Category Archives: Conditioning

conditioning exercises for training like an athlete

SHS Performance Enhancement Program

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English: Slawomir Orzel - a strength athlete f...

Slawomir Orzel – a strength athlete from Poland at Dead Lift.

Three weeks into May and only a week away from camp and most now have several months of off season training behind them… and for many it shows! Nice work.

This weeks performance enhancement program continues to progress the Dead Lift and Pull Up variations. We’ll be working max weight and max repetitions next week in these lifts.

From our FIT Launch Snohomish studio to yours… Surprising to me was to find no large diameter rope in the SHS gym.  It can be great for climbing, pulling, jumping, or in movement patterns (we’ll work on that)… But in the mean time I’ll be pulling the rope from our studio and using it for our pull up variations this next week.  It will prove good benefits for you.

Download and print your program <<HERE>>

Agilities will be held Tuesday and Thursday this week at 2:30p.  Bring Your Cleats as well as running shoes and we’ll get some quick targeted work in to improve your explosiveness and foot speed.  While these are not full conditioning they are an important piece you should not miss.

Oh, and by the way, the Lipke Boys are leading the way so far this month with the highest number of ‘checkouts’ from the weight room.

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Deadlifts and Pull Ups Cont

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Agility Border Collie

Agility Border Collie (Photo credit: Cynthia Blue)

We continue May targeting new variations of the deadlift and pull up.

Agilities have introduced a few new agility patterns as well as ladder combinations.  This week we will combine a few of each to create a short agility course. Slightly less concentration on movement perfection and instead we will take a stab at performing them at speed and with a bit of exhaustion… Bring shoes appropriate for speed and cutting on the turf.  We’ll record times for the 3 cone drill as well.

May Week 2 Program Here

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May Workout One

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lisa deadlift 230#

lisa deadlift 230# (Photo credit: Amber Karnes)

Beginning of May already and with the schedule for spring ball and camps posted, all this workout stuff finally has some opportunities to see how it makes a difference on the field.  That’s going to be fun and likely an eye opener to those who may be taking it a bit easier than they should during this valuable time.

Target lifts for this month that we will be hitting on include the dead-lift and the pull up.

  • There are several forms of dead lift as well as several tools we can and will use to work on it.  When we hit the heaviest of weights at the end of the month we’ll be using a Barbell (BB) for the standardized lift.  Remember, all lifts can be dangerous especially when working with max loads.  When repetitions are 5 or below, I want the weight belts worn.  Alternating grip is not required but may be helpful along with a hook grip with heavy loads.
  • The pull up is a tough exercise for many and yes the lighter guys have a bit of an advantage.  This is not a competition with each other, but an opportunity to improve.  If you can only do 1 today and 3 by June… you’ve improved 300%.  That’s huge and improvement is what we’re after.  We’ll play with many variations and you can use band assist or assisted chin or even your buddy to help you get the reps if you struggle with these currently.

This weeks agilities will only be coach led on Tuesday. We’ll talk about you guys running the same with senior leadership on Thursday.  It’s ok to practice some of the ladder drills and agility patterns on your own as well.  Those who have been doing that have definitely been showing it when have a repeat agility sessions… GREAT WORK!

Our Training Program, beginning this month and moving forward you will see more complexes.  These are basically sequences of exercises blocked together.  They provide a bit more of a metabolic challenge as generally there is more total worked involved per set and often, like this month for exercise 3 on lower body day (KB gorilla complex), are performed for time.  That is complete all sets and reps as fast as possible (AFAP).  Stay safe with them, but the work will produce good benefits.

That’s it for now. See you in the morning.

If you didn’t hit the links above – Your Program is Here

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Final Program Week April

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English: an exercise of biceps

English: an exercise of biceps

Final week of our April programming.  Max lift amounts will be reached this week for your squat and incline bench.  Note those numbers for you and your partner and send those amounts or place a note for me in the file box.  I’ll maintain those until we come back to these exercises for comparison in the future.

I’ve added a couple more exercise videos to the note on our facebook page covering a couple stability ball exercises for this coming week as well.  Check them out.

Get the program for this last week of our meso cycle here.

 

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Panthers April Week 3

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Strength and ConditioningWe’re getting heavier in our Target Lifts for the month and will be eyeball to eyeball with our One Rep Max (1RM) next week. Note the rep and intensity changes in this weeks SHS athlete training program.

The pull up is added this week for the upper body.  Most will need to use the belt with added weight as we are shooting for relatively low reps.

Compound sets and Super sets each make an appearance this week.  Note the varying rest periods for these exercises.

Conditioning is important for every position on the team.  M & W provides you guidelines for this weeks aerobic intervals.  Tuesday and Thursday agilities are noted and will be coach led on Thursday at 2:30p… Because conditioning is something we all need to take seriously, consider the weekend metabolic circuit at the bottom of your workout sheet for Saturday.  If you like working with other folks, I’ve worked a deal for all my clients (You SHS Athletes) to join a Saturday morning fitness camp at No Cost.  It’s local, its free, and it will get you some change of pace work in.

