Archive for the ‘strength training’ Category

This is going to be a quick vid on one of our dudes killin prowler. This happens to be at the end of one of our workouts on a Sunday afternoon.

This guy is a tank and used to box back in the day. It’s good to see people like Matt kicking ass and taking names. As long as I’ve known Matt he has never missed a workout.  The only time that I can think of was over Christmas and family time. This is the kind of person that I look for when training.

If you or anyone out there loves to kick ass and get strong then drop us a line so we can arrange a workout to see if this is for you.

We have one life guys!

Lets try and live it to the max.

Till next time, stay forged strong.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8tKtrLYrNA

Hey kids,

Boy it’s been a crazy weekend!

I just got back from Louisville, KY at Bootcamp, Bootcamp, where I met up with lots of other fitness pros that came from around the country and world.

I was stoked! I met up with a pal  Zach Even-Esh and met and made some more new pals likes Jason C Brown and Pamela MacElree, who are two of the most sought out kettlebell gurus in the country.    I also met some other really inspirational people as well!

Overall it was a great weekend but, I couldn’t just travel to Louisville and hang with a ton of the biggest boot camp owners and fitness pro’s in the world without repping The Forged Athlete!

On the last day of the seminar, TRX had a “40-40” challenge which is 40 atomic push ups with a min rest in between then immediately 40 reclined rows.  I was able to complete the task and win myself a brand spanking new TRX!  I’m thrilled!  It’s in the mail as I write this now!

The TRX in my opinion is one of the best pieces of equipment to train one to get strong as heck with simple “suspended” bodyweight exercises.  I also feel it’s one of the best ways to train your core to build a solid mid section as well.  The exercise options and difficulty levels you can bring yourself to with the TRX are endless.  Besides a good pair of Olympic rings, the TRX is by far, the best bodyweight training system out there.

Which reminds me to let you all in on some really cool info about what’s going to be taking place in a few months. The Forged Athlete will be holding TRX “Underground” Suspension Training Boot Camps.  These camps will rip you up, BIG TIME!   You’ll build crazy strength, power, loads of new muscle, and of course, help increase insane amounts of athletic ability.

In the mean time, check me out tearing up this “40-40” challenge.  I should’ve turned it into a “50-50” challenge.  Ha Ha!  Next time…

Get Forged Strong!

TRX 40-40 Challenge Forged Style

What’s up everyone!

Today was one of those days where we unleashed some hell in the weight room.

Trav was training so hard that his nose started to bleed. Now! we do not expect our guys to train this hard in our gym.

Trav is just one of those crazy dudes.

He had close 100 lbs or better hanging off that belt. Damn good strength if you ask me.

Check out this vid at the forged athlete of him doing some crazy pull ups.

watch?v=gp3Dyu70bJY

Yo kiddo’s

I’ve got a killer workout for you guys and gals today!

Since I hit full body on Monday, I’m coming back with an upper body based workout with a full power power exercise at the start to kick it off right.

This one got me good!

There’s some power, strength, and work capacity all thrown into one brutal workout.

I was always taught to keep your power movements at the start of your workout when you are the freshest to get the most out of these.  You want perfect technique and also want your nervous system to be fresh.  So lifts like snatches, cleans, jumps and other movements simialr, try to keep these at the start of your workout.  Of course you can break the rules sometimes

The main thing is, I hate seeing bad form on the cleans and snatches.  Its not good for your gains or your body for that matter.  Of course if your trying to improve work capacity and train for fighting and wrestling, you’ll want to throw that type of stuff in for circuits, but keep the weight a little lower and make sure your technique is spot on perfect.

Avoiding injury is the main concern always, then power, strength, and endurance or whatever you goal is.
Power + Upper Body

So, Here it is:

1A) Hang Cleans 4 x 5-3  Haven’t hit these for a while, worked up to 225 for 4 on the last set

2A) DB power press 4 x 4-8  I tried strict militaery press to start the sets then finished with power press
2B) Bent DB Rown 4 x 4-8

3A) Blast Strap Chain Push Ups 3 x Max  I went for max reps the 1st round, then really focused time under tnesion the 2nd two rounds
3B) KB 2 hand swings 3 x 15

4A) Blast strap face pull + Y row combo 3 x max
4B) Thick Handle DB Farmer Walks 3 x max you will see in the video how these are freaking killer!
4C) Dip Bar Knee Tucks  3 x max

Like I said, this one was a real chip off the old block!  I love IT!

