High School Football Max Effort Upper Body

Here is a workout we did earlier in the week with some of our high school athletes.


I have to say that these are some of the most impressive high school athlete's I have ever seen. A few are going to FSU, Louisville, Alabama, and the University of Jacksonville. These kids are freaks of nature and will make a huge impact on there team this upcoming season.

Rock Solid Knees

Over the years of training athlete's I have always noticed that they all had reoccurring knee problems. Most of the pain was located in the anterior portion of the knee. I have found a way to alleviate the pain by strengthen the muscle's around the knee cap with an exercise called terminal knee extension's or TKE's. This is a great exercise that should always be done on your athlete’s lower body days. If your athlete is experiencing more pain then have him do them on their upper body days as well. Add these into your athlete's warm up routine for 2-3 sets of 12-15 reps and watch your athlete's anterior knee pain vanish. There are many variations to this exercise and all of them are great the method we prefer is to girth hitch a light band around your squat rack and put the band slightly above your knee cap. Walk it out until there is a pretty good bit of tension on it. Bend your knee that has the band around it and squeeze it back down. Make sure you leave your foot flat on the ground during the whole movement. Here is a video that will help you see what I am talking about.

Is IT Worth IT

After hearing all the news over the NFL draft about who went where and when he was picked. I have to ask the question. Is it worth it?
Well the short answer is yes, but there is a long answer that everyone should know.

Tim Tebow was one of the best college players to ever play the game hands down and that’s coming from a FSU fan. He came to play everyday and was an inspirational leader to his teammates and so many others. His work ethic was never questioned and his character is as flawless as could be, but there was all this talk about he could never make it the NFL. His release is low, his delivery was too slow and he can't read a defense. Every expert had him picked to go in the third round and just dogged him day after day and told him what he could not do.


Dez Bryant was the guy who was slated as the best prospect in the draft, a top 5 talent. He can make every catch on the field and would be unstoppable in the NFL. He has character issues and missed his last year of college football. He handled everything badly leading up to the draft and everyone said he was too immature to play ball.

Now I am not saying who is going to be a better player in the NFL and I hope they both succeed, but I am saying that one guy with his leadership, work ethic and will to win brought himself up from and third round pick to a first round pick and earned himself millions of dollars. While the other dropped out of the top twenty and lost millions of dollars, because of his work ethic and immaturity.

So I will ask my question again. Is it worth it? Is it worth it to wake up every morning and put in work on the field when everyone else is sleeping? Is it worth it to lead by example and show everyone it can ONLY be done the right way if you want to be the best? Is it worth to always be on time and ready to work? Is it worth it to take everyone's criticism and harness it into a driven force for your improvement? Is it worth it to be the best in every aspect of your life that you can control? The short answer is YES.
So the next time you roll over in bed and hit the snooze button or the next time you show up late to a meeting, workout, or a practice. Ask yourself is it worth it to squander away all the gifts that God gave me, just because it is the easy thing to do. There will be tons of people who tell you that you can’t. It is time to shut them up. Let’s get to work!

Busy Week

Hope everything is going great guys. I am sorry for not posting this week. As we speak I am typing with one hand and holding our new baby in the other. We are finally settling down and I will be back to normal posting soon. I will have a post on Tim Tebow and show you a must exercise for preventing anterior knee pain. Take care and stay strong.

A New Edition and A New Me

These past couple days have been amazing and dreadful all at the same time. There were certain circumstances leading up to this day that made it some what dreadful, but we don't have to discuss that.The focus of this quick blog is the amazing news, which is that on Saturday April 17th there was a new edition to our family his name is Wesley Randall Montgomery. As I wirte this I am sitting here watching him sleep. Things like this can really put your life into perspective and help you refocus yourself. I have a new drive about me today to make my gym the best not only in the state of Florida, but in the world. Not that I was not driven to do this before, but now it feels like I have tunnel vision and all I can see is greatness.
I am telling you right now stop what you are doing and figure out why you are doing what you are doing and for who you are doing it for. Write it down and put it on your fridge and read it everyday to remind yourself that greatness is right around the corner. Anything can be done, you just have to do it.

Overhead Pressing for Athletes

This is a very controversial topic in the strength and conditioning field, so I wanted to let you know how I feel about the movement with our athletes. All our athletes use overhead lifting with their hands in a neutral grip; we do this with a log, dumbbell, or a swiss bar. There are only a few exceptions to this rule. Any throwers or people with shoulder injuries do not perform these movements, for them we work on internal and external rotations accompanied with a lot of upper back movements. The reason we have our guys do overhead presses with a neutral grip is because it does not put your shoulder joint in a compromised position as a regular pronated grip. Also almost all of are overhead movements are done with a dip and press which alleviates the initial stress of the press. The initial press is where the main problems come from because that is were most of the stress originates from, so by adding the explosive movement of the dip and press the focus shifts from the anterior delt and goes to the triceps. Which is what you want to focus on developing, plus the dip adds an extra benefit with explosive hip development.


Overhead pressing is a great way to strengthen all the muscles around the shoulder and in a violent game of football you need a strong pair of shoulders. Along with these we focus a lot on upper and mid back, this provides an overall solid base of stabilization for the shoulder joint. Here is a video of a few of our guys performing some log clean and presses for time. This is great for conditioning, hip power, and shoulder hypertrophy.

Boot Camp Ladies Breaking Records

Here is one of Boot Camp girls shattering a squat record. She had the record for some time and it was beat yesterday by another Boot Camp Girl. She called me up today and was determined to beat it tonight. Not only did she beat it she destroyed it by 35lbs. She is getting better everyday are you?

