Basic Speed Development Program
The overwhelming request we get almost daily: Do you guys do speed training?
My answer: Hellz YES!
In an effort to compliment my running related warnings over at StrongGirlsWin.com from earlier today, I wanted to take this post to another level and get all geeked-out over some real-deal sprint training.You gotta present both sides of the coin, ya know?
While I've termed this post as "basic speed development," please DO NOT confuse that for BEGINNER speed development. There's a big difference. This sample program is for someone who has at least a year of regimented general training under their belt that is heavy on both sprint and weight training fundamentals.
Without further delay...
Basic Speed Development Program
- Day 1 - Starts, Speed, & Total Body Lift with Lower Body Emphasis
- Day 2 - Tempo Run
- Day 3 - Special endurance & Total Body Lift with Upper Body Emphasis
- Day 4 - Tempo Run
- Day 5 - Starts, Speed Endurance, Long jump/triple jump Technique (at high intensity and include as overall daily volume), & Total Body Lift (even split)
- Day 6 - Tempo Run
- Day 7 - Rest
Notes:
- Keep your intensity above 90% or below 65%! The in-between work is trash for developing true speed and will only increase the likelihood for injury, while decreasing the chance for improvements.
- Avoid the pitfalls of starting with high volume and low intensity. Rather begin with HIGH INTENSITY and LOW VOLUME. Then gradually increase volume while keeping the intensity high.
Sample Program Details:Monday - Speed Work: 2 x 3 x 20-30m accelerations (rest at least 4-minutes between reps); Med Ball Throws @ 6-10lbs: Squat to Overhead Push Throw x 6-8 + Keg Toss x 6-8 (at least 1-minute rest between each throw, we're after MAX EFFORT with every single toss/throw); Weights: Total body lift with lower body emphasis; Core: 100 reps (choose whatever floats your boat) Tuesday - Tempo Run: 8-12 x 100m (easy, basically a fast jog) + complete 10-20 V-Ups (or whatever core work you prefer) between each run - use the runs as the recovery between the V-ups Wednesday - Special Endurance: 2 x 150-300m with 20-25 min recovery; during the recovery (every 7-8 mins) do some light tempo runs, body weight calestenics, core, etc. the goal here is to simply stay warm during the break; Weights: Total body with upper body emphasis; Core: 200 reps (choose whatever floats your boat) Thursday - Tempo Run: Similar to Tuesday Friday - Speed Work: 2 x 3 x 20-30m accelerations (rest at least 4-minutes between reps); Med Ball Throws @ 6-10lbs: Squat to Slam x 6-8 + Falling Forward Chest Throw to Sprint x 6-8 (at least 1-minute rest between each throw, we're after MAX EFFORT with every single toss/throw); Weights: Total body lift (even split); Core: 100 reps (choose whatever floats your boat) ***After several weeks, longer sprints (50-60m) can be added to the speed workouts on Mondays and Fridays.
Good luck, may the Force be with you...
Get it? Force...
...I already said I was getting geeked-out over this one, so I think that was a pretty solid joke.
Some Get Jacked Recipes
I get questions all the time about what I eat and how I train (mostly from friends and the high schoolers we work with) which I’ve answered before on my blog posts. However, I don’t do it very often so I figured I’d make it more of a reoccurring thing so here are two recipes I’ve been hooked on lately. Recipes
My nutrition is something that I’m really on top of or something that falls to my last priority; I’m never in the middle. I get really busy during the week which is what I hear from the high schoolers as well. With that in mind I need to take time on Sunday to cook my food for the week. I am always looking for something new that is going to taste good, be healthy for me and will last all week. Just ask Stevo and Kelsey, anytime they cook something new or are on a new kick I usually jack their style and will bring it in the next day to work. Lately,they have been utilizing a slower cooker/crock pot to do a lot of their cooking (who am I kidding; KELSEY has been utilizing a crock pot lately for their cooking… just joking Stevo, but seriously…). So I jumped on the bandwagon and let me tell you, it’s awesome the stuff you can do with it. I’ve been experimenting with different recipes and here is my favorite one so far.
