Recent Posts
- 5 Big Reasons Why Everyone Should Train Like Athletes
- Training Songs
- Renegade Inner Circle is Live!
- Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Pull Ups
- IYCA Summit
- Simplify Your Program, Amplify Your Results
Popular Posts
- Tell Me What YOU Want
- You Must Have the Wrong Guy
- What it Takes to Train at Renegade Gym
- The Main Ingredient
- Life Wasted
- Eliminate The Useless Crap
- Goodbye, My Friend
- Training Related Stupidity
- Training Songs
- Death of the Back Squat?!
- Burning Fat While Gaining Strength
- How to Build Muscle- Olympic Style
- 12 Simple Muscle Building Tips
- How to Improve on Chin Ups
- The High Protein Myth- Exposed Again
Strength Training For Hockey
September 25, 2007
An Interview With Jason Ferruggia
By Craig Ballantyne
Recently I had the opportunity to talk hockey training with my friend and colleague Jason Ferruggia, owner of Renegade Strength & Conditioning. Since there is still time to get in shape for hockey season, we thought it would be the perfect time to share it with all of you.
CB: Where should an adolescent player look to start their off-season training?
JF: Craig, I believe the biggest mistake a young kid can make is to focus on one sport and one sport only. Early specialization is the worst thing a kid can do for his or her athletic career. Kids are better off playing as many sports as possible and not looking to specialize until somewhere around their senior year of high school. Their training should reflect this. The workouts that any young athlete does should be designed toward making a better all around athlete, not a better pitcher, wide receiver, or goalie.
Having said that, I believe an early off-season training program should focus on unilateral training, correcting any imbalances that may have developed over the course of the season and rebuilding any lost muscle mass.
CB: Is there anything a teen should be able to do before they start lifting such as a set number of push-ups or bodyweight squats/lunges?
JF: Not really. I always look at things as a realist, Craig, and while having a set formula or a group of standards that must be met looks good on paper, it doesn’t really work out in the real world. For example, if I have an eleven-year-old come in to train and he weighs 170 pounds, I can all but guarantee that he can’t do one push-up. This is where the bodyweight standards thing falls short. People fail to realize that not all kids, due to a variety of factors, will be able to do one push-up, one chin up, or even one bodyweight squat. So you can’t really have set numbers to use as your standards.
According to the people who use these guidelines to tell them when a kid should start lifting weights, these kids will not pick up a weight for quite some time. That’s fine, but here’s the problem. What if a kid can only do three bodyweight squats? Believe me this is a possibility because I have seen it with my own two eyes. That is basically heavy max effort training. Are you just going to have him do heavy triples all the time? You can argue that that’s a bad example because you could have him do low step-ups and floor work. I agree with that, but what if he can’t do a chin up or inverted row? Will he not perform any pulling exercises whatsoever until he is strong enough to do either of those exercises? That will be a long time I promise you.
What about push-ups? Sure, you can elevate the bar in a power rack and have the kids do them like that. However, that is only one exercise and doesn’t leave you a ton of options. Kids get bored quickly and need variety. For these reasons I have no problem with a kid lifting weights before he can do a certain number or push-ups, squats, or chin ups. Many times it is actually much safer. Instead of doing a one to three rep max on a chin up or inverted row with horrible form, I would much rather have a kid do some one arm rows with a ten pound dumbbell.
CB: What movement patterns and muscle groups should the older hockey player focus on?
JF: Once they have decided to specialize in improving their hockey performance and are beyond the general athlete stage, we can get a little more focused. Before telling you what I think hockey players should do, I must point out what no athlete should ever do. Never try to replicate any sporting action in the weight room. Also never try to mimic any sporting action with a weight that is significantly heavier than that which you will use on the playing field. This will screw up your mechanics, and that’s not a good thing. For example, a pitcher or quarterback should never try to improve their throwing velocity by throwing a heavy weighted ball. And a hockey player should not try to improve their slap shot by swinging a weighted stick or anything of that nature.
With that out of the way, let’s get into what movement patterns and muscle groups hockey players should focus on. Of course, first and foremost, hockey players are going to want to focus on their lower body and core strength. Not only will improving the strength of the lower body improve skating speed, but it will also improve their slap shot and help make them more of an all around imposing force on the ice. Aside from the obvious choices of squats, deadlifts, and their variations, hockey players must be sure to include unilateral movements such as step-ups, split squats, and sled drags in their training. In the early part of the off-season training, this type of training should make up a large majority of their lower body work if not all of it.
Core strength is very important because the power generated from the lower body is transferred through the core to create a powerful slap shot. When I say core, I am referring to the abdominals, obliques, and lower back. The abdominals should be attacked with a variety of movements and methods. Some heavy, low rep training mixed in with higher rep endurance type abdominal training is the best way to go. Also, be sure to include some static/isometric movements. This is how the abs usually contract during a hockey game such as when an opponent tries to check you through the boards. They contract isometrically and therefore should be trained that way.
The obliques should be trained with rotational movements such as medicine ball throws, Russian twists, and woodchoppers. Lower back strength and endurance is very important because hockey players spend a great majority of the game in a bent over position. Some of the best exercises here are Romanian deadlifts, reverse hypers, back extensions, and good mornings.
