In a way I am shocked yet on the flip side, NOT so shocked.

Last week we had 3 different athletes throw up, simply from TWO bodyweight exercises, both of which are in Bodyweight University.

It was the first 10 minutes of the workout nonetheless.

The problem is, I have high expectations, or maybe not, you tell me when you post your comment.

There are FAR too many athletes, even high level athletes, who can not handle even the simplest workout using bodyweight exercises.

Last week we had an MMA fighter, football player and a basebal player throwing up in the garbage can numerous times – just from 2 bodyweight exercises.

Our goal is NOT to make them vomit, don’t be misled, it is to improve their performance.

But, too many people experience SERIOUS shock from bodyweight training. Maybe because they can’t sit down, lay down or let a machine do 90% of the work for them?

Bodyweight training is where it ALL starts. It is your foundation to fitness and strength, yet it can also be taken to highly advanced levels as well.

Now, let’s look at the guys who are vomiting: MMA Fighters, Football players and Baseball Players.

I wasn’t shocked to see the baseball player get sick, but a Football Player and an MMA Fighter? NOT good!

These men are supposed to be ready for WAR!

We have a lot of work to do out there, and we need to change the fitness abilities and levels of ALL people, but when I see combative type athletes getting sick from bodyweight training it tells me that their life is in danger if they decide to to keep their fitness levels at such a poor state.

It made me realize just how freaking important bodyweight training is. It goes beyond just the beginner. It goes into the possibility of saving lives and being ready to do battle – NO joke.

Bodyweight training can be a powerful weapon – for you, for an entire group of people, a fitness boot camp, an athletic team or a unit of military soldiers.

I;m telling you, we need to change the state of fitness in this world.

It begins with you, and from there, you must pay it forward.

Do it for yourself or for those who you train.

Tonight, the sale ends for Bodyweight University.

Get it Now by Clicking HERE.

In Strength,

–Z–

PS: I was reading former NFL great and all around bad ass, Herschel Walker’s old training program and he started kicking ass when he began doing 30 push ups and 30 sit ups during TV commercials. he also did uphill sprints, chased his Pony around his farm and even played dodge with the farm Horse! That dude is crazy but he was also built like a freaking machine – Bodyweight was his Main weapon for athletic performance and transforming his body!

Below, Herschel sprinting as a teenager – lookin’ ripped & athletic!

Below, Herschel crushing the competition as a collegiate sprinter while at Georgia – look at those friggin’ legs! Dude is built like a machine!

Everything is just a tool. The barbell will always be the King of the weight room, but man do I LOVE heavy dumbbell work.

Heavy sandbag training is awesome as well.

Explosive bodyweight drills can’t be denied either.

Check out one of our athletes, CJ Hart, 16 years young, a Football Player and Wrestler.

Box Squat 385 x 2 (barefoot)

130 lb Sandbag Clean & Press x 6 easy reps

Pull Ups on Steel Beam for the added grip strength challenge

I have mentioned many times before about those early garage gym workouts where all I owned was a gun rack, 300 lb olympic set and a set of 50 and 100 lb dumbbells.

I packed on muscle and strength like never before.

You will too. Soon I’ll show you how

Tell me about your workouts using different tools.

What’s your favorite training tool and why?

Kill it!

–Coach Z–

PS: I have 2 spots left for my April 25 & 26 USC Cert – Sign Up HERE before it’s too late

PPS: Lost Secrets of Strength Seminar w/Joe DeFranco and myself is more than 1/2 way full. 7 spots left. Sign up for Lost Secrets of Strength Seminar HERE

Wow, while going to drop my car for some routine service I was struck by the presence of the East Jersey State Prison, aka Rahway Prison….it’s actually not even in Rahway, it’s in a small town called Avenel, NOT a pretty area.

You’ll see my experience in prison linked below, it was some freaky shit!

Now, check out why atmosphere, killer tunes and killer training partners help you tear it up!

We actually just had a few future USC Coaches stop by the gym Friday. They already payed for the April 25 & 26 USC certification so I invited them down to get a head start on their training and coaching. Wait till you see the video, because their legs were locking up on them and they could barely walk!

Looking forward to your comments and / or questions, go ahead and post em’ below!

Kill it!

–Coach Z–

Websites & Resources mentioned in the Show:

USC Certification April 25 & 26

Joe DeFranco aka The Pro Maker

Elliot Hulse’s Gridiron Strength Program (NOT Just for Football players)

My Scarey Journey through Prison:

Prison Strength Article 1

Prison Strength Article 2

Watch as I take a trip to the north side of the dirty Jerzee, up to Joe DeFranco’s warehouse gym.

Not your typical warehouse gym.

Thought’s on what you’ve just seen?

Post them below.

Want to hear how Joe D trains his athletes and kills it? Click HERE.

