3 Tips to Improve Your Bench Press

I'll get straight to the point with this one.  Everyone loves to bench press including myself but very few do it right.  Why do something unless you're going to do it correctly?  Try these simple tips to improve your bench. 1.  If you don’t set up correctly your bench will suffer…

I’ll walk you through my set up; keep in mind you don’t have to do it exactly like this but I have had success with it and I feel I get tighter on the bench than most people.   Start with your chest under the bar and set your feet, this becomes your first base of support (I choose to leave my heels on the ground).  Leave your feet in that position as you slide your body through; while sliding through start to arch your thoracic spine and pull your shoulder blades back and down (retract and depress).  Once you are in this position push your upper back and head into the bench while keeping your butt on the bench; these become your other base of support.  Congratulations you now have a good set up and if you are doing it correctly you should feel extremely uncomfortable; almost cramping in your upper back it’s so tight.  Do this even in your warm-ups, I don’t care if its 115lbs or 315lbs each set up should be the same.

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2.  Always have the intent to move the bar FAST!

I feel like this is a no brainer but I guess not.  You need to go fast and if you’re not fast then at least try and go fast (that would be me).  Having this intent to move fast during the CONCENTRIC portion (upward portion) is going to recruit higher threshold motor units allowing you to accelerate with more force thus getting you stronger. So your press should be nice and controlled on the way down, quick pause on the chest and BOOM!  Lastly, if you are grinding out reps then you aren’t moving fast so you should oh I don’t know, DROP THE WEIGHT! I just wanna go fast!

 3.  Do upper back work….. All the time

I don’t care if it’s an upper body day or a lower body day, you should be doing some kind of upper back work every day.  A strong back will help your bench press.  It’s going to allow you to get tighter on the bench, control the eccentric better, and utilize your lats more.  Right now my upper body days consist of two horizontal pulls (any type of row variation) ranging from 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps and my lower body days consist of a vertical pull (lat pull down, pull-ups, neutral grip pull-ups) and scapular retraction work (banded W’s or band pull-a-parts) usually in the 30-50 rep range and I break it up however I want depending on how I’m feeling that day.

How to Train for a Military Physical Fitness Test: A SAPT Testimonial

One thing many of you may not realize is that, while SAPT does work primarily with athletes and general fitness clientele, we also have a special "niche" in preparing those seeking to join the military and/or pass a Military Physical Fitness Test. As many of you know (or, at least, can probably guess...), the selection and assessment process for the Special Operations is far from easy, and certainly won't allow for the faint-of-heart to make it very far.

We recently received an awesome (and humbling) testimonial from Jason, who trained with SAPT - via our Distance Coaching program - in preparation for his selection and assessment process for the Special Forces.

Needless to say, he worked his butt off in training, and we were honored to help him reach this milestone.

Take it away, Jason!

"Recently, I successfully participated in a Special Operations Selection and Assessment (S/A), and I can unequivocally say that the distance coaching program with SAPT was a huge asset!

To back up the story a bit, I came to SAPT with the goal of being able to max the Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT), do 20 pullups, run 6 miles in 45 minutes, and total over 1500 pounds. To say that this is a tall order would be a HUGE understatement. My training background consisted mainly of strength training with some General Physical Preparedness (GPP). I had a total that was in the 1200 range and could score about a 270 on the APFT. However, let’s not discuss my distance running…

Needless to say, I walked into SAPT pretty confident in my skills. Boy, was I about to be humbled! That first day, Steve broke down my form on all my major lifts and immediately saw where I had room to improve. At the end of that session, he made an effort to truly understand my needs,  and develop a unique program to ensure that I met them. This was especially difficult due to the fact that I still had a 9-5 job, an upcoming wedding/honeymoon, and two rambunctious American Bulldogs all vying for my time. With that in mind, we planned on me working out at SAPT once a week, with all other workouts on my own. Over the next three months (while I stubbornly resisted scaling back the weight on the bar and doing “silly” mobility work) I put in the tough work. It was all worth it.