As far as the upper body goes, the lats are where it’s at when it comes to hockey training. Chin up and row variations should be the focus of the upper body training. Also, because you are always internally rotated while skating, it is important to train the external rotators and upper back muscles. Forearm/grip strength can lend itself to improving the speed of your slap shot so that should also be addressed during the upper body training sessions.
CB: What type of off-ice speed, quickness, agility type training transfers best to on-ice performance?
JF: Again, I don’t like to do anything too sport specific and try to mimic the action of skating by doing something else. I believe that during the first half of the off-season, hockey players should stay off of the ice as much as possible. I would only recommend one short on-ice speed workout consisting of a few sprints. The reason for keeping them off the ice is because we want to build muscle and correct any imbalances that have developed. Skating all the time will allow neither of those to happen.
The only reason I don’t say stay off the ice completely is because if you get significantly bigger and stronger and then come back 16 weeks later, 23 pounds bigger and twice as strong, you will feel like a totally different person on skates. It may be difficult to find the groove, and you may actually be more susceptible to injury. Therefore, just a small amount of skating should be kept for maintenance purposes and to learn how to transfer your new strength and speed to the ice. As the season approaches, this will obviously change, and you will be spending more and more time on the ice.
I have always been a big fan of sled dragging for hockey players—forward, backward, and sideways. Just plain old flat ground sprinting always works. Provided that they aren’t overdone, plyos are great for any athlete to develop explosive speed and quickness. I like to periodize my use of plyos since the training effect is not seen until after you stop doing them. This is known as the delayed transformation of gains. We will hit them for a number of weeks and then go into a phase where we only perform very low intensity jumps or totally cut them out completely for the next few weeks.
I usually do plyos at the beginning of a lower body workout, such as a few sets of box jumps or depth jumps and perhaps again at the beginning of a sprint workout later in the week. You do not need a high volume of plyos to achieve the desired effect. Aside from including plyos in the weight room, I also like to use medicine ball throws, Olympic lifts, dynamic effort squats, and box squats for developing explosive speed and power.
As far as change of direction training goes, I like to use random change of direction drills rather than predetermined cues. For example, a hockey player may skate full speed straight ahead and then immediately have to decelerate and change direction. For this reason, deceleration is of the utmost importance and should be stressed. However, the player never knows that he is going to have to sprint to a predetermined spot on the ice and then immediately have to go left, right, or the opposite direction. For this reason, I like to employ change of direction drills. For this, we have a variety of cones set up, and the athlete must listen or watch for visual cues that tell him which cone to sprint to. This is more “sport specific” because on the ice you never know which way you are going to have to go next. By watching or listening to a coach or partner shout out which direction the athlete should be going in or watching for some kind of visual cue, the athlete is simultaneously training reaction time as well as change of direction speed.
CB: Finally, what type of conditioning exercises should be performed?
JF: I should point out that hockey players need to be among the most well conditioned athletes in the world. Any time we look to design a conditioning program for a given sport, we must look at the demands of the sport and aim to make drills that we prescribe as fairly “sport specific.” We have to look at a typical shift in hockey to prescribe a proper conditioning program. A typical shift will usually last 30–50 seconds, followed by a rest period of about 90–120 seconds depending on how many lines the coach is running. Therefore, we know that whatever method we use for conditioning, the work to rest intervals should be 30–50 seconds “on” and 90–120 seconds “off.”
As far as what methods to use, I like sled dragging in all different directions, sprints, hill sprints, stadium stair running, car pushes, tire flips, sledgehammer swings, and sandbag training. I will even use the stationary bike, and of course, skating. I think that during the early off-season hockey players should stay off the ice for at least a few weeks to correct the imbalances that occur between the vastus medialis and lateralus from too much skating and just for a break from the same repeated stressor.
In the early part of the off-season training, I like to limit the amount of energy system work and instead focus on rehab and prehab and correcting imbalances developed throughout the season. Many unilateral movements are used during this time, and we focus on building muscle mass. Having said that, let’s go over some of the most effective conditioning methods for hockey players.
A period lasts 15 minutes in high school and 20 minutes in college and the NHL so we need our energy system workouts to last this long. Since the shifts last 30–50 seconds and the rest periods 90–120 seconds, this gives us a wide variety to play with. I like to use as many different combos of work to rest times as possible. Below are some sample workouts:
Sprints
Sprint, 30 seconds
Walk, 90 seconds
Repeat ten times
Stationary bike
Sprint, 60 seconds
Coast, 120 seconds
Repeat seven times
Track Medley
Sprint, 40 seconds
Rest, 100 seconds
Sprint stadium stairs, 40 seconds
Rest, 100 seconds
Bodyweight squats, 40 seconds
Rest, 100 seconds
Repeat three times
Strongman Medley 1
Tire flip, 30 seconds
Rest, 90 seconds
Car push, 40 seconds
Rest, 100 seconds
Sledgehammer swing, 50 seconds
Rest, 120 seconds
Repeat two more times
Strongman Medley 2
Backward sled drag, 30 seconds
Rest, 90 seconds
Wheelbarrow walk, 45 seconds
Rest, 105 seconds
Sandbag power clean from floor, 60 seconds
Rest, 120 seconds
Repeat two more times
Strongman Medley 3
Sprint, 30 seconds
Rest, 90 seconds
Tire flip, 30 seconds
Rest, 120 seconds
Rope row with 2.5–3-inch diameter rope, 30 seconds
Rest, 90 seconds
Repeat two more times
The last thing to point out is that to improve your conditioning to where it needs to be, hockey players must have very low levels of body fat. Every pound of unneeded body fat is slowing you down and is just extra baggage to carry around on the ice. A clean diet is just as important to your conditioning program as the actual conditioning methods are. So be sure to focus on lean protein, nuts, fruits, and vegetables and drink a ton of water.