Get Forged Strong!

ps – make sure you get signed up for our next Forged Strength Seminar Sept 18th at 10:30 – You’ll learn tons of our underground strength training techniques to get you “strong like bull!!!!”  HA HA!

Hey Kids,

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about what types of cardio are the best to use out there without having to run on a treadmill. Well,  what I’ve done is compile a list of my 5 top “gladiator” style cardio conditioning method workouts.

I call these 5 exercises “gladiator” cardio methods because they help you keep muscle, build muscle, get huge gains in work capacity, and will shred you up so you look like a gladiator.

Whether you’re an athlete trying to get in shape for sport or a regular Joe trying to lose some fat and build some strength and muscle, these methods will help you gain crazy amounts of endurance, speed, power, and rip up your mid section by simply melting fat off your body.

So without further ado, here are The Forged Athletes top 5 “gladiator” cardio conditioning methods.

Don’t ask questions, just do them and you will see results!

1) Prowler Sprints, Drags, and Pushes

The prowler, hands down one of the most useful and effective pieces of fitness equipment available on the market.  If you have the funds to purchase one,  go for it.  I actually was fortunate enough to have my dad weld 2 of them up for me.

The workouts with these are real basic – pull or push the damn thing!

You can do dozens of different sprints, drags, and pushes with the prowler.  My favorite is loading the prowler up with a fairly heavy load and dragging it for 20 yards then pushing it back for 20 yards for 5 sets then rest.  Talk about leg burn.

These will help build crazy strength and power endurance in your legs.  Prowler work will melt fat off your body in no time as well.  It kicks ass!

2) The Battling rope

I love this cardio method as well.  The battling rope is a fairly simple yet very effective conditioning tool as well.  Get a long thick manila rope, roughly about 50’ will work, string it around a post or sturdy object, and whip the rope around like crazy.

Your shoulders, back, abs, and glutes will get worked like crazy!  There’s so many different ways you can do battling rope as well.  You can perform alternating whips, double whips, single arm, arm circles, and you can even add in squats while doing these movements as well.

Our wrestlers love the battling ropes because they build upper body work capacity real well.

My favorite workout with these bad boys are battling rope tabatas – 20 sec work with 10 sec rest for 8 sets.  4 mins of hell!

3) Sledgehammer work on the tire

This is by far one of the most effective and functional cardio methods out there.  Sledgehammer work on the tire is a huge exercise for building up your core conditioning as well as upper body strength and power.

This is simple, get a 16lb sledge, ideally with a fiber glass, none slip handle, and pound away on a tire.   There’s a bit of a kearning curve to getting the motion down for the swing, there’s a lot of ways people can mess this up, usually by trying to use just their upper body to swing the hammer.  The key is to be able to use your whole body to swing the sledge.  You should be using your whole body from your toes to your finger tips to swing that hammer.

My favorite with the sledge is tabatas as well.  Grab the sledge, pound away for 20 secs, rest 10 secs, switch sides and pound away again for 20 sec, rest 10 secs and repeat that 4 times on each side.  Killer!

4) Jump rope tabatas

I got used to these at an early age through wrestling conditioning.  You wanna get your heart rate up quick, these are for you!

You can do these a number of different ways.  The sets will always be the same in that you will jump for 20 secs, rest 10 secs and repeat that for 8 total sets.

Its all in how your choose to jump.  I prefer to do double jumps for my sets.  If you can’t double jump, I recommend doing high knees for your jump intervals.  But again, you can do whatever you like – side to side jumps, single leg, front to back, alternating, ect.

Get a good jump rope and go to town!  Its amazing how much quicker your feet get and this will help your jumping ability as well not to mention it will also shred up your midsection too.

5) Hill Sprints

Last but not least, the most effective ‘gladiator” cardio method out there, hill sprints.

I don’t need to go into too much detail here.  It’s simple, find a fairly steep hill and sprint up to the top, turn around walk back down and repeat.

This will increase power, speed, acceleration, and get you in freaking tip top shape.

There was a hill back where I was from, called Brickyard Park.  I used to go there and run 12 sprints up this hill. This hill was about at a 50-55 degree angle up and was probably a good 40-50 yard sprint from the bottom up to the top.  It was brutal but it got me into great shape and not to mention, helped me get fast as heck!