By the time that I attended my S/A, I felt entirely prepared. My APFT score had improved to well over 300, running for longer than 30 minutes no longer felt like I was breathing lava, knocking out 18 clean pullups seemed natural, and believe it or not, my strength is continuing to improve! SAPT had performed the seemingly impossible. Beyond that, at the conclusion of the S/A I was nowhere near as sore or immobile as I had anticipated being. Maybe those crazy crawls and band work actually paid off!

In conclusion, SAPT did a great job working with me in the gym and at home. They provided me with the tools to continue with my success, and for that I’m extremely thankful. They are in a unique position to help anyone achieve their goals. Whether that goal is in competitive athletics, aesthetics, health, or LEO/Military work they have to tools to help. Working within the Special Operations community has been a huge dream for me. And with SAPT’s assistance, that dream is finally coming true!"

~Jason

Click HERE to join SAPT today, no matter where you live!

Thanks To All Our Athletes

The best part of being a strength coach is watching our young athletes come in and train hard.  It takes little to no motivating from us coaches to get them to come in and smash weight; they have an awesome desire to get better.  It’s the best part of our day to see them come train and grow.  With that said I wanted to do something cool for the athletes so I decided to put together a video.  However, I lack the software and technological talent to do such things so I enlisted the help of my friend Binh.  He did an awesome job and captured exactly what I was looking for, so thanks man I appreciate the help.  And to the athletes I hope you guys like the video.  Thanks for coming in and TRAINING HARD!

A "New" Way of Assisting Pullups

The other day, one of our interns, Tadashi, was messing around with the bands and came up with quite a useful way to assist chinups. As soon as I saw it, I had one of those Why didn't I think of that?! moments. Wrap the band just around your thumbs as shown in the video below and perform as follows (you can use it for any grip choice...pronated, supinated, or neutral):

Why I like this variation:

1. Simply put, it provides a bit less assistance than traditional *BA variations, but it still provides just enough help for those that aren't quite comfortable with chins/pullups yet. It's essentially one more step on the learning curve ladder toward performing a full-range, bodyweight chinup.

2. It completely unloads at the top of the movement, which is perfect for performing isometric holds at the top - for those who are a bit stronger and even closer to getting over that "one-rep hump."

3. With traditional BA chinups, it's fairly difficult to prevent oneself from "swaying" back and forth due to the pull of the band. I find that this variation keeps it much easier to maintain a rigid body alignment.

See the video below for how we have done BA chinups in the past (3 different progressions):

All of those are still awesome, and should be used for those in the beginning phases of conquering the bodyweight chinup. This is simply another tool in the toolbox, if you will.

*Band-Assisted

Complete and Utter Randomness

Just a few random thoughts that have been running around my mind and some training videos for everyone out there. Random Thoughts:

• I’ve been struggling as of late when it comes to high school weight training either as a class or after school for sports.  It seems to be very few and far between that you have sport coaches/weight training teachers who know what they’re doing in the weight room (I’m not saying all of them).  Just talking to athletes about what they do in there blows my mind such as maxing every three weeks with terrible form, crumpling under the barbell during a squat or rounding their back and hitching a deadlift just to get the weight up.  Most of these kids can’t do a bodyweight squat correctly, why are they maxing with a barbell on their back?  I’m not trying to make people angry but it just seems ignorant when there is so much good/free information everywhere that would help these coaches and their athletes immensely.  I attribute this to one of two things, they are to prideful to admit they don’t know what they are doing or they just don’t care to find out that what they are doing is wrong and harmful.  Either way it’s unacceptable.