Spicy BBQ Chicken
- 3-4 pounds of boneless chicken breast into the slow cooker
- Mix up the following ingredients in a separate bowl
- 1 (12-14 ounce) bottle of spicy or regular BBQ sauce (try and find BBQ sauce with natural ingredients)
- ½ cup Italian salad dressing (again try to find one with natural ingredients, if you don’t pay attention you’re going to buy one with a lot of artificial sweeteners and flavors)
- ¼ cup of natural brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
- Once this is all mixed pour it over the chicken in the slow cooker
- Depending on how big the chicken breasts are you’re going to want to cook it for 6-8 hours on low
The great thing about this is that yeah it takes a long time but the prep takes about 10 min. Once you throw it in the slow cooker you don’t have to go back to it until it’s done. By the time it’s done the chicken should be really soft and look shredded like the picture below. I usually eat this with 4% milk fat cottage cheese and some stir fried vegetables.
Homemade Protein Bars
I have been struggling as of late to get in enough calories so I have been looking for ways to help remedy the situation. I used to eat store bought protein bars back in the day between meals. However, they are usually really processed and have a great deal of artificial ingredients. I decided to go find a recipe online that suited my goals. I found a great one and just made my own modifications to it. So here is the recipe for a better alternative to a store bought protein bar.
- Mix up the following ingredients in a bowl…
- 8 whole eggs
- 6 heaping scoops of whey protein (I used Optimum Nutrition’s Vanilla Ice Cream whey)
- 4 cups of oatmeal
- 300ml of almond milk
- 4 tbsp. of brown sugar
- 3 tbsp. of NATURAL peanut butter (if you look at the ingredients it should just say peanuts, that’s it)
- And my favorite part…. A LOT OF CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!!
Once you have everything mixed up then lightly grease a one inch deep cookie sheet with olive oil or coconut oil and pour on the mixture. The mixture should look pretty gooey like the picture below; it won’t look as dry as cookie dough does.
Cook in the oven at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. It might not look cooked because it does not brown like cookies do so just do the fork/toothpick trick to check if it’s done (picture also below).
In hindsight I should have made two batches because I have been devouring them this week. This is a great way to get in some extra nutrient dense calories that you can keep in the fridge all week. So for all the high school kids who tell me they don’t have time to eat, you have no excuse anymore.
You Might Have a Bad Strength Coach or Trainer If....
I’ve had many conversations with family, friends, and random people about general fitness and what they should be doing. For the most part people tend to be know-it-alls and really aren’t seeking my professional opinion. All they really want is affirmation that what they are currently doing is correct. When I go on to tell them that standing on a BOSU ball doing dumbbell curls actually does nothing for their physical fitness level they get very defensive with me. Maybe they’re actually angry about the fact they spent a bunch of money on a useless piece of equipment, who knows? The other people who are actually interested in my advice tend to tell me they want to get a personal trainer or a strength coach to oversee their training. This realization they come to is a mixed bag for me. On one hand I’m excited for them that they are willing to invest their time and hard earned money in their personal health. On the other hand I’m weary of their decision. The reason being is that there are so many terrible trainers out there that these honest hardworking people are going to end up flushing their money away. I refuse to sugarcoat things for anyone which is why I tell them exactly this if they tell me they want a trainer/coach. They respond with “well, how do I figure out if the trainer/coach is good or not?” Great question! My answer USED TO BE to make sure they have a bachelor’s degree in something exercise related and to make sure they have their CSCS or CPT through the NSCA. As I’ve gone on in my career I have come to understand how WRONG I was. Since I’ve been a strength coach I’ve found that neither of these things mean you are a good trainer (it doesn’t mean you’re a bad one either, I myself have both). This lesson has been learned through life’s greatest teaching tool, experience. Some of the best fitness professionals I know have neither of these. So, what do I tell people now? Honestly, I try and keep it short but the following are some things you should find out before enlisting the aid of a trainer or coach. Without further ado; You Might Have a Bad Strength Coach or Trainer If….
