instead of doing 10 sets of 1 jumping pull-ups. We have our athletes perform inverted rows and bodyweight scarecrows to really improve their upper back strength. Here is a video demonstrating those two movements.


The inverted row with feet elevated is a progression from feet down. Once they get strong at that we can add weight to it with chains or a weight vest.
The scarecrows shown are being performed with 40lbs of weight and are an advanced version of the bodyweight scarecrow.

P.S. Pictures of the new building will be up today and weights will be moved in.

It is all about Technique

I am always looking to bring my game to the next level, so I am always after new techniques to improve. I found this great video showing proper technique on the log press. Watch it and see your numbers increase tremendously.

Bigger and Better

As of tomorrow I will be purchasing a 2500sqft warehouse. I will be posting pictures and videos of the place. It is a huge move for the business and we are excited to say the least. It is time to bring this gym to the next level. Are you ready to bring your game to the next level? If you are ready then sign up and get ready for your monsterous transformation.

Get Up

Building maximal strength and hypertrophy is a staple in our programs. We also harp on building explosive strength and athleticism in our athletes. We incorporate an upper and lower body dynamic day. Dynamic lifts are using submaximal weights and lifting them as fast as possible. We like to do that using accommodated resistance with chains and bands. Our athletes also perform plyometrics on dynamic days such as box jumps, broad jumps, and vertical jumps. We like to break these up into three week waves. It would look something like this:

Week 1: Squat w/ bands 45% of 1RM- 8x2
Week 2: Squat w/ bands 50% of 1RM- 8x2
Week 3: Squat w/ bands 55% of 1RM- 8x2
Week 1: Broad Jump- 10x1
Week 2: Box Jump- 10x1
Week 3: Squat into Box Jump- 10x1

We will continue to do waves like this with all kinds of variations. Here are some athletes performing plyometrics.


Squat into Box Jumps


50" Box Jumps