Archive for the ‘strength training’ Category

What’s going on!

Hope you’re staying warm!

It’s cold here in Nebraska but that WILL NOT keep us from training hard.

There can be no excuses!  You must get stronger EVERYDAY.  You’re either getting stronger or weaker – you never stay the same.

Live by that rule!  Always strive to get a little better each day.  Even if its a little bit, make sure you’re stepping in the right direction.

Some of the members of The Forged Athlete have been taking steps in the right direction for sure.

They don’t find excuses.  They find a way to get things done.

Here’s a sick workout they just did this last week that really tested thier limits.  I like to call it “Bags, Bells, and A Rope.”

We use all the different tools to get them strong in this workout.

Here it is:

1A) Rope Climb or Recline Rope Climb 5 x max

1B) KB Double Clean and Press 5 x 5

1C) Sandbag Clean to Zercher Lunge 5 x 5/leg

* throw band pull aparts in throughout between the exercises and sets

We ended the workout with 8 straight mins of sled/prowler

It was a good one.  Simple and effective.

Check out the video of some highlights below:

Nice!

The workout was tough for sure. The vid that you’ll see is of myself. If you guys think that your workouts are boring then try and take  an exercise like this and rep it out for about 100 reps or so. It looks like this

1a) Warm up

2a) 100 curtis p’s

A curtis p is a hang clean to a front lunge on both legs to a push press.  Repeat for 100 reps.  Good Luck!

That’s it! I thought I would experience the workout for myself. I was definitely in for a treat. I was able to get 76 Curtis P’s before Rob told me to shut it down. The training that I traditionally do is geared for reps of 5 for strength. Give me some opinions about the training you guys do out there. Do you train like this? What are some of the benefits of workouts like these? Speak up people!

Hey what up!

Hope everything is going strong for you with any and all adventures you may be embarking on.

I’ve been really hammering the pulling movements hard in my workouts lately.

One of my main objectives is to be able to hit 5 good single arm pull ups on each side.  Right now I can only manage just one.  That’s on a good day.

I’ve got to say that to be able to do a single arm pull up, you’ve got to build up some serious strength from your head all the way down to your toes.

It takes so much more than to just pull yourself up over the bar.

Obviously you need to have serious upper back and lat strength to pull yourself over the bar.  Your shoulders much be strong enough to stabilize your whole body and keep it straight.  To aid in your stability, you must have an extremely strong core to stay tight to prevent from swinging.  Grip strength is crucial and is the link between you and the bar.  Without a tight grip, your pull up will be non existent.

On top of all these qualities, you must be lean and in good shape.  If your fat and flaccid, you’ll have a lot of extra weight you’ll be trying to pull up over the bar.  This is just another reason why you need to eat clean and stay lean.

I’ve always had a love for pull ups ever since grade school.  I was one of the few students who could actually do pull ups back in elementary P.E. class.   I was one of the few that could climb the rope and ring the bell.  I had a peg board my father had build in my garage I would regularly climb.  My wrestling club had a 60 ft long jungle gym latter hanging from the ceiling we would have to climb around on at practices.

Pulling is such an overlooked movement with many athletes today.  Too many athletes focus on presses, curls, and tricep extensions.  Too many mirror muscles being used.

The back is the key to a lot of an athletes overall strength.  It supports most movements and is a HUGE part of the core.  It serves for good posture, stability and power development.

If you’re an athlete or avid strength trainee, you need to be incorporating pulling movements into your program.

Some guidelines when it comes to pulling abilities I like to go by when training my athletes are these:

• 6+ bodyweight pull ups
• 15+ reclined rope rows
• 10+ hanging Leg raises
• BW x 1.5 deadlift x 5

These are just a few of movements to require a strong back with all of the other qualities I talked about earlier.  Obviously, there are people of there that can’t perform these standards and with anything, you have to start somewhere.  With everything, there comes progression and regression.