Please leave your comments below.
Two Cases Where Continually Lifting Heavier Weights Doesn’t Work
September 25, 2007
I constantly harp on the importance of getting stronger and continually striving to lift heavier weights. It’s the most surefire way to make long term progress. Adding more sets and decreasing your rest periods and adding intensity techniques are short term approaches and can not work forever. The only thing that can is getting stronger and lifting heavier weights.
There are two particular muscle groups, however, where this principle doesn’t always apply. These muscles are the neck and the forearms. While you should strive to get stronger and improve your lifting poundages on neck and forearm exercises, there will come a time where the overload is too great. Once you can wrist curl a pretty decent amount of weight, it will start to get harder to continually add weight without putting your wrists at risk for injury. If you were somehow able to do a barbell wrist curl with 275, I’d be willing to bet that the pounding your wrists would take would not be worth it and that you would probably be looking at an injury waiting to happen.
That is not to say that you can not continually improve your grip strength poundages, because you can and you should. There is really no risk for injury in doing so. It’s just flexion and extension exercises for the forearm that you need to be concerned with as eventually, brutally heavy weights will be overloading the joints more than the muscles.
Using a neck harness is great to build up your neck but this is another case where you will get to a point where you are risking a serious injury when the weight gets too heavy. Working up to the point where you can do a 45 pound plate for twenty reps is a great goal for most people. Others may be able to work up to two 45 pound plates after several years but anymore than this (and in most cases, a single 45) sounds like a really bad, and dangerous idea. The potential risk to the neck and spine is just far too great, in my opinion.
So how do you progressively overload the forearms and neck if not by getting continually stronger? Well, the forearms seem to respond better than most muscles do to a higher volume of training (meaning more sets and more reps). So increasing the sets and reps and even decreasing the rest periods is a good plan to keep the forearms growing. As far as the neck goes, it doesn’t seem to tolerate as much volume as the forearms do in one particular workout but you can add volume by doing neck work more frequently (five days per week instead of one or two). With neck training, you should always keep the reps high and the sets fairly low. Decreasing rest periods or supersetting are two other effective strategies for overloading the neck without risking injury.
***********
To build muscle faster than everyone at your gym click HERE now.
Some Stuff…
September 21, 2007
– Why will some people readily take cholesterol medication but not change their diets. If they need to take something, why not fish oil? I asked this to an older friend recently who had started taking cholesterol medication and he said he wouldn’t take anything like fish oil because he didn’t know the dangers and heard that it thins your blood. So you opted for drugs instead?
– If you are going to get a religious tattoo, that’s your business, but I think it’s a safe bet to say that getting the phrase “Only God can save me” or “forgive me for my sins” is, at this point, a horrible decision. You’re not Tupac. People will laugh.
– Like in-the-gym-training-volume, the volume of speed workouts should also be kept fairly low. Doing a few dozen forty yard dashes is overkill and will not lead to speed gains but over training. If you can get by with 5-10 total hard sets on your leg days of squats, step ups and glute hams, what makes you think you need to quadruple this number on the track? You don’t. Speed work needs to be of a very high quality, not quantity. If you are not improving, you are regressing.
– The best lifting straps are the old school $5 Harbinger’s. Lots of companies have “the worlds strongest wrist straps,” but they are usually too long and/or too thick and kind of defeat the purpose. Sure the cheapo straps will break in a few months but who cares? They’re five bucks! And do you really want to keep the same pair of smelly, rancid straps for 18 years?
– The Growth Hormone and testosterone increases you get from training are negligible. Most bodybuilders take several iu’s of GH per day before they see any results at all. The amount you get from decreasing your rest periods or using a higher volume of training is nowhere near this amount and thus will do nothing. The same can be said for testosterone. Bodybuilders know that they need at least 500mg’s of test per week to see results. You don’t get anywhere near this kind of increase from training.
Competition also increases testosterone levels. But this doesn’t mean that if I sat around and played John Madden football with my buddies all day that I would get huge.
Extreme temperatures increase GH but leaving my warm house and going out to play in the snow doesn’t add inches to my biceps.
The concept of hormonal increases due to training is largely over rated.
– Despite what you may have been led to believe by pop radio and MTV, there are still some bands making real rock n roll. I had the pleasure of seeing the Kings of Leon play Wednesday night at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. If you ever get the chance, I highly recommend seeing them. They are a very talented band with a different sound. Nothing like the crap they play on most radio stations.
Random Thoughts
September 19, 2007
– Whoever came up with the idea that this is the proper way to write a workout obviously failed first grade:
A1) Bench press
A2) Bent over row
That is not how you write an outline!!! Didn’t you learn that in elementary school??? Why are so many people doing this? It is completely ass backwards and wrong! Dave Tate was the first to point this out to me years ago and I thought, “Man, how could I ever be so stupid?” You know how? Because I am that stupid. But there are many people who seem to be more intelligent than me who are still doing this. Please stop it now.
