Yesterday I made the one hour trek up north to my homeboy Joe D’s gym, and og what a gym it is,I’m in heaven there

It was our 2nd year competing in Joe D’s strongman contest, and this year we brought 1 high school athlete and 5 college athletes. Unfortunately, 2 were unable to attend due to injury and family vacation.

I had a wedding to attend yesterday and I was big time pressed for time, so, I also missed out on chowing down on more than a few burgers at The Goffle Grill, which I was really looking forward to doing while talking training with Joe D and his  kick ass trainers, Johnny Imp and Jeff Carr.

Now, as you know, my passion is strength and success - they go hand in hand.

Being at Joe’s place is VERY motivating, and I am glad my athletes went up there with their A game!

You can’t help but be motivated when you see NFL athletes, top notch D 1 athletes and hungry high school kids gunning for the top.

Our top gun was Curls - now, as I have mentioned before, Curls is NOT some genetic freak as most would assume. The kid had not one inkling of athletic talent when he was younger. He was slow, weak and fatigues quickly. He was tagged first in all tag games.

But, when he began working out, he found his passion, and, he never strayed from following the recipe of success 100%.

He always worked hard and smart, he always ate big and clean. I did say ALWAYS, how many other athletes are out there crying about lack of progress yet they eat like a bird, lift like a bird, and skip workouts regularly. Come on, get with the program, half assin’ it won’t cut it.

Curls went out there and killed every event, and I do mean KILLED! He even had the best tire flip time, and that was when he flipped the tire UP hill, which really stacks the cards against you. Curls didn’t care, he was ready to rock the house and trained extra hard to do so.

Check out Curls, below, KILLING the log press event…

the gist of our program comes from two places:

The Underground Strength Kit and The Russian Lion Power Course

Now that Curls won the highly coveted DeFranco’s Strongman Contest I think he’ll be able to sleep better at night

The rest of Team Underground kicked some serious ass. Although none of them placed top 3, they out up some very impressive numbers in the sled sprint, the tire flip, farmer walk and the log clean and press.

The problem is, I FEAR my own athletes, ha ha, but then again, that is a good thing and it pushes me to keep getting stronger.

I gotta make sure that I represent as well.

Because if I don’t lead from the front, who the heck is gonna listen to me!?!

Kill it!

–Coach Z–

P.S. - Wanna get inside access to the exact blue print we use for training?

Then check out ourUnderground Strength Kit and The Russian Lion Power Course

You’re guaranteed to start KILLING it with these two bad ass strength courses!

Check out this indepth video tutorial from Smitty at The Diesel Crew. And yes, I alarmed him of my concern for the howling Werewolves that I heard in the background.

Check it…

I’m about to head to another tire yard to snag a different sized tire for our athletes. We have tires that are 150, 400 and 600, all different sizes, all offering various challenges in leverage and positioning.

I have found that positioning is certainly critical to success and safety on the tire flip, but, there must be a solid baseline here. Strongman training is becoming very popular, and, unfortunately, Coaches are skipping the physical preparation needed to properly perform these movements.

Our new athletes go through a series of baseline workouts which continue until they show they are physically AND psychologically ready to move onto the more specialized programs. This is a BIG problem in America, where I see too many of my school athletes having knee, shoulder and back issues / pain at a young age, primarily due to overuse injuries, over - specializing in a sport without any other involvement or exposure to other sports and movement patterns.

All athletes need to run, jump, climb, push, pull, throw, catch, squat, lunge, rotate, extend, flex and on and on…..

Just because you play Football doesn’t mean that you should avoid other sports, instead, you must play basketball, wrestle, jump rope, throw medicine balls, throw and catch with different sized / shaped objects, etc.

Prepare your body from all angles, strongman training is an awesome way to improve physical preparation, just make sure the time and conditions are right!

Thanks to Smitty for rockin’ that video!

In Strength,

–Z–

Ya gotta love these…they’re FREE and they get you freaking strong!

My motivation all began when I visited the tire yard in town, and I spent about 30 seconds wrestling a tire to flip it over, which damn near killed me. Then, the “Tire Yard Freak” walked up, took a few puffs of his cigarette, threw it down, and flipped the tire 3 times in a row….no knee lift, ALL power. Just a pure FREAK!

His strength shook me up and woke me up. Why? Because he wasn’t a guy “lifting weights” in the gym, he was throwing tires, flipping tires, carrying tires.

Does this mean free weights are obsolete? Heck NO, come on, by now, you know that I am not someone who believes something is the end all, be all secret weapon, but, these damn tires will be a great addition to an already ass kicking program.

Go get some!

In Strength,

Zach Even - Esh

PS - I’ll be taking you through my Underground training programs along with Steve Maxwell during our Gladiator Seminar. It’s going to rock the house, period. Get in before the doors are shut for good! Click HERE and be a person of action.

This Saturday, our LIFT Strong fundraiser is going down.

The competition will be heated and anyone who doesn’t have the eye of the tiger is lunch meat for the rest, it’s that simple.

The training has been hard, but maybe not hard enough. You know I am ultra motivated after seeing DeFranco’s documentary and the recent video I published about “Living”.

There will be lots of spectators, remember, you’re also invited
The events will be:

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