I’m about to give you a few ways to increase your pulling abilities.  Try throwing these 2 exercises into your regimen as much as possible to increase your pulling strength.

1)      Reclined Rowing – This is using your own bodyweight but isn’t limited to this.  You can add chains and weighted vests to this movement to add resistance.

If you have blast straps or a TRX, you can use these easily to perform reclined rows.  You can also use a racked barbell or smith machine and simply set the bar at about hip height and walk your legs underneath to where you can pull yourself up.  I would build yourself up to being able to perform 20+ reps with added weight.  If you’re eating clean and dropping body fat, you should be able to move on to pull ups.

2)      Negative Pull Ups – This is basically taking your pull ups and cutting out the actual pulling part.  To do this, grab a bench and set it up near a pull up bar.  Jump up and squeeze your back as tight as you can while having your chin over the bar.  From here lower yourself as slow as humanly possible.  Repeat for 8-10 reps or until you can’t hold on any longer.  This is great to add eccentric strength.  You add good stability to your pull and in time should be able to perform good regular pull ups.  Its all about being consistent.

From this point on, its all about progression.  Once you can do 1-2 pull ups do multiple sets.  I like trying to get anywhere from 25-50+ total reps of that movement.  If you can only get 1 good pull up, split it up into 50 sets.  Throw in a set in between your other exercises while you rest.  Soon you’ll be able to perform 3, 4, 5+ pull ups in a set and it all just keeps goes up from there.  Just stay consistent and the results will come.

For me, the most I’ve ever done in a set was 34 good pull ups.  To increase this number I’m going to focus on single arm pull ups.  I’ll do weighted 2 arm pull ups, rows, and obviously throw in every different style of grip I can to keep increasing the bottom line.

I figure if I can get myself to 5 good 1 arm pull ups per side, my overall strength will go up in my pulling abilities and I’ll tear up my total reps of pull ups.  I’ll be also focusing on high reps work every now and then while I’m doing this to make sure and keep my strength endurance to perform lots of reps.

The main reason for this post is to get you focused on how important pulls are in your training.  If you’re not currently pulling more than your pushing, make the change.  I guarantee your results will go up!

Get Forged Strong!

Travis

Yo dudes,

The russian kettlebells.  Joe and I have been getting more and more into these bad boys!

I can honestly say I never touched one until about a year ago.  Kettlebells have been getting more and more addicting as time has gone by.

They are so versatile and give you so many options to work with.  You can train for strength, power, speed, and muscle gain.  You can do circuits,   complexes, and just straight sets.  I’ve been trying it all!

I’ve got a killer kettlebell complex video on here for some serious muscle building strength as well as some crazy gains in endurance as well.

If you haven’t trained with kettlebells yet, Christmas is around the corner, I’d be asking ol’ Santa for one if I was you!

Check out the video of my complex – it tears the core, back, and shoulders up big time!

Until next time,

Get Forged Strong!

Yo kids!

I had a lovely finish to my workout the other day.  At the end I was DONE!

It was a finish to a workout that already involved 1 arm KB cleans to press and 1 arm bent rows.  This was my “strongman” day and I wanted to finish it off right.

Here’s what I did:

Zercher Carry – Sled Drag Medley

1A) Sandbag Zercher Carry x 25 yds

1B) Drag Sled Back

1C) KB rack walk x 25 yds

1C) Drag Sled Back

1D) SB Bear Hug Walk x 25 yds

1E) Drag sled back

I did this for 2 rounds as my legs were SHOT at the end.

I rested about 1:30 in between.

CHECK out the HIGHLIGHT reel ==>  Zerchers + Sled = Brutal Combo

This will get you strong as heck, build some serious work capacity and strength endurance.

Next go around I getting the heavy bag out there and another few KB’s to add two more rounds in there.  That’s going to be real brutal!!!

Yo boys and girls!

It’s been a crazy time at The Forged Athlete lately, but you know what, I LOVIN’ every minute of it baby!

