Posts Tagged ‘omaha gym’

Hey!

It was a crazy morning!

We had the pleasure of hosting a bunch of the Army’s own right here at our gym.

These guys came ready to crush it!  And crush it they did!

Training at the Forged Athlete for these guys was a first time thing.  It was a very new experience for them all.  Most of the guys had never trained this way before.

All have been in the service for some while now and have experienced p.t. but nothing like our style of training.

Our style of training is very different from what most are used to.  We focus on getting you strong, athletic, and tough as all heck!  Our training methods are unknown to many.  We use lots of training methods all rolled up into one.

These guys took the challenge we put in front of them head on and handled it well.  Each of these guys will be seeing a lot more of us as the weeks and months pass by.

This morning we took the guys through one of our baseline workouts which consists of a lot of basic stuff.  Not easy but real basic.  Our baseline workouts are very important because they build up your overall strength and conditioning foundation that will be crucial to have in the up coming months of our program.

Without this basic  foundation, you have nothing and will crumble from your weakness’.

Check out the video of these guys killin it on day 1.  Make sure to be checking back real soon as this was their first day.  Once these guys get the hang of how we train – it’s going to be a madhouse!!!

Check out the video==>  Military Rolls Thru

Get Forged Strong!

Yo monsters!

What’s better then being able to out run your opponent or blow through a guy standing in front of you?  I can’t think of too many things.

There’s nothing more I love watching than a guy busting through the line to make a sack, a wrestler blasting thru a guy with a takedown,  or a sprinter exploding out of the blocks with explosive power and force.

Its so demoralizing to your challenger when you can beat him off the line, always be a step ahead, and simply run right through him like he’s nothing.

Acceleration plays such a huge roll in being explosive and fast.

The first few steps of a sprint, the first few movements of a take down, and of course coming out of a break and changing directions.

Acceleration is key in all of these movements.

There’s lots of exercises that come to mind that will help increase your acceleration.

The other day, my workout called for tire flips.  Tire flips are great at helping one become more explosive and to increase their overall acceleration.

The only problem for me was, the weather was absolutely terrible out!  I wasn’t going to be able to get outside and flip my tire.

What I did was used my imagination a bit and decided to try something new.

I took your basic tire flip and added some resistance bands to the mix.

What I did was make a band harness which forced  me to explode and accelerate through the whole tire flip motion.

I set up a little contraption so I could flip the tire then simply pull the tire back into place so I could get multiple reps in without having to get out of the bands.  It worked good enough to say the least.

The bands work great for acceleration work.  While the bands get longer, the tension increases, which forces you to keep accelerating.  If you don’t,  you’re going to get pulled back.  Using bands also force you to keep low and stay moving.

I loved these.  These also worked well because the tires we currently have are not as heavy as we would like.  I’ve got to make the lifts harder any way possible.  Using bands with this works!

At the end of the workout, I ended with some added range of motion sprinter lunges with the barbell that were absolutely killer!

This was a great workout to increase my overall acceleration capabilities.

Give it a try and check out the video!

Speed and Acceleration

Welcome back kids!

Wow what a morning!  I just finished my workout for today and my legs are completely fried!

I don’t know how I’m going to function today.  I gotta keep moving though.  I can’t let a workout put me outta the game right??  That’s why we train to get strong and to be able to push through anything.  Right??

Anyways, I got inspired to write this post as I was preparing for my last exercise of the day – 1 all out set of 20 reps on squat, or as you may of heard these called before “Death Squats”.  I’m not sure if Dave Tate invented the name or what, but they really do almost kill you!  That’s why I love em so much baby!

So, let me explain a little bit about “death squats” (ds’) and how these can really benefit anyone looking to get stronger, bigger, faster, or just plain tougher.

Just a quick note – These babies are serious!  These are NOT for beginners.  If you’re going to do a set of ds’, make sure you’re prepared.  Make sure you’ve been through a basic strength program for over a year and that your squat form is near perfect.

So, most people know that to get strong and big, you need or should be lifting weights in the 2-7 rep range and no more.  Anything you can lift over that many reps in a set is too light and will not spark enough muscle fiber to trigger strength gain.

I’m not going into all the technicalities, but I just want to make a point with this.  I get questions about ds’ a lot and the one that I get a lot is “If I’m doing a weight for 20 reps, isn’t that just endurance training?”

No and Yes – because with death squats, here’s the key and why they are called “death squats”.  With these you choose a weight you know you can perform perfectly around 7-10 reps.  Now, what you do is basically start squatting.  In between each rep at the top, take a deep breath.  This serves as almost a short rest (but not really).  Your chest should pop way out due to the size of the breath you just took.  After the breath, go into another deep squat and repeat until you die, or finally reach 20 total reps.

You basically just did a weight you would normally do around 7-10 times.  That’s in a good range to trigger strength and growth gains.  No, besides getting stronger with these, you’ll agree after you do them, that you’ll be working your endurance as well.

Here’s a pointer – as you start to fatigue out, take more than 1 breath at the top.  I usually get around 3 to even 5 huge breaths by the time I reach 17 or 18.  Your heart will feel as if it’s about to EXPLODE!

It’s crazy but fun!

Now, why 20 reps?  To be 100% honest, I’m not sure.  What I do know is with squats and deadlifts, these two exercises make your body produce the most amounts of growth hormone due to the level of muscle mass and muscle movement involved.  And if the weights heavy enough, you’re in for getting stronger and bigger my friends!

Anyone who is a good squatter knows to use their whole body when squatting.  Everything should be tight!  It’s takes a lot out of you and gets you strong as heck!

The best way to make these “death squats” be the most effective is to ONLY do this 1 x a week for 3-4 consecutive weeks in a row and then take a 1-2 week break off.  Too much of these and you’ll overtrain yourself.  I always perform these last in my workouts, usually on leg focused days.  But, if you’re doing full body, as I do a lot, throw these in there at the end!

So, here’s my sample workout I did today:

1A)  Box Jump seated from Box  4 x 3

2A) Box Squats   8 x 2

3A) BB RDL w/ chains  3 x 8-12

3B) Hanging Leg Raises  3 x 12

4A) Scooter or Power Wheel Leg curls 1 x 50

5A) DEATH SQUATS  1 x 20  J

Give these babies a try!

Get Forged Strong!

Ps – got a lot of new peeps stopping by the gym!

Lots of people in Omaha about to get “beasted out”

If you live in Omaha and want to stop by for the real deal, give us a call 402-984-0791