When Dave pointed this out to me I immediately emailed five close friends and colleagues of mine who are big names in the fitness industry. I am proud to say that since that day none of them have ever made that mistake again.
For the final time, in case your first grade teacher didn’t tell you this, here is how you write an outline: The number goes first and then the letter. Thus…
1A) Bench press
1B) Bent over row
– What are people proving with one to two hour assessments? I talked to my good buddy Alwyn Cosgrove yesterday for an hour or so and this was one of the topics we discussed and agreed on. If you train high school or college athletes here is the assessment- they walk in and shake your hand. You now know all you need to know. They are most likely too weak, too inflexible and their diet sucks. You want specifics? They have weak posterior chains and upper backs. Their hip flexors and hamstrings are tight. They don’t eat often enough and much of it is junk food. And they need to build muscle or lose fat or both. That’s all you need to know and like that bizarre looking chick said to weirdo Tom Cruise in Jerry Macguire, “You had (me) that at hello.” Have you ever had a client who was too muscular, too fast, too lean and too flexible hire you? Exactly. So stop wasting peoples time and money.
**********
J
How to Get a Body Like Jessica Biel
September 17, 2007
Working in the fitness industry seems like it has to be the worst occupation in the world when you’re at a party full of people you don’t know. At least 75% of the people you meet will ask you some kind of question about how they can lose “this” or tighten up “right here.” My favorite is when a 187 pound woman with a plate full of doughy, greasy food comes up and asks me how to get a body like Jessica Biel. By about the fourth such inquiry I usually start looking at the drapes and wonder how long it will take me to fashion a noose out of them and attach it to the ceiling fan while praying that it will hold my weight.
Earlier this summer I was fortunate enough to have the extreme pleasure of being at a party where I only knew about five people and met at least two dozen who had questions about “how to get ripped abs.” I couldn’t have been more excited. To say I was in heaven would have been an understatement. (please note the strong sarcasm)
While standing around I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around to see my friend Heather.
“Hey Jay, I want you to meet Kristin. Jay’s a personal trainer.”
I had just had this same experience with at least eight other people and couldn’t believe it was about to happen again.
“She always says that, it’s an inside joke we have. I actually work for Rawkus Records. I discovered and signed Mos Def several years ago.”
“Oh stop it Jay. He’s just joking. He’s a personal trainer.”
“Well, not really.”
“What do you mean, not really? You’ve been doing that for like 15 years I thought.”
“Yeah, but I’m a strength & conditioning coach, I mainly work with athletes and guys who want to get bigger, stronger and faster. Not so much the pussy stuff.”
“The ‘pussy stuff?’ What does that mean?”
“Umm… I don’t know… forgive me. Sorry. Nice to meet you, Kristin.”
“Ok, well Kristin is really into working out so I’ll leave you two to talk. Kristin, be sure to grill Jay, he knows a lot about training. He writes for a bunch of magazines.”
Note to self: plan a significant payback for Heather as soon as possible. And then sever all ties with her.
“So Jay, I have been trying to lose these last ten pounds and tighten up my lower abs and butt. I do weights three days per week, take a bootcamp class, an aerobics step class and walk three miles every other day. What else do you think I should do? I want to get a body like Jessica Biel’s.”
“Me too…me…too. Have you seen her ass lately? It’s like J Lo with muscles. Good lord, what I would do…I mean… Wait, what was the question?
“What should I do?”
“Umm… Maybe eat less?”
“No seriously.”
“I kinda was serious. I see you need a refill on your drink, can I get you one?”
“Sure.”
“Ok, I’ll be right back.”
En route to the bar I notice my friend Ray standing directly in front of me.
“Is that girl Kristin behind me?” I asked him.
“No.”
“Thank God. Now here’s what I want you to do. Stage an argument with me and knock me out cold.”
“What?! Are you drunk? Why?”
“We’re beyond the point of questioning. Please just do this for me as a friend and carry me outta here. I can’t take it anymore.”
He handed me a very large glass of straight vodka and told me to drink up cuz he wasn’t about to throw a haymaker in my direction.
I did and a minute later Kristin reappeared.
“So Jay, how about it? Can you give me a training program that will help me get ripped and get a big, bangin booty like Jessica Biel’s? I promise I won’t waste your time and will do anything you say.”
I looked for anything sharp with thoughts of Owen Wilson dancing through my head but there was nothing around. Since I had no other option, I slugged my vodka like it was Gatorade on a hot day and said, “Let’s grab a seat and I’ll break it down for you.”
“Almost everything you have read in women’s fitness magazines is all wrong. I want you to stop reading them immediately. As much as you may think you want and need the information in there, you really don’t. It’s like asking your boyfriend how many girls he’s slept with. You may think you want and need that information but you really don’t. And what happens when he flips the question on you?”
“Huh? What’s this have to do with training?”
“Exactly.
Anyway, the first thing you have to understand is that there are only a few things you can do to change the way you look. The word “tone” does not exist. It is not a reality and there is no definition for it. You can only make a muscle bigger or make it smaller. The same can be said for fat cells; you can make them bigger or you can make them smaller. That’s it. You can’t shape or elongate or tone a muscle or anything like that. So basically what every female should be aiming to do is build muscle and lose fat. While the phrase “build muscle” scares some females, it shouldn’t. When you build muscle you will end up looking better and burning more calories at rest, meaning it will help you lose fat and get leaner.