- You don’t see any pull up, row, squat, deadlift, or pushup variations (because these aren’t functional movements right?)
- They use the word “functional” or “core” more than 5 times within the first 5 minutes of meeting them (“What we’re going to do for your first session is get you up on this wobbly lookin’ platform and have you squat for 2 sets of 15 reps to really help your “functional” balance and to really get you to engage your “core”. Don’t worry about that pain in your knee, that’s perfectly normal.”)
- There is any type of bicep curl at the beginning of your program (just trying to sculpt the guns BRO!)
- They have you do a cable row while squatting on a BOSU ball (two birds with one stone right?)
- They have you perform a snatch without teaching you how to goblet squat correctly (DUDE! It’s all about being explosive. Forget about the back pain, correct form is for SISSYS’!!!)
- They have never heard of a goblet squat (I feel like it has something to do with Harry Potter, am I close?)
- They have no idea who the following people are (comic book villains?)
-Mel Siff -Tudor Bompa -Leo Matveyev -Yuri Verkhoshansky
- They ever put you on a BOSU ball or wobble board and try to get you to pistol squat holding a med ball over your head (Hey guy! I thought I told you, we are trying to functionally engage your core)
- They look like this guy…
- Honestly, it’ll just save us some time if I just say… They have you do anything on an unstable surface (I know I know, we get it… It’s all about being functional and engaging your core)
- Their idea of a good deadlift looks like this… (We want to take your hamstrings and glutes completely out of it. It’s all about using your lower back and lifting the bar with a jerking twisting motion.)
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- Your workout consists mostly of ladder drills and cone drills (It doesn’t matter that you can’t squat 15lbs correctly; it’s all about working on your AGILITY!)
- You get thrown on a bench press yet still can’t do a bodyweight pushup correctly (If you can’t bench press 315lbs you will never be a good athlete…. HAHAHA! Sorry, I couldn’t keep a straight face with that one)
- They coach you on how to turn your pinky up at the top of a bicep curl (FOR THE LAST TIME! We are trying to sculpt the guns!!!)
- They tell you that the only way to get fit is to get on the treadmill everyday (Strength? What do you need strength for? Lifting weights is just going to get you bulky and then that muscle will turn to fat when you’re older. I see you have an awesome valgus collapse going on in your knees and your feet have no arch whatsoever… Sweet! Let’s go run for 30 minutes on the treadmill!)
I’m running short on time, that’s all I can think of for right now. RELAX internet warriors; I’m only 99% serious, HA!
If anyone has any other ones they want to share then feel free to post it to the comments section.
What to Know About Competing in Powerlifting
“…Would be interested in hearing more about what it takes to enter a powerlifting competition: requirements, mentality, gear/no-gear, training, scoring/judging, what it takes to win, etc.”
This was a comment left on my meet write-up blog post from last week. As soon as I saw it I thought what better way to talk about this than through a post for everyone!
Scoring and Judging/What it Takes to Win
Powerlifting consists of three lifts: squat, bench press, and deadlift (they are performed in this order). At a meet you get three attempts at each of these lifts. At the end of the competition your highest successful attempt from each of the three lifts will be added up for your “total”. Your total is what determines your placing within your division/weight class. In my opinion your placing should not be a focus for you especially if this is your first meet. Your goal should be to show up and to perform because most people won’t even do that.
The scoring is based on a lighting system. Each of the three judges has a light and if they deem the lift to be successful you will be rewarded with a shiny white light. If they feel the lift to be unsuccessful they will ruin your life with a red light. Have no fear because all you need is two white lights for the lift to count!