I love lifting, I love training, I love coaching and I love life right now!  Not to mention I love my mom, dad, family, girlfriend, and especially my dog Kain to name a just few thing I love 

But you know what else I love???  Single arm cleans, presses, and rows!!!!

I gotta tell ya, overhead presses are great for the core!  You know what’s even better?  Single arm overhead presses!  It makes your core work 10’x’s harder!  Trust me on this one.  If all you’ve been doing is seated military’s with a barbell or 2 dumbbells, scrap that stuff for a while, switch to single arm presses.  Do those for 3-4 weeks and go back to your 2 arm presses and I guarantee you’ll be blown away at the strength you build in that time!

I also gotta stress how great single arm rows and cleans are for building up some serious strength and muscle.  Doing things with only 1 arm forces your core to work so much harder due to the fact that it has to counter balance the weight you’re holding in the other arm.  It works wonders kids!

In this workout I did single arm kettle bell cleans to presses x 5 until I reached my heaviest KB @ 70lbs (If anyone is wondering, my b-day is on the 9th of Nov, A great gift would be an 80,90, and 100lbs KB   !!!!)  I then switched to a 80lbs DB which is our heaviest DB.  We just need to get some heavier KB’s and DB’s pronto!  We’re getting too strong for these puny weights!!!  Ha Ha!

I did 30 reps each arm but broke them up in sets of 5.  I was spent afterwords but proceeded to do some Zercher carries with some sled draggin and pullin.  That’s a whole other post coming soon!

Check out the video of some of the highlights from this great strength building workout ===>

Single Arm Strength Building Exercises

***Make sure if you wanting to get crazy strong and more athletic you sign up for your FREE Ebooks on our site.  Also, if you live in the Omaha area and wanna experience our workouts 1st hand – hit us up at theforgedathlete@gmail.com***

Hey dudes,

We rolled by Bennington High School the other day and got in front of some eager wrestlers wanting to kick some major ace!  We took these boys through one of our general workouts.  It was a huge difference for these guys to say the least but they had fun!

What I love about wrestlers in general, especially these kids, is that they love to work out!  If you’re a wrestler and hate to get sweaty, dirty, or even bloody, you’re in the wrong sport!

Man it makes me miss the days where I was wrestling!  I gave my heart and soul to the sport.  I would love to get just one more match in!  What I wouldn’t do…  You may be seeing me in some open tourney’s come this spring!!  Ha Ha!  I’ll have to get some new wrestling kicks and I doubt my old AAU singlet fits anymore!  We’ll see… -Travis

Now, back to our little trip….    These kids got after it!  A lot of the exercises we took them thru were new ones for these guys but they listened, learned, and put in 110% effort and we love and respect that to the highest degree!  We hope to continue to work with these boys further on down the road.

Expect to see some of these dudes from Bennington High killing it this coming year!  Hopefully they can land another team state championship!   Other class B schools in NE, watchout!  There may be some state champs on the team as well!  Either way, we got their backs!

Check out the a few of the highlights of our first encounter with these dudes ===>   Bennington High School Wrestlers

Until next time,

Get Forged Strong!

Dudes,

Glad everyone is out there trying to get strong. Everyday I try and think of different ways I can incorporate a different exercise to get that most wanted muscle.

I remember the days where three sets of 10 was the norm. I used to lift like this constantly because I didn’t know any better. I am here to say that over the years I have incorporated many different tools and lifts to get strong as hell and lift big weights.

It’s all about change and not letting your body get used to what you’re doing.  I now incorporate tools like sandbags, kettle bells, rope climbing, kegs, tires, prowlers and all odd objects are fare game.

Doesn’t that sound like fun?  The days of lifting on machines are over.  They don’t get you what you are looking for anyway so why use them.   Start working with free weights, sand bags, kettle bells, tires, ropes, and just heavy odd objects.

It’s give your body the shock you need to see new growth in size and strength!

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