While many females ask me about how to get a body like Jessica Biel, the fact of the matter is none of them will ever come close because they have a fear that they will end up looking like Hulk Hogan in a matter of weeks so they shy away from lifting weights that will actually do anything. This is a fear that is completely unfounded. Females simply don’t have the hormonal profile to build muscle at the same rate as males; not even close. And, trust me; it’s not even that easy for most males. If it were there would be a lot more 250 pound muscular dudes walking around.
The principles that make up an effective muscle building program for a male are exactly the same as those that make up an effective training program for a female. Below are a few things you need to do:
• Lift heavy – No matter what you have been brainwashed to believe from watching Oprah or reading US Magazine, girls should not be lifting soup cans and three pound dumbbells with the thought that it is actually going to do a damned thing. You need to challenge yourself and give your body a reason to actually change. Kickbacks with a couple water bottles aint gonna cut it.
Lifting heavy weights in the range of 8-15 reps (with the occasional sets of 5-7) should be the basis of your training. Contrary to popular mainstream belief, high reps do not burn fat or help you improve muscle definition. Heavy weight training burns far more calories than high rep nonsense with light weights ever could. You have to understand that it is not how much you sweat or even how many calories you burn during the workout that is important but rather how many calories you burn in the 24-48 hours after your workout, during the recovery period. Lifting heavy elevates your metabolism to a much higher degree and forces you to burn far more calories all day long than light weight, high rep training does.
• Use big compound exercises- Females should not be relegated to the butt blaster and the abductor/ adductor machine while avoiding squats and deadlifts at all costs. If you want to gain muscle and burn body fat you have to focus on the basics. These include military presses, bench presses, bent over rows, chin ups, dips, squats, deadlifts and all their variations. Isolation exercises like flyes, leg extensions and triceps kickbacks are a waste for most females and do very little to build lean muscle or burn fat.
• Follow the rule of progressive overload- Some people, both male and female, do the exact same workouts with the exact same weights over and over again for months or even years and never get anywhere. It’s no wonder why. Once you do something new, your body will do all that it can to adapt to the stimulus so that it is prepared for it the next time and does not suffer the same shock and trauma. So if you bench press 65 pounds for two sets of ten reps today, your body will rebuild itself bigger and stronger to prepare for that challenge again in the future. When you do it again next week you have not presented a new challenge for your body to adapt to and thus nothing will happen. You need to continually challenge your body. You can do this by adding more sets, decreasing your rest periods, or most importantly and most effectively; increasing the weight.
Females should not be afraid of getting stronger or increasing their training poundages. I never understood why more females didn’t have the desire to get stronger. What could be a better feeling than looking sexy and feminine yet being incredibly strong? A friend and client of mine named Megan possesses this attitude and is obsessive in her quest for strength. Not only does she look great but she can out lift a lot of men in the gym. It has to be an incredibly empowering feeling.
I once wrote an article for a female fitness magazine and when I suggested that the readers increase the weight once the movement became too easy the editor I was working with freaked out. “Isn’t there something else we can tell them other than to increase the weight?” Yeah, tell them they should be in the kitchen, bare foot and pregnant like they belong, for Christ’s sake! Isn’t that the equivalent of telling them that they should remain weak forever? Jeez…
At this point Kristin had her hand on my thigh and over the course of the last half hour as the vodka kicked in, she started to look better and better. And all this talk of Jessica Biel’s ass was getting me rather excited. Because of that and since she seemed way more interested in what I had to say than any girl ever should be I decided to continue…
While many of the principles of effective weight training are exactly the same for males as they are for females, there are a few differences that need to be pointed out. These differences are not of major concern and the fact is that many females could get great results doing the exact same workouts as their male counterparts. But since I brought it up, here they are:
• Females seem to achieve better results with a slightly higher rep range than males- While most males build muscle most effectively in the range of 5-10 reps, females often tend to do better while working in the range of 8-15 reps. Notice I didn’t say 15-50 reps. Remember, that stuff is useless nonsense. Heavy sets of 8-15 reps to failure or near failure are the way to go for most females looking to get that lean, muscular look.
• Females can tolerate a slightly higher training volume- Because they are usually weaker and have less overall muscle mass than males; females recover faster which is why they can tolerate a greater number of sets in their training. For males I usually recommend an average of 12-16 hard work sets per workout, but for females I prefer to stick with 16-28, and occasionally even higher.
Just because they can tolerate the higher volume, does that mean that they actually need it? This is a question I have often pondered but have never really experimented with because of the mental and emotional aspect of training females (trainers and coaches pay attention). Most females have been conditioned to believe that a good workout consists of sweating their asses off and nearly needing to be carried out of the gym when it’s over. For this reason you simply can not tell a female to do ten hard sets 5-8 reps on squats, rows and presses with long rest periods and expect her to be happy about it. If I had a female do one of my workouts with me that consisted of two sets of squats, two sets of deadlifts, two sets of glute hams and a few shrugs, neck extensions and grip work she would hate it with a passion. It is mainly because of this that I always prescribe more sets for my female clients than I do my male clients.