• The previous thought kind of led into the idea of being average. I’ve heard people for as long as I can remember talk about how they are better than “average” or that they don’t want to be just “average”.  I always thought that thinking like that was arrogant, or that they felt they were superior.  I used to be of the mindset that in order to be above average you had to be something like an astronaut, sports superstar, movie star, bill gates, you know things along those lines.  I’m assuming I thought that way because from the time I was in elementary school to the end of high school that’s what I felt I was, just average.  Why? Because I was led to believe that’s what I was by OTHER people. It wasn’t until college when I started taking my physical education and exercise science classes that I started to realize that I wasn’t “average” and that I never want to be “average”.  I started becoming more confident in my intelligence and through weight training I became more physically confident, and most importantly I stopped listening to negative people.  This all lead to me understanding that it’s OK to NOT want to be average.  Nobody should want that.  Whatever it is that you are currently doing you shouldn’t be satisfied with being average at it.  Whether you are a student, strength coach, teacher, sport coach, attorney, grounds keeper, etc. you should STRIVE to be better so you can look back when it’s all said and done and be able to say you left your mark.  Anyways the reason why this all got sparked was because I’ve been hoping this is the message that I am instilling in the athletes I work with.  There is enough negativity in the world and I REFUSE to be a negative influence when it comes to working with these kids.

• My last thought as of late is that I want to buy a truck. Really not for any other reason than to buy a Prowler to leave in the bed of the truck just so I can always have it on hand in case the mood strikes to push it.  Weird right?

Videos:

And without further delay, here are some videos to take your mind off the incoherent rant you just read….

Here are two of our female high school volleyball athletes.  I think they are just realizing that they are really strong.  SAPT is really proud of all their progress…

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The next video is of one of my training partners and GMU’s S&C graduate assistant John Delgado.  He’s currently doing Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 and he decided to get real squirrely with this 315 deadlift for what I believe is 13 reps…

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The last video is of me getting in some work for my upcoming powerlifting competition.  My training is going really well and my squats and pulls feel really fast and smooth (bench is still feeling a bit weird and wild).  I’m about 7 weeks out from the Richmond Open and I am getting all sorts of jacked up about it.

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How to Get HOOGE!

By far the question that I get asked the most by our male athletes is “how do I get bigger”.  I give them the simplest answer they could ever want yet they still for some reason don’t like what I tell them. My answer is usually along the lines of “eat food… a lot of it, all day…“ The resounding follow up from them goes something like “but I don’t want to get fat”.  At this point, in my mind, I want to just go kick down a door (figuratively speaking of course). [vsw id="q3SFXQfE4kk&feature=youtu.be" source="youtube" width="425" height="344" autoplay="no"]

I blame society.  For the last 20 years we have been told by media organizations that if we eat food we will get fat and then we are made to idolize people that look like sticks, RIDICULOUS!  Sorry, I’m digressing from the point… What was I talking about again? Oh yeah, gaining weight.

Fellas, the only way to gain muscle mass is to eat A LOT of REAL FOOD and have a sound strength and conditioning program.  Please, I beg you to get rid of the notion that you will get fat because honestly, you won’t.  The guys I get the gaining weight question from are usually 5’6”, 130-140lbs or 6’0” 165-175lbs; the last thing you should ever worry about is getting fat.  I can’t really blame you for thinking this because I was the same way when I was younger.  It wasn’t until college that I started to educate myself on the issue and ignored my ridiculous thoughts about getting fat.  I went from 5’8” 150lbs to around 6 months later weighing in at 177lbs (after trying to gain a little more muscle recently, I weigh in around 187lbs currently).  All that said I’m going to give you a list of some of the foods I ate frequently to help me reach my goals (the foods are in no specific order).

I did not measure out my food when trying to gain weight.  I don’t feel this is necessary because it ends up getting in the way and becomes a huge hassle which leads to giving up.

- 6 eggs (whole eggs, not egg whites) with a handful of cheddar cheese and a WHOLE LOT of vegetables.  Try and find whatever you can, mine consists of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, green and red peppers.  I ate this for breakfast and sometimes dinner.  I scrambled it all up with some olive oil.  This was a great way to get in a lot of good nutrients consisting of fats, carbohydrates, and protein.