I witnessed college Football players thick bar benching 400 + lbs. I would listen to the Dude if I were you.

Kill it!

–Z–

Wow, look what I dug up! Years ago, I had the opportunity to e mail Coach Ethan Reeve, one of my mentors, and he dished out some of the most insanely powerful training information. Here it is, once again, for your reading pleasure.

Grab some hot cocoa, relax and enjoy!

Coach Reeve: Yes, I wrestled at the University of Tennessee from 1973-77. Although I was not an NCAA Champion I was a 4-time Southeastern Conference Champion and a 2-time NCAA All-American. Fortunately, I was privileged to have been an assistant wrestling coach under some great coaches at the University of Tennessee (Gray Simons), Oklahoma State University (Tommy Chesbro), Ohio University (Harry Houska) and Clemson University (Eddie Griffin).

Eventually I landed the Head Wrestling coach position at the University of Tennessee @ Chattanooga where I coached from 1984-1990. We had five Southern Conference Championship teams in six years. I loved coaching wrestling and still miss it.

However, I really enjoy training all sorts of sport athletes. The main thing I enjoyed about coaching wrestling was the training in the wrestling room. That is why it was such an easy transition to strength coaching because I just love training athletes and helping them become champions. Hard, smart work is the answer to success!

Basically, we are at the mercy of the athletes that are given to us by our sport coaches in recruiting. Our job, as strength coaches, is to “maximize” the athletic potential of each and every athlete we work with. We trust our sport coaches to identify the athletes they feel can help our university have success in that particular sport. Sport coaches, like NFL scouts, will look at film and visit the players and see how they perform at practice and in competition.

An athlete can have great results in the “combine” but not perform well in competition. If the athletes do not succeed in their sport under competitive situations then they will be overlooked in the recruiting process no matter how well they test in the strength room or combine. What coaches need are athletes that perform well in competition.

We do not emphasize numbers in testing in the strength room or speed and agility tests. We look for adequate strength, power, speed and athleticism. If the athletes given to us do not meet our standards then it is our job to get them to those minimum standards. It is the athlete’s choice to go beyond those standards and succeed at a higher level on the field of competition.

How we break the body and its movements down is like this:

Total Body Strength

1. Deadlift-401 lbs.
2. Power Shrug (Pulls)

Hip and Knee Extension

1. Front Squat-308 lbs./Back Squat-352 lbs. Both squats are well below parallel!
2. Lunge -242 lbs. for 2+2RM

Hip Extension Power

1. Hang Clean-308 lbs.
2. Hang Snatch

Hip Extension Strength

1. Romanian Dead Lifts (Rdls)
2. Good Mornings

Upper Body Pressing

1. Standing Press-198 lbs.
2. Bench-300 lbs.-325 lbs-350 lbs. (depending on position)

One-Arm Upper Body Pressing

1. DB Bench-(125 lbs. for 5+5RM)
2. KB Standing Press

Upper Body Pulling

1. Chins
2. Bent Rows

We feel it is very important for athletes to be athletic while they are getting stronger and more powerful.

What is athletic?

Great athletes do something that marginal athletes don’t do. The great athletes make the skill of their sport look easy. How does this happen?

Thousands upon thousands of repetitions of the skill of their sport at the speed needed in competition!

We believe in making our athletes athletic by doing athletic lifts instead of isolation lifts during our team workouts.

An athletic skill, like an athletic lift, is the incorporation of all your joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments together in a natural and many times explosive fashion.

Our recommendation to incoming freshmen is to do athletic movements and athletic lifts. Don’t be so concerned about the amount of weight right away. Work on technique through a full range of motion and the speed of bar movement.

Learn how to tumble (forward rolls, diving rolls, backward rolls, back rolls to handstands, bear crawls, crab crawls, seat rolls, etc.). Tumbling is one of the best ways to develop kinesthetic and spatial awareness for all sports.

Learn how to do agility drills.

What is agility?

Agility has three main components:

1) change of speed

2) change of direction and…

3) change of levels all within the same drill.

Athletes must know what good position is for an athlete. The athletic position for most stand up power sports is with your hips bent (down), feet shoulder width apart, on the balls of the feet, natural curve in lower back and with knees bent.

One of the worst positions for an athlete (other than a jiu jitsu / grappler) is on their back. What we did with our wrestlers every day in practice is spend at least 5 minutes drilling a Bad to Good Position Drill. This drill entails, on the coaches’ whistle, having your athletes go from different bad positions up to their feet in the athletic position while moving their hands and feet when they get there.

Some bad positions are:

1) back

2) belly

3) side

4) butt

5) hands and knees and….

6) knees

The object is to go from the poor position and get to the athletic stance, with motion, as quickly as possible. The slower, less athletic athletes will get there slower.