I’m not going to go into great detail about what the judges are looking for. To learn more about this here is the link to the IPF rule book…. http://www.powerlifting-ipf.com/fileadmin/data/Technical_Rules/IPF_rulebook_01_2011.pdf
Gear or No Gear
This is the only place where I feel things get tricky. People get WAAAYYYYY too bent out of shape about this to the point of ridiculousness. You have three ways to compete in powerlifting; Raw, Single-ply, and Multi-ply. This is entirely up to YOU and your GOALS and don’t let anyone sway you one way or the other. As far as I’m concerned it really doesn’t matter what you choose because at the end of the day we all have the same goal… to get stronger. Nevertheless you will come across the close-minded people who will tell you gear is “cheating” (not sure how it’s cheating because geared lifters compete only against other geared lifters) or “not true strength”. These elitists’ get under my skin because they have probably never been in gear and have no idea what it’s like to train in it, so therefor, in my mind they have NO room to give an opinion on the subject. More importantly why do they care what YOU do? The people who care about what others do have their own personal issues to figure out. I have competed raw and single-ply and I love both. They both offer their own challenges and are both fun to train for. It’s weird and ridiculous to me that people get so up and arms about the whole thing, it’s like 5 year olds fighting about whose toy is better. If you want to lift raw, lift raw. If you want to throw on a bunch of gear then do that.
My only caveat to this is that unless you have two solid years of strength training under you than you shouldn’t wear gear. It takes A LOT of strength to even handle single-ply equipment so unless you're going two years strong, just start out with a few raw competitions.
Training
This is the easy part. Just get better at squatting, benching and deadlifting. The best way to do that is to perform the lifts several times a week. It can’t get much simpler than that. If you want a good set in stone program just do Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 and I promise you’ll get stronger. Don’t want to do that? Then use the Westside Barbell template. People want to treat this like its rocket science. They paralyze themselves with fear about what programs best fits their body, there strength level, etc. If these are the questions you’re asking yourself then all you really need to do is get in the weight room and press something, squat something, and pick something up off the ground and work on doing it correctly and everything will fall into place.
Mentality
This encompasses a great deal of things which is why when talking about it I like to refer to Mike Robertson’s T-Nation articletitled, “7 Reasons Everyone Should do a Powerlifting Meet” (http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/7_reasons_everyone_should_do_a_powerlifting_meet ). This is an awesome article and spells out everything in a very simple way. In order to do a powerlifting meet you have to be able to do one thing… to truly say that you care nothing about what other people think of you. Most of the time when people tell me why they don’t want to do a meet it’s because they are scared of other people. They tell me they don’t want to embarrass themselves or they say there not as strong as everybody else. No one cares that you’re not as strong as them and no one’s waiting to laugh at you for failing a lift or bombing out of a meet. It is perfectly understandable to be afraid of putting yourself out there for people to see you fail. However, it is unacceptable to allow that fear to control your actions. It is your ability to face and overcome your fears that will define you as a person. So what if you fail? Failure is a marker of two things; that you actually tried and that you learned.
I don’t care who you are or how long you’ve been training; I implore you to go sign up for a meet. It doesn’t matter what federation or where it is just sign up for it. Find one that is 10-14 weeks away and go train for it. Can’t squat, bench, or deadlift correctly? Go turn in an entry form and your hard-earned money and I BET you will learn how to do all of those things pretty quick. Don’t wait around saying “well, I’ll just wait a little bit until I get stronger” or “I’ll wait a little bit until I feel a little more comfortable”. If your training for something you’re going to get stronger than if you aren’t, FACT! Chances are if your excuse is that you’re waiting to feel a little more comfortable then you probably rarely step out of your comfort zone when it comes to other aspects of your life as well. If you choose to test your limits then go to http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/and find a meet.