Ideally, if your after speed training, you should stick to using a hill that’s inclined at 15 degrees up to 40 or so and no more.  Too much steepness and your speed and running form will be compromised.  If you’re simply out for conditioning and getting shredded, the steeper the hill – the better.

So get after it!

Well, those are my 5 top “gladiator” conditioning methods.  All will get your lean and mean.

Make sure you always warm up properly before doing any of these methods and that you’re good enough condition strength wise to hammer these methods out.  Don’t go and hurt yourself!

Until next time,

Get Forged Strong!

Hey Kids,

It’s been a while I know.  Things have been extremely busy at The Forged Athlete!

Get ready for a great unvieling very soon. 

Shit is about to blow up!  I’m telling you!

I just want to throw this out there for all of your serious folk – when we open our doors (very very soon) we are taking 10 charter members that will get VIP like treatment as well as charter member prices for the first 3 months of their programs.

Not only do you get a cheaper membership rate for the 1st three months, you get to be apart of the underground training movement - The Forged Athlete - our gym is going to change Omaha and the way serious people train.    If you miss the boat your going to be wishing you would’ve hopped on cause when you see what type of freaks we’re going to be producing outta this joint your gonna wish it was you.

I’m 100% SERIOUS.  I don’t mean to be cocky but I’ve seen it first hand.  I know what our type of atmosphere and training can do for a person.  If you want it bad enough, you’ll do it.

The RESULTS will speak for themselves!

Now, for the brutal workout of the week:

This is a strongman type workout focusing on strength endurance.  Just because these are strongman type moves doesn’t mean they don’t cross over into speed and power sports. 

Speed endurance is a very important trait to have if your any type of sprinter or power athlete.  Mid distance sprinters especially need to be able to continually produce strong forces for extended periods of time.   Wrestlers also need to be able to be strong in the 3rd period, just as much as a defensive linemen needs to be blowing off the ball still and plowing through his man in the final minuets of a big game. 

I hope you understant the importance of strength endurance.  If your strong but have no work capacity or endurance, you’re not going to go the distance.

Here’s a brutal “strength endurance” workout:

A1) Sandbag Zercher Carries – 200′ x 4 sets

B1) Kettlebell rack walks – 200′ x 2 sets

C1) Kettlebell Towel Farmer carries (loop a towel through the kb’s handle and hold onto that)  - 200′ 2 sets

D1) Double Kettlebell swings – 10 x 3 sets

E1) Loaded Sled Pulls/Push – Pull x 100′ turn around Push 100′ x 4 sets

It may look easy on paper…  Try it and let us know.

I’m out the door right now to crush this workout with Joe.

Stay Forged Strong!

T

 

What up kids!

Just took a huge step forward in getting things ready for the grand opening of The Forged Athlete’s location!

I’m so freaking excited right now I don’t know what to do!

I was so excited that after I got home from getting a bunch of our new equipment (from craigslist, I tell you more in a sec) that I just had to use it.

Here’s the workout I did:

1A) 50 db snatches per arm (do sets of 6-8)   I used a 70 until I got to rep 32, then did 80 to finish it out

1B) 50 Sandbag Shouldered Squats  – I used the heaviest sandbag I got, prob loaded with 110 lbs

1C) Mixed Grip Pulls x max – did rope pull ups, wide grip, and finished with close grip w/ the rope

2C) Mixed Push Ups – did decline, neutral grip off of db’s, then finished w/ close grip off a kettlebell

That was a brutal workout to say the least!  But I has so much freaking energy it pushed me to my limits!

So, about craigslist – it’s a f-ing GOLDMINE kids!

I just snagged a bunch of equipment  (dirt cheap!!!) for our gym and I gotta tell ya, its almost go time!!!

Once those garage doors open to The Forged Athlete’s new facility, it’s going down!

This is what I got – Check it out:

• Got over 600lbs of Olympic plates
• Hex db’s from 5lbs up to 80lbs
• Roman chair
• Db rack
• trap bar
• olympic bar
• Rubber flooring to drop kb’s and db’d on

Kids, there going be some sweat, blood, and tears produced from these pieces of equipment I just picked up NO DOUBT!

We’re taking Omaha by storm!

I hope your ready to crush it!

Check the video out:

rolling heavy – forged style

Hey everyone,

 I just was watching the UFC 100 fights the other night and it really sparked my interest to write this post.