2) With the experience & knowledge you have gained in the past years as the head strength coach at Wake Forest, what have you learned or implemented differently that you wish you would have done when you had wrestlers in your strength room (for those who don’t know, Wake Forest does not have a wrestling program) at your previous coaching positions?

Coach Reeve: We do not have a wrestling program here at Wake Forest. I wish we did! I’m not sure I would have trained wrestlers a whole lot differently than I did back in the 80′s. I have a notebook for every one of my six years at UT Chattanooga.

It is a detailed notebook with every practice’s lesson plan, minute by minute. It also has my observations of each workout. Within the notebook, prior to the daily lesson plans, is a detailed Master Plan of the teaching progression and drills to incorporate for strength training and wrestling technique.

We had a philosophy the permeated every wrestling drill and competition we had. Everything we did was based on these three elements of our philosophy:

1. Pressure
2. Position
3. Motion

These words were said, by me, to our team maybe 100-200 times at each and every practice. I will explain what their meaning is!

1. Pressure. The wrestler must keep pressure on his opponent every split second of every match he wrestles. This is whether he is on top, bottom, or on his feet! Pressure, pressure, pressure! Unrelenting pressure must be applied.

The wrestler must also be able to handle pressure mentally and physically when it is applied to him.

Referees will make mistakes. The crowd will taunt him. The opposing coach will say negative things at times. The wrestler must maintain his cool. He should never show emotion of any kind! Stone-face and stoic! When you show emotion in competition, the heat of battle, it is compared to a shark smelling blood!

If you display emotion during the battle the shark will smell the blood and attack that weakness.

We taught our wrestlers to search for physical and mental weaknesses in their opponents and attack them! If you are to have success with pressure then you must put all three portions of the philosophy together. And it must be implemented into every drill and scrimmage during practice sessions. There is no way you will pressure in a match without practicing pressure in every drill in practice.

2. Position. If the wrestler applies pressure to his opponent while being in poor position he will surely not have good success. All strength is angle specific. A great wrestler puts himself into positions of strength. This is whether he is on his feet, bottom or top position. Having good position is not just being in an athletic stance. It is his position in relation to his opponent. Cutting distance down so he can work his offensive technique and also be able to have a good defense when his opponent attacks is paramount.

This is true in all sport whether it is strong man competitions, Olympic weightlifting, Power lifting, tennis, golf, football, basketball or wrestling. In the lifting sports it is gravity, resistance and the object to be lifted that is your opponent.

The great wrestler continues putting himself into positions of strength in his sport. This is why being a strong strength room guy is not as important to him. The strength you receive from the strength room will only benefit the athlete if he has paid the price with technique of his sport. There are a lot of wrestlers that don’t appear strong.

However, they realize their strength potential in wrestling by putting themselves into positions of strength. Teaching a wrestler how to use his body with total body power and strength lifts will help him use his strength in wrestling.

Out of season we would focus on the power cleans, hang cleans, squats, standing presses, chins, dips, etc. In-season we placed more focus on lifting our partners within the technique of the wrestling drills. That way we hit two birds with one stone. We worked on our strength specific to the sport of wrestling! However, in-season, we still did our lifting two days per week.

3. Motion. A wrestler is not in good position if he cannot move. A wrestler cannot run as fast or move as fast on his knees, butt, back, sides etc. as he can while he is on his feet. Shooting takedowns and staying on your knees will stop your motion. I am not saying you should not shoot to your knees.

However, don’t stay there if you cannot finish quickly while there. Learn to hit on the knee and get off of it quickly or work on your takedown technique by not going to your knees. We found we had more success by not allowing our wrestlers to go to their knees on double leg and single leg takedowns. Their technique for the setups and penetration was much better by doing this. We did allow them to go to their knees while doing fireman’s carries.

There is one other thing we did at UT Chattanooga that no other wrestling team did that I am aware of. We made our wrestlers bow as they entered and exited the wrestling room. This was not done as some religious sort of thing.

The only clothing we allowed our wrestlers to wear in the room was t-shirt, shorts, jock, socks and shoes! No sweats or rubber gear! We emphasized to our wrestlers that they need to come into every practice with the intent to leave the room in some way better than when they walked in. Did they get better at technique, stronger, better condition, more mentally tough?

Better and better everyday was our motto. A wrestler cannot get better if he knows everything. He must come in with an empty glass to learn and improve. If he walks in with a full glass, if he knows everything, he will not make changes needed to become a champion! Bowing as you enter and exit the room promotes humility. Humility allows the humble to learn and get better!

3) How would you go about training a high school football player who is heavy in body weight but lacks the strength & power for someone his weight? The reason I ask is that I find a good number of high school football players tend to carry extra weight yet are weak /deconditioned for their size.

Coach Reeve: That high school athlete, in our opinion, should work on all qualities