That first meet changed more than just how I approach lifting – because the lessons you learn from training and competition can be carried over to nearly every aspect of your life. -Mike Robertson
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Guest Post: Lazy But Talented - Brian Levenson
Facing another juggernaut of a day (it's 4:40a as I'm typing this), I'm extremely happy to provide an excellent guest post today from mental coach Brian Levenson:
Lazy But Talented
What’s your first reaction to seeing the t-shirt below? Anger? Shock? What’s wrong with this generation of kids? How about, what’s wrong with Nike? No, it’s not ‘Just do it’ or even the new‘Make it Count’ video, which has over 3 million hits on youtube, but this shirt grabbed my attention like few slogans have.
Walk into a high school gym and it’s likely you will come across a young man rocking a t-shirt that looks something like the one above. It’s a powerful statement that would have any coach at any level cringe upon reading it. We have all been told at some point that being lazy, but talented, is a recipe for disaster and un-fulfillment in the “real world”. Yet, Nike has chosen this simple, but powerful message to represent their brand.
There are a number of supremely talented people who may never come close to reaching their potential due to a lack of work ethic. We see them in all aspects of life—business, Hollywood, sport, politics, whatever profession; we’ve all seen lazy but talented people scratch the surface, but not reach their full potential due to a lack of work ethic. In fact, Will Smith preaches hard work over talent at pretty much every opportunity:
Kobe Bryant, considered one of the best players of all time, is quick to point out that he enjoys practice more than games. He takes pride in his blue-collar work ethic more than any other aspect of his game as he discussed in a radio interview on ESPN. There’s a reason why Bryant, drafted in 1996, is still considered an elite NBA player while colleagues Tracy McGrady, drafted in 1997 is a bench player and Allen Iverson, drafted in 1996, is out of the NBA altogether.
I have been fortunate to work with a lot of talented athletes over the years, but one athlete’s comment has really stuck with me. He was an elite athlete and said, “do what you could not what you should.” A lazy but talented athlete may do what they should, but not necessarily what they could. Just doing what you should leaves room for excuses and allows you to think "what if..." It also leads to blending in with the rest of the pack, rather than creating separation from teammates. However, doing what you could allows for maximum effort and provides the best opportunity for success for not only yourself, but for those around you.
Human beings have a desire to fit in. It starts at a very young age, but perhaps shows itself most in high school. Growing up in an upper class suburban area, I’ll never forget when my Sociology teacher bluntly asked who considered their family to be lower class—no hands were raised, middle class—all hands were raised, and upper class—no hands were raised. Sure humility played a factor, but the point was made nonetheless; nobody wanted to be seen as lower or upper class because they didn’t want to stick out. But how does sticking out help athletes?
Go back to your high school days. What were you like? I know for me, I always looked up to the kids who didn’t have to study, but always aced the test. I was jealous of the superstar athlete who didn’t have to work on his game to make the team.
Laziness was cool, as long as it didn’t impede success.
In college it’s the party animal, who doesn’t go to class, but still has a 3.5 GPA. Ah, lazy but talented. The truth is you can do pretty well being lazy but talented in high school and even college. But once you get into the real world all of that goes out the window. The real world doesn’t reward laziness. It fires it. A high IQ or athletic body that isn’t worked will eventually crumble, and all that is left is what could have been. The lazy but talented attitude that allowed for success early will eventually be the same reason for failure.
Greatness occurs when gifted people work as if they’re not. Don’t believe me? Go look up the greatest person in your profession. Do they define them-self as lazy but talented or do they hang their hat on work ethic? If you’re in high school or college you have a great opportunity to jump-start your greatness. Do what you could, not what you should and don’t be afraid to stick out. Go for greatness. And throw out that lazy but talented shirt that caused this article to be written. Thank you Nike for bringing attention to a long-standing concept that needs to be addressed. Perhaps it’s the best slogan yet.
Brian Levenson is a mental coach with the Center for Athletic Performance Enhancement (CAPE). CAPE specializes in working with professional and amateur athletes who seek to enhance athletic performance through a focused approach to the mental aspects of sport. Checkout their site here or contact Brian directly at brian@capeperformance.com.