• Females require less rest between sets than males- This is very similar to the rule about training volume. Because they are weaker, less muscular and recover faster, females don’t need to rest as long between sets. While most males will need at least three to four minutes between a brutally heavy ten-rep set of squats before they will be able to repeat the effort, most females can do so in just a minute or two; sometimes even less. If they are extremely weak, they may actually be able to repeat the effort in as little as 30 seconds. If you give them a workout that calls for the same rest periods that males use they will be bored to tears. This goes along with the mentality that females have been brainwashed into having; that an effective workout must leave them rolling in a pool of their own sweat and puke.
Take note of this if you are a trainer because prescribing shorter rest periods for your female clients can eliminate some uncomfortable situations for you. When a girl is not slightly winded from a set yet you decide to give her a 90 second rest period like you would a guy, you are going to be in for a lot of awkward silence while frantically searching for something to talk about after about the 15th set, especially if you don’t know her that well and don’t have much in common…
“So, umm… is Lauren still dating that alcoholic dude on Laguna Beach?”
“It’s actually The Hills now.”
“Oh…Nice…nice…”
Trust me; 90 seconds will never seem so long.
After our discussion Kristin seemed satisfied, and since I can’t say that for most girls after they spend a half hour on a couch with me, I was pretty happy as well. “I think this chick loves me,” I thought. “How could she not? I mean they all do, right?”
“So Kri
stin, whattaya say me and you get outta here?”
“That’s my fiancé right behind you. And I really gotta get going. Thanks for the info.”
“Uh…what?!? But I thought we had something there. I…I…I…”
Suddenly I felt another tap on my back and turned around to see Heather.
“Carol, I want you to meet my friend Jason, he’s a personal trainer.”
In an instant my thoughts shifted from Jessica Biel’s curvacious backside to Frank Costanza…
SERENITY NOW! SERENITY NOW!!!!!
**********
Now you know h
ow to get a body like Jessica Biel. Of course diet is a large part of it but hopefully this article gets you started on the training. The skinny look went out years ago and nobody finds it appealing anymore. There is nothing worse than a pancake ass in a pair of pants you can barely keep from sagging. To build the banging, firm, round glutes that every girl wants and for a complete muscle building program and diet check MuscleGainingSecrets.com right now.
Since most of my stuff is geared toward males I have been shocked at the number of female buyers I have had and have really enjoyed hearing all the great feedback I have gotten from them. I look forward to hearing your success story next.
Please leave your comments and questions below.
Sick of Your Gym?
September 14, 2007
I was in public gym training last night; a situation I don’t like to be in. I walked in and right past all the girls and douchebags on the treadmills and stairclimbers. Immediately I was pissed off. Don’t these morons know that there are endless roads to walk on and plenty of stairs to run up?! Why would you possibly get in your car and drive 15 minutes across town to WALK ON A GODDAMN TREADMILL?! Why not just walk to the gym and back? Are people really this stupid? You’re gonna pay the gym 50 bucks a month so you can…walk? Either I am insane or there are a lot of dumb people in the world. And why not go run the stairs at your local high school football stadium and get some fresh air and sun? Do people really need to have this pointed out to them?
For the first time in years I had to squat in front of a mirror. For those that don’t know, you should never squat in front of a mirror. It throws off your form and is just all wrong on so many levels. Because of this my squat sucked and I tweaked my knee. When I moved onto deadlifts I noticed that everyone in the gym watched every set I did above 405. To be surrounded by so many weak people who were impressed with such an embarrassing weight infuriated me.
When I finished my deadlifts early because my grip failed due to a shitty bar and no chalk I was too pissed off to continue and decided to go home.
For all of those who have no other option but to train in a public gym, I feel for you. I really do. I honestly don’t know how you get by. Being surrounded by weak people with tank tops and spiked blowouts doing curls in the power rack is not conducive to getting stronger. And as much as I would love to have Shakira do that little ass shaker move on my lap, I do not want to see it on 17 TV’s while I’M TRYING TO DEADLIFT!!!
If you train with people who think a 455 deadlift is a big deadlift than you will be tricked into thinking a 455 deadlift IS a big deadlift and will always remain weak. If you train in a gym like mine where a 455 deadlift wouldn’t even get you on the high school board then you think differently and thus get far better results from your training.
If you can’t find a real gym I highly suggest you get a few friends who want to train hard and get strong and set up a garage or warehouse gym somewhere. Maybe your wife will be pissed that she now has to park in the driveway but the screaming you may have to endure will be well worth it in the end.
Call up Jim Wendler at Elite Fitness Systems (1-888-854-8806 or EliteFTS.com)and tell him you are setting up a garage gym and need some good stuff. Tell him you can’t take watching Beyonce and her freshly waxed upper lip singing in your face while you are trying to squat. Tell him you need a power rack, barbells, dumbbells and a few other essentials because if you see another tanned, waxed, perfume wearing, blowout-connected-to-a-chin-strap having, 153 pound dude in a wife beater moaning his way through ten sets of concentration curls while you are trying to get fired up for a set of rack pulls that you are going to commit a serious crime. And tell him I sent you.
I promise you it will be the best thing you ever did.
Click HERE to escape purgatory now!
And if your gym is gonna play videos while you train, tell them to at least play stuff like this.
The Top 10 Speed Training Myths
September 13, 2007
Today we have a guest article from my friend and well respected colleague, Patrick Beith. Patrick is a world renowned speed coach who many coaches including myself, turn to when they have speed training questions. He is also having a huge sale for my readers which ends at midnight tonight. Check it out HERE.
