Synergy Athletics - Strength Training
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I first met Trent when I was in high school and he was playing semi professional football in the area. I remember thinking that his legs were the size of my waist, and his fingers the size of my wrists. Since then, Trent has become a top trainer and he helped create a football dynasty in the area, training a team that won multiple state titles.
When I was thinking of becoming a trainer I called Trent first. I asked him what certificates were reputable and turned to him for advice. Even though I only had met him on a handful occassions before this, Trent and I had a twenty minute discussions. He is truly one of the nicest guys I have met.
Over At Trent’s Gym
Today I met up with Trent at his gym to talk training. We discussed an issue in college athletics that is rarely discussed, and that we both had occur after our playing careers. College athletes are trained to lift heavy weights, practice hard, and seriously feed their bodies. When college sports ends, so does the practices. Unfortunately, the eating has already become ingrained in the athletes’ lifestyle. Also when sports ends, typically so does the training and dietary support. It is the first time that many athletes are training how they want and eating what they want. This often leads to serious weight gains and health issues such as sleep apnea. Trent fell into this issue after playing football at Alabama and gained weight up to 430+ lbs. Forunately for Trent, this led to a great opportunity, being selected to season five of The Biggest Loser.
Trent and I also talked about the purpose of a strength coach and different training protocols. We are in agreement that it is important for a strength coach do help facilitate an athlete’s development through a variety of traing. It is important to keep an open mind. If you are an olympic style coach, or a strongman style coach, or a powerlifting coach, don’t get too caught up in yourself. Remember there is a world of vaulable information out there, and if you put the blinders on it will pass you by. Each aspect of training has certain valuable aspects that should be paid attention to!
Trent will over to check out my facility later this week, and I’ll have more quality information for everyone!
Kevin has dedicated himself to making and starting for his high school’s varsity football team this upcoming year. This dedication has lead to great strength gains over the last few months in the gym. Our first deadlifting session, Kevin pulled 255 lbs, which wasn’t bad for his age and bodyweight.
Yesterday, he pulled 325 lbs on the bar, and 12 chains (240 lbs) for a total of 565 lbs on the bar at the peak. in this video you can tell he puts his all into every lift! Congrats Kevin, and don’t let up!
Seen quite a bit of your stuff lately and it looks excellent. Caught your chain vid on the Diesel site and very impressed. Also watched one of your posts over on Ross Enamaits site of the keg burpees. I enjoy using alternative training modalities in my own programs and of course those of my clients. Alternative methods seem to be really taking off in the USA. In Australia we’re a fair ways behind you guys and these alternative methods are very new to us so I appreciate the opportunity to access the work of guys. - Jamie
Thanks for the email Jamie. I’m very interested about the training going on in other countries, so for the reader’s that applies to, I’d like to hear what’s popular in your countries. Post it in the comments (same training, different, etc)!
That being said, I understand that we are living in a global society (moreso after reading The World is Flat by Friedman). We look at the same websites and digest the same information, so the training is quite possibly very similar.
Jaime also notes two other great sites that many of you are probably familar with: ROSS TRAINING and DIESEL CREW.
Today was a particularly good training day. After all the clients left, two friends of mine came over to get after a lower body day. Both of these guys are strong and competitive, which makes quality training partners. John Frieser and I played college football together at Colgate, and he went on to NFL Europe. Tyler is now Colgate football player from our area and we are always willing to help out serious atheltes!
We started with some heavy box squats and then moved on to pulling against chains before our unilateral exercise (DB step ups with single leg RDL, shown as the second exercise in one of our older videos: HERE).
The chains in this video are used for accomodating resistance. The heaviest portion of the deadlift is breaking it off of the floor. As the lifter gets a better mechanical advantage near the top of the lift, the weight gets heavier since the chains are coming off of the floor. Since we went heavy box squats, we performed sets of 5×5 chain deadlifts. Of course, things got competitive and we worked up to 315 and 12 chains (240 lbs) for the last set of 5. This lift really whipped our glutes and hamstrings!
This exercise of the week comes from the upcoming Bull Strength Training Manual (due out by the end of the month).
Jail Yard Push-Ups - Since I train small groups of athletes we use Jail Yard push-ups as a finishing exercise on upper body day. Instructions:
Everyone gets into a push-up position - Jail Yard Push-Ups be performed with 2 or more people.
The first person does one push-up and then holds the position while the next person does one, and the next, and so on until everyone has completed one push-up.
Repeat performing 2 push-ups
Repeat performing 3 push-ups, then 4, then 3, then 2, then 1. Essentially pyramiding up to 4 and back down.
Remember everyone has to stay in the “up postion” while the others perform their push-ups.
Benefits:
Increased Chest Strength
Increased Upper Body Stabilty - From the Isometric hold
Core Strength - Everyone has to hold that push-up position, just like doing a bridge.
Competition and Desire Not To Let The Group Down
Increased Mental Concentration
Variations: For increased difficulty, perform push-up variations, add another person, or pyramid up to a higher number.
Last time we performed this exercise it turned into somewhat of a competition. Instead of doing 2 or 3 regular push-ups, the first athlete would perform a push-up variation - clapping, one handed, tricep, sphinx, etc - and the other athletes would have to match it all the way around. We pyrimaded up to 5.
The athlete on the right is performing clapping push-ups while everyone holds the position.