2012 USAPL Richmond Open: Meet Results
I competed in the 2012 USAPL Richmond Open this past weekend and it was a huge success for me. I hit a PR in the squat and deadlift as well as my meet total! I competed at 181 and weighed in Saturday morning at 180.9 after cutting about 10lbs (first time I’ve had to cut weight). For anyone who read my post last week you know that I was very unsure going into the meet so for me to come out with PRs and meeting my goal of an 1100lbs total (finished with 1136lbs)is a huge deal for me. So without wasting any more time here is the video compilation of my attempts...
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The only thing that even remotely ruffled my feathers as far as judging went was on my squat. On my first attempt I got red lighted for my depth even though I felt I was below parallel. Then on my second I got a white light but the judge still told me I was almost high. So for good measure on my third attempt I decided to hang out in the bottom so there wouldn’t be any question.
Bench press went alright. I was hoping to get around 325 but after my second attempt I only took a little jump. After all the trouble I’d been having with my shirt I was just glad to get on the board. After watching the videos I noticed a bunch of problems. My arch wasn’t as big as it could have been, I tucked my elbows too much then I didn’t flare them on the way up (this causes a loss in leverage), and for the position I started in I hit to low on my chest which threw off my whole stroke.
My deadlift went a lot better than expected. I actually feel like I could have gone much heavier on my last one but whatever I got the weight and the total. I still need to sit back into my heels more and pull back more as opposed to standing straight up which is very evident on my last attempt.
Right now my upcoming goals are to get stronger and continue to refine my technique on my lifts. I don’t like saying that I have to work on my weak points because as far as I’m concerned everything is weak and it all needs to be worked on. Is this the wrong attitude to have? Absolutely not, as I’ve stated before I don’t like feeling content. The moment I feel content and that I’m strong is the moment that I stop working hard and I don’t ever want to stop working hard.
I want to congratulate Carson on his first meet, he did a great job and we are all very proud of him. I also want to thank everyone who came out to support me and who helped me out with my training and everything else. Thanks to Gabe Naspinski who did my programming and also congratulations to him as well for totaling 2100 pounds at his meet in Tampa! Sean was a great training partner and it was a shame he couldn’t attend but he had some very important things to do in New York but thanks again man! My friend and current SAPT intern Tadashi was my handler for the whole thing and did an awesome job taking the stress off me, wrapping my knees, picking weights, etc. so thanks a lot man I couldn’t have done it without you. Steve was there to handle Carson but helped me out as well, he is a great friend and I’m glad he came down.
Tim Henriques was in attendance with his powerlifting team as well. Tim is someone that I look up to in this industry and for him to help out and lend his support like he did was a huge deal for me so thanks Tim!
SAPT’s longtime client and friend Ron came down, which was awesome that he would take a whole Saturday to support Carson and I, thanks Ron! Two of my buddies who I’ve been friends with for as long as I can remember came out as well which was cool for me to share this experience with them, thanks guys. Part of my family made the trek to Richmond too. This meant the world to me so thanks to my sisters, Sissy and Stephanie and to my nephew Trevor who is one of my best friends so that was doubly awesome that he came out.
Last but certainly not least I really want to thank my girlfriend Shannon for everything she did, has done, and will do. She learned very quickly how important competing in powerlifting is for me and she jumped right on board. Without any hint of boredom or annoyance she listens to me day in and day out talk about my training successes and struggles which very few people can pull off. She watches my videos and reads my articles and doesn’t think twice about it. She made the trip with me to Philadelphia to spend two days watching a powerlifting meet that I wasn’t even in! She even drove Tadashi and me to this meet and spent 7 hours waiting to film me and support me for only the 3 total minutes that I was on the platform. I am truly lucky to have her in my life so thank you Shannon, I love you very much!