Get the training program here, and I’ll see you in the weight room.

Firefighter Exercise Equipment

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As firefighers with the City of Everett, you are fortunate to have a fairly decent set of equipment at each of the duty stations.  It’s not the same everywhere.  Whether interested in variety or are limited in equipment the following article from the NSCA will give you some great ideas.

Circuit training is an excellent modality for the firefighter.  The article goes on to provide advice on usiing the circuit in your personal or group training regimine…. Check it out.

Table 2. Exercises and Firefighter Equipment Utilized during the Program    

April Hot Topic - Table 2  

Note: It is important to note that this is not meant to be an exclusive list of exercises. Additional exercises may be performed as long as they are ergonomically correct and do not utilize contraindicated positions. 

 Small (1.75 and 2.5 in.) and large diameter (5.0 in.) hoses were used to simulate the following exercises: hose roll swing and hose undulation. Hose rolls were also utilized to add additional weight to body squats, wall sits, and upright rows. Class-A foam buckets that weighed approximately 45 lb provided additional resistance to the farmer’s carry, overhead press, deadlift, and upright row exercises.  

April Hot Topic thumbnail 

Looking for exercise demos? 

Check out this video, which demonstrates all the exercises mentioned in this article.   Continue reading →

April Training Week 2

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Two views of local Extension leaders drilling ...

physical exercise in middies and bloomers, …

Here we go with another micro built around hypertrophy.  A few new exercises and wrinkles included this week to keep it interesting and progressing. Our monthly target exercises take a little bump in intensity.  I made a note as to how long the exercises should take if you are sticking to the correct rest breaks.  If you find the workout is running long, check that you are not taking too long between sets.

Check out your April, Week 2 program here

Agility/Speed – There are slight changes in the aerobic intervals.  Note the work/rest ratios there.
On the Tuesday and Thursday agilities, we’ll be meeting at 2:30 on the upper turf.  It will be only Thursday as a group.  Follow the drills listed on your workout on your own for Tuesday.

See ya in the weight room

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Off Season Intensifies

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Post Workout

Nutrition Sculpting

With Spring Break over, the off season changes gears and begins to intensify.  Programming for the SHS athlete will change to weekly updates and we’ve added a couple new wrinkles to directly hit and enhance targeted exercise movements.

Get this weeks program now!

Group/Team agility training will be organized weekly in addition to your resistance training.  You will definitely benefit as well by partnering up to keep motivation rolling and spotter on hand.

There is still room for flexibility so that you can hit your favorite lifts AFTER taring up the prime four movements slated for the day.  If you are only able to do full body workouts 2 or 3 times per week, no worries, the program card can still direct you as well… Check the video on the training program page for details.

English: an exercise of shoulders

I feel the rumblings of excitement with the football program changes starting to settle in.  From my seat I can tell you that I think you have good reason for some optimistic excitement… but, you must do your part and put in the time to continue to improve your physical self in the off season…. I’m excited to help you do that.

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Romanian Dead Lift RDL

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Ben Showing Landmine Single Leg RDL with Slider Assist

I like to add in many variations of the Dead Lift to an athletic program.  For the posterior chain, which is so often over looked, they are hard to beat.  Of the dead lift variations, single leg RDL’s are among my favorites.

Ben Bruno put together a nice blog post on the single leg romanian deadlift with assistance for balance that is a favorite of mine. It’s definitely worth a look especially if you have trouble with the balance aspects of the movement as I’ve seen many have in the past.

I often tweak the single leg RDL and turn it into a tri-directional movement, I want to mention that when you see this in the program it also is easily assisted for balance with the TRX (you’ll likely see me pull this trick out more often).
**For tri-directional RDL’s you do not need to make large movements in each direction, just a movement of the lowered dumbbell or kettle bell once to the inside of the base foot, once to the toe of the front foot, and once to the outside of the base foot.

These slight changes provide a change in the force vector of the resistance and provides a different challenge to the working and stabilizing muscles.

SHS Athlete General Program

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Weeks 3 & 4 of March are up and ready for you to print.  I’ll bring copies of the Full Body and the Split Routine programs to the gym tomorrow afternoon as well.

This round we are playing with the high end of strength protocols and ensuring we spend some time doing single leg exercises.Panthers

The suggested Wednesday exercise circuit program uses all TRX.  It’s one of those, you get out what you put in tools.  I’ll be in and we can go over any of the TRX exercises when face to face.  It kicked my butt today.

For running this time around you will be using three of our primary agility drills for 4 sets each.  We want equal numbers each direction and full recovery between attempts.  We may tweak them a bit if I’m there to run you through them, otherwise concentrate on improving your change of direction is key with these drills.

I’ve added videos of each of the primary agility movements we regularly come back to on the exercise description note on our facebook page.  Check them out to ensure you are practicing with the correct patterns.