Fear: Overcome and Conquer

Fear is a very debilitating emotion; it will stop you in your tracks if you let it. Fear is an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger. To conquer is to overcome by mental or moral power. If you are familiar with my blog then you know that the brain is by far the most powerful thing in your body. Your brain controls the emotion of fear and you can control how your brain thinks, by doing things to override it. This post is about controlling your brain and conquering fear.

Fear can come in many shapes and sizes and is often associated with things such as snakes, water, spiders, and confined areas. But for me my biggest fear was people, not people in general, but talking to them. Throughout my life I have always been a very shy and self conscious person. I was always a little chubby and was never comfortable going up to people and striking up a conversation. I have always had this problem, but I realized that if I wanted to be successful in personal training I had to conquer my fear. When I train people, I have to be social and I have to be somewhat interesting and humorous. So you can see were my fear of talking to people could hinder me from my job and my future. Now everybody’s fear will be different but I guarantee you that if do what I did then you will be on your way to kicking fear’s ass. I figured it out one day at the park playing with my daughter, we were running around having a good time by ourselves and then people started showing up and I felt embarrassed for a brief second because I was running around and acting crazy with my daughter. I stopped what I was doing and proceeded to do what I had always done and that was to hide. I picked a nice bench far away from everybody else and started walking that way. My little girl grabbed me by the arm and said “Come play with me daddy.” As I looked in her eyes I thought to myself why do I care what other people think of me and what difference does it make if they talk about me or how I act, look, or carry myself. All I care about is playing with my daughter and having a good time. From that time until the present, I have giving up worrying about other people and how they felt towards me. This was a huge step in my journey to becoming free from fear. Look deep inside yourself and figure out what is that thing that is holding on to your fear and holding you back from your dreams. It will be hard and you will have to leave your ego at the door, but if you find this poison inside your body and conquer it then you will be free.

It does not stop there because it will continuously try to creep back in and you have to always be one step ahead. There will be certain practices that you will find to be helpful. For me I have found that visualization is the key to my success. I see myself retired by the age of 45 so I know in order to do that I have to get out in the community and try to tell everyone about my gym and the services we provide. This means going up to random people and talking to them about health and fitness and my gym. My partner and I are holding ourselves accountable for meeting one new person a day or we owe each other money. Now if you have ever met my wife then you know I can’t be losing money or else I will be on the couch for a very long time. This is a great strategy that will continue to help me conquer my fear on a daily basis. So the next step to conquering your fear is to visualize where you want to be and try to do something to were you can overcome it often.

The last step is an easy one to me. It is to ask for help and the person I ask all the time is God. There are many scripture’s that come to mind about fear, but the two that have meant the most to me are
Matthew 10:28
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Deuteronomy 31:6
Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the LORD your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.

I have found that each time my fear tries to creep back; these set it in its place. I hope this will help you in conquering your fears, I know it has helped me. Take care and stay strong.

Port Saint Lucie Samson's Strength Camp

Here it is the event you have been waiting for. No more excuses, get up off your couch and join us on Friday nights from 6:10-7:10 for the a hardcore workout that will leave you yearning for more. This is the real deal and will give you the best results you've ever had. The time is now to get ripped abs and build a physique of epic proportions. This camp is one day a week and you only have to invest $35 a month for it. The results are real and the training is tough, but the atmosphere and camaraderie is unbelievable. The best personal training in Port Saint Lucie, period.

When: Friday
Time: 6:10pm-7:10pm
Cost: $35 a month
For more info call me at 772-940-9990 or email at info@samsonstrengthconditioning.com

BSN at Samson's

We are proud to announce that we are partnering up with BSN to bring the best supplements to the Treasure Coast at the cheapest prices possibly. You cab stop by the gym and pick some up or you can email me and put an order in. It's time to get after it and stop making excuses.

Busted Up

There has been an epidemic of ACL tears in female athletes. The reason for this debilitating injury occurring has to do with the off season program the coach’s implement. There is not one, if you have ever tried to find girls in the offseason and went into the weight room it would be empty. The coach has them out on the field running and running and running. So I wonder why they have been tearing ACLs left and right. Like I posted earlier you have to train girls the exact same as the guys.
The two main reasons’ for all the ACL tears is the lack of strength in their hamstrings and the Q angle of their hips to knee. We will start with hamstring development. First we can start off with a basic off season, weight lifting program. In your weight lifting program you should really focus on hamstring development. When an athlete is running the tibia pushes on the ACL, you have to have strong hamstrings to be able to pull the tibia back and alleviate the pressure on the ACL. By strengthening up the hamstrings with squats, deadlifts, back extensions, and glute ham raises you will reduce the pressure applied to the ACL. These are the key exercises in building up rock solid hamstrings.

Build your off season program around these lifts and you will see a fast decrease in ACL problem and knee problems in general.

The next problem that the girls have is the Q angle of their hips to knees. As you can see there is an incredible amount of pressure put on the knee. This can not be fixed, but if your off season program is structured correctly it will not be the cause of knee problems. I hope the main thing you get out of this post is that girls should be in the weight room lifting weights and building an indestructible body. Not only will a weight lifting program help stop ACL tears it will help cut out numerous injuries that a female athlete could incur during the season. It is time to change everyone's opinion about girls not lifting weights and focus on building them up in the weight room to be the best and healthiest athletes in the world.

P.S. If your coach tells you to do cross country in the offseason find a new school. Your coach has no clue what they are doing.