I wanna talk MMA style circuit training.  It seems to be the next “big” craze, well I tell you this – we’ve been training this way forever!  Its nothing that was just invented but now its more in the limelight.  Thats good though!

 Now, you see Crossfit gyms going in everywhere and more and more MMA style gyms popping up as well.  That’s good, we need more gyms like these.

The Forged Athlete is similar to some of these gyms but totally different in many ways.  Instead of focusing on just getting “good” at everything across the board like Crossfit does, we take a more specific angle at what we want to do. We actually have structure to our workout programs.  This is another post all together, but I just wanted to hit on the fact that we are in no way Crossfit.    YOU MUST EARN your way into The Forged Athlete, not anyone can walk up off the street and in 3 sessions be apart of our organization – enough said on that.

So, looking more into in the case at hand, if you’re an MMA fighter, you’ll want to focus on strength endurance and work capacity.  Your max strength doesn’t mean sh*t in the ring, so there’s really no reason you need to be focusing as much on your max strength abilities. 

Its sad when I run into athletes that are involved in combat sports and all they want to do in the beginning is put more weight on the bar.   Shit, you need to be able to last at least a couple rounds before anything else!  Get endurance! 

I think since the recent craze over UFC and its growing popularity, the training that these fighters go through has moved into the spotlight.

MMA type of training focuses on work capacity and strength endurance.  Again, if you have been reading along with older post (and I hope you have been) you will know that if you are strong but lack endurance, you will not be in a good position to win.  Its just like if a guy is very strong, but lacks speed and quickness – his strength don’t mean jack crap!

To become a good fighter one must focus on building his endurance through high intense strength based circuits.  That’s exactly what I did today, and it kicked my butt!

In part 1 of my MMA strength circuit I performed this glorious circuit:

A1) Sandbag Shouldering x 70# sandbag

A2) Sandbag Zercher Drop Lunges x 70# sandbag

A3) Explosive Off set push ups

A4)  Reclined Rows  (the chains worked the hell outta my grip!!!  Love it!

A5)  Sandbag Get Ups

I went through one round going 40 sec of work followed by 20 sec rest.    It felt great!  Today was my off day so I kept it to one round.  On an average day, I would’ve had to go through anywhere from 4-5 rounds total.  That gets BRUTAL!

Stay Tuned for part 2 with the other strength circuit I did this day.

That one was an even bigger dousie! 

Stay Forged Strong!

MMA Circuit Round 1

4^th of July blast off

Check this one out guys!

I went home to the big wonderful Wyo over the 4^th and had myself a workout. It would be good to know how many dudes also worked out over the 4^th.

Yes I was on vacation, but man the workout was defiantly something I needed. I put together a few exercises out on my ranch for ya. It just goes to show how creative you can be and still get your butt kicked. In the vid you’ll see me put together a push press exercise for 5 reps and carry.

My upper back and arms were on fire. I also mixed in some push ups and band extensions for reps. I was also able to get my hands on a metal pipe I found and rock out some snatches for reps.

Have fun watching the vid and let me know what you guys think. Stay forged strong.

 

 

 

Blast off workout

 

1a) Stone push press 5×5 Added stone carry for distance

1b) pull aparts 5×25

 

2a) Pipe snatches 5×5

2b) band face pulls 5×15

 

3a) close handed pushups

3b) band tricep push downs

 Finished with a heavy stone roll in sand (burn!)

Check to video highlights – Strength Trip In Wyo

What up all,

I just finished a hellish workout!

My bro Joe was out of town on vaca visiting the fam (got some good footage of this coming soon ) so I did a quick, fast to the point workout.

It was 15 straight mins of work, but I survived. I made the stop watch be the one to push me. Sometimes, if you workout on your own, you don’t get pushed like you do with a partner. In this case, I used time as a motivater.

I wanted to work my power endurace. This is great for athletes that participate in sports such as wrestling, mma, football, boxing, soccer, and short to mid sprinting athletes.

Power is good to have as we all should know. However, when your sport requires you to have short burst of power over and over and over again, you need to have power endurace. That’s what I worked on in this workout boys and girls.

Check it:

1 15 min round of:

1A)115# sandbag cleans x 5
1B) Bbodyweight pull up x 5
1C) 50 yard sprint x 1
jog back and repeat as many times as possible!

it was fun to say the least! Here’s part 1 of the video-

15 min workout part 1