- Natural peanut butter and jelly on Arnold’s Double Fiber wheat bread and a glass of whole milk.  This was one of my favorites which is why I ate it twice a day; one of those times being after my training session in which case I would substitute a glass of whole milk with chocolate milk/one scoop vanilla why protein. I slabbed on as much peanut butter as I could. Be sure to get natural peanut butter, don’t eat that processed stuff.  If it claims to be natural but lists palm oil as an ingredient then don’t buy it; palm oil acts as a trans-fat.

- Burrito bowl from Chipotle with rice, fajitas, black beans, chicken, pico de gallo, cheese, and guacamole.  This was usually a once a week thing because of cost.  This was a great way to get in a lot of calories on a day where I was slacking or short on time.

- Stir fry diced chicken breast with as many vegetables as you can cram in.  It should consist of tomatoes, green peppers, red peppers, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and baby spinach with olive oil and teriyaki sauce.  I usually got 3 to 4 pounds of chicken breast filets and made it all on Sunday so I could have it already prepared for the week. Again, gettin' a lot of calories while satisfying vegetable intake.  I know what you are thinking and yes you have to eat spinach, because it’s awesome and if you want to be strong like Popeye you have to eat like Popeye.

- I loved drinking smoothies because it was an awesome way to get in a boat load of good calories. The fact that it was liquid allowed it to not sit very long which allowed me to eat again quicker.  I had my own recipe but Stevo’s is far superior so I’ll give you that one.  Frozen berries, whole milk, Kefir, brazil nuts, and one scoop vanilla whey protein.  If the blender isn't full by the end… Just add more.

- West Virginia Goulash with a side of 4% milk fat cottage cheese mixed with strawberry jelly.  This is a meal that my dad (from Beaver, West Virginia) has cooked for my family forever.  It’s nothing special really, just 90/10 ground beef cooked in a pan with LITERALLY whatever vegetables you can find.  My dad uses potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, peas, corn, green beans, green peppers, and tomatoes.  As for the cottage cheese, I do like it by itself but after a while the taste takes its toll on you so I added the flare of strawberry jelly. Again, just like the chicken stir fry I would make this at the beginning of the week. If you don’t like this meal then we just can’t be friends.

A Few Things to Note…

- Every week I would rotate between the chicken stir fry and the West Virginia Goulash, a big bowl of either would be my lunch or dinner.  The peanut butter and jelly, cottage cheese with strawberry jelly, the scrambled egg dish and the smoothie would be something I ate every day, every week.  With all this I would end up eating around 5-6 times a day and drinking around 3 liters to 1 gallon of water a day.

- At this time the only supplement I took was cod liver oil because I needed extra Vitamin D due to lack on sun exposure and protein powder.  If you are trying to put on mass for the first time I highly discourage you from taking other supplements such as NO2 products and creatine products.  The reason being is not because they are bad for you (because they are NOT bad for you) it’s more so because they end up being a crutch, especially for teens.  People and again especially teens tend to think supplements are a “magic pill” and make them a staple of their diet rather than what they are; a “supplement” to your diet.  Whey protein is fine; just keep it to one scoop after your training session along with the other post workout food I listed and one scoop for your smoothie.

- If you’re reading this and saying things like “oh man, that’s unhealthy to eat that many eggs”, “I’m going to get fat if I do that”, “his cholesterol and blood pressure must be through the roof!” then I'm sorry to say, you are sorely mistaken.  If you truly believe those things then you probably don’t exercise (lift heavy things and condition) enough, you pay too much attention to bad sources of information, and you just aren’t ready to take on the challenge.  All of the products I ate were natural and either not processed or very minimally processed.  There is nothing “unhealthy” about drinking whole milk, it’s a great source of good fats and is much less processed than skim milk.  Egg yolks are fine, actually its the best part of the egg.  And, I can assure you that my cholesterol and my blood pressure are better than average.

Stop letting society dictate your life.