**********
The Top 10 Speed Training Myths by Patrick Beith
1. Static stretching prepares you to compete/practice
Static stretching actually reduces power output. Athletes should prepare for practice by doing a dynamic warm up that moves from basic, low intensity movements to faster, more explosive movements as the muscles loosen up. You want to simulate movements that athletes will go through in practice or a game. What happens when you try and stretch a cold rubber band? In a way, you can think about your muscles the same way.
2. Strength training makes females too bulky
This is a popular mindset with many female athletes that we have worked with. Simply look at some elite female athletes like Mia Hamm, Lisa Leslie, etc. These athletes certainly train with weights and no one would accuse them of having manly physiques. Strength training will improve performance and reduce injury if done correctly.
3. You can’t train speed
For some reason it is a popular belief that you are born with a certain amount of ‘speed’ and you can’t improve it. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most young athletes are so physically weak and mechanically out of tune that significant improvements in speed can be made often just by working on technique and form. Athletes at any age and any level can improve speed when implementing a complete speed training program designed to improve and develop the entire athlete.
4. Training slow makes you fast
I don’t think coaches directly think this way, but their training implies otherwise. This is especially true in sports that involve a higher aerobic element such as soccer, field hockey, lacrosse, etc. I see kids out running mileage and doing long slow intervals of several minutes of continuous running. And this will get them in shape. But in games I see kids jogging, jogging and then sprinting at full speed for 20-30 yards, run, jog, sprint for 20-30 yards. If you want kids to improve their acceleration and top speed so they can get to the ball faster or get back on defense, then you have to train by running at full speed in practice.
5. You can train hard every day
The workout itself is only a piece of the training puzzle. It is the time between intense workouts, the recovery, where athletes make their improvements. And generally it takes 36-48 hours to recover from high intensity training. If athletes are doing too much, too often they become over trained. Coaches can expect to see an increase in injuries, kids complaining that they are sore more often, decreased performance, higher levels of fatigue earlier in games. It’s always better to under train an athlete than over train. Err on the side of caution to get maximal results.
6. Strength training will stunt a young athlete’s growth
This is another myth held over from a different time. On a daily basis, kids as young as 7 years old are playing organized sports year round, tackling, getting tackled, sliding, falling etc.. These loads on the body can have a much greater physical impact than a well designed strength training program. Though we don’t usually begin training with weights with pre pubescent athletes, they can benefit from body weight exercises such as push ups, lunges, sit ups, etc. This will increase muscular efficiency, speed up recovery, improve coordination and overall speed.
7. The harder the workout, the better the result
Some athletes (and coaches) have this mentality that if a workout doesn’t reduce them to complete exhaustion and/or make them vomit, that it wasn’t an effective workout. I can tell you that those who have this mentality probably see a lot of injuries and frustrating performances. The purpose of a workout is to stimulate an adaptation by the body. If the body is forced to do too much work in a given time period, it will break down. The skill in coaching is to stimulate the adaptation in the body, without reaching a point of diminishing returns.
8. Interval training is the same as speed training
Running repeat 100s, 200s, etc will not improve top speeds. Even running repeat 40s with short recovery will not improve acceleration and top speeds. Speed work is defined at 2-8 seconds of maximal intensity running with full recovery. That means at least 2 minutes of light dynamic movement between each effort. This goes against the experience of some coaches, but simply put, is the only way to improve speed. An athlete must be able to focus on proper form and maintain intensity in order to get faster. If they do not recover properly from each interval, they will not be able to replicate proper mechanics with consistency and they can not improve.
9. Flexibility won’t help you get faster
Both coaches and athletes spend so much time on the skills of their sport, speed training and conditioning that they often forget a fundamental component of success: flexibility. After practice or a game, the muscles are warm and loose. Now is the time to work on increasing flexibility. So many athletes suffer injuries or compete below their capacity because poor flexibility inhibits their range of motion and speed. We see this often in the hips and hip flexors where athletes’ stride length appears conspicuously short. Most often we see this in male athletes who will lift weights, train hard and then skip out on their cool down and flexibility work.
10. Lift your knees
I hear so many parents and coaches yelling to their kids when they want them to run faster or when they are beginning to fatigue, “Lift your knees, Get your knees up”. This is one of the most backwards cues we can give to athletes. The way to run faster is to apply more force to the ground. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so the more force you apply to the ground, the more the ground will give back. So when we cue athletes to lift their knees we’re doing two things incorrectly. One, we’re telling them to use their hip flexors to lift instead of their glutes and hamstrings to drive down. Just think about the size of your hip flexor versus the size of the glutes and hamstrings. Now which muscles do you think can create more force and therefore more speed? Second, we’re cueing them to do learn a movement that is in opposition to what generates speed. If an athlete learns at age 7, to lift their knees when they need a burst of speed, that improper cue will be hardwired into their brain. To unlearn that as a teen and try to do the opposite and drive down, that athlete will have a difficult time coordinating an entirely new way of running and will potentially have to take a step or two backwards. That’s why it is critical to learn proper form early and get an advantage over those who still aren’t getting the best instruction. So cue athletes to step over the opposite knee and drive the foot down into the ground, with the foot landing underneath the hip.
**********
Don’t forget to take advantage of this limited time only sale, which ends at midnight, tonight and cash in on the huge savings Patrick and Latif are offering on their best selling speed training information products. I have and highly recommend them.
Click here to save big money and dramatically increase your speed right now!
Forgot About Dre
September 12, 2007
Question: Jason, I know you’re a huge hip hop fan so I wanted to ask if you saw Dr. Dre at the MTV awards Sunday night. Do you think he he did this naturally?
Answer: During commercials of the Giants game I was switching to the MTV awards and did happen to catch Dr. Dre coming out on stage. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I first saw him and thought I was hallucinating. As far as I know Dre has been out of the public eye for at least two years so the change was not seen slow and gradually like LL Cool J’s was over a number of years. Instead Dre went from what looked to be a soft but pretty big, 225 to a ripped 250. He looks to have gained at least 30 pounds of muscle and lost an equal amount of fat.
While many people will quickly assume that the good doctor traded in his chronic for Dbol, I think this is missing the point and taking away from his effort. I have rarely seen such a dramatic change in any two year period by anyone. Did he have some assistance in doing this? Maybe, maybe not. I have no idea. But the fact is, even if you take steroids you still have to do the training and eating. If you simply take steroids and do nothing, nothing happens. If you take steroids and train at half intensity and give your diet half an effort, something happens but it’s usually not all that impressive. I’ve seen plenty of people take steroids and get less than impressive results because they half assed their diet and training.
The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter if Dre had help in making such a dramatic transformation because he still had to work his ass off in the gym, do the cardio and eat right. To me that’s impressive and motivational no matter what he was or wasn’t taking. And you also have to recognize that Dre is older now, he’s married, he’s probably slowed down on the drinking, partying and weed smoking and is probably more into taking care of himself and eating and training right. So this change could very well have been achieved naturally with someone with above average genetics for building muscle. This is a pretty common theme in the lives of many men in their later 30’s who achieve their greatest condition when their priorities and lifestyles start to change.
We’ll never know if Dre did it naturally or not but I still think it’s damn impressive and think it should be motivational for anyone to step it up a notch in their training.
Never Forget
September 11, 2007
It doesn’t seem appropriate to write about something as meaningless as training on a day as significant as today so instead I would just like to send out my thoughts and prayers to all those who lost friends and loved ones on this day six years ago and honor the memories of all the fallen heroes.
They will never be forgotten.
The Way it Should Be Done
September 7, 2007
A few years ago a young kid walked into my gym by the name of Jeff D’Annunzio. He was a baseball player and wanted to get bigger and stronger in order to increase his chances of fulfilling his dream of playing college ball. From day one Jeff busted his ass and outworked everyone around him. I only had to show him how to do something once and he would master it immediately and do it from that day on with text book form. Eventually I started to use him as an example to help teach other kids. He even helped me demonstrate technique once in front of the 300 kids I was speaking to at his high school.
Every single day that Jeff walked into the gym he was happy, positive and ready to train hard. He never complained once or had one negative thing to say in all the years that I’ve known him. To have 20 Jeff D’Annunzio’s would be any trainer or coaches dream.
The thing about Jeff is that, like me, he doesn’t have the best muscle building genetics in the world and in many scouts eyes he may have often been considered too small. Not only was he skinny, but he wasn’t exactly the tallest guy in the world either.
But Jeff never let that bother him or hold him back. All he did was work his ass off day in and day out in order to achieve his goal. Unfortunately he suffered what could have been a career ending injury a couple years back and was on the shelf for nearly a year. Never once did I see Jeff let that get him down. Instead he was back in the gym shortly after surgery and doing everything he could to rehab and get ready for next year to go out there and take his spot back. He stepped back on the field bigger, stronger and faster than ever before and shocked everyone. After an outstanding season following his rehab Jeff began getting offers from numerous schools across the country and eventually decided on Catholic University in Washington, DC.
He left recently for his freshman year at Catholic and although I miss regularly seeing the kid who became a little brother to me it makes me proud to see all that he has accomplished and think of how hard he worked to overcome the odds and make his dream a reality.
Shortly before he left he squatted 425 at a bodyweight of 176 pounds and recently ran the fastest 60 time of anyone on the CU baseball team, not to mention finishing second in the mile by only 30 seconds to a kid who is on the cross country team.
Jeff never made excuses and always worked his ass off and that’s why he is where he is today.
That’s really all it takes; hard work and a belief in yourself. Although it’s corny and cliched to say, “if you believe it you can achieve it.”
So ask yourself:
Are you making excuses?
If so then stop immediately. There are none that are worth a damn.
Are you working as hard as you can?
If not then why?
**********
For the training principles that helped Jeff gain over 40 pounds of muscle and get one step closer to his dream click HERE now.
Follow/Friend Me
Recommended Sites
- Holosync Meditation CD's
- How to Get Ripped Abs
- Renegade Gym
- Sun Warrior Protein
- Torque Athletic
- Ultimate Sandbags
- Warp Speed Fat Loss
Recent Comments
- jill
on Training Songs
- Odi
on 5 Big Reasons Why Everyone Should Train Like Athletes
- Tracy
on 5 Big Reasons Why Everyone Should Train Like Athletes
- BA
on 5 Big Reasons Why Everyone Should Train Like Athletes
- Mike Westerdal
on 5 Big Reasons Why Everyone Should Train Like Athletes
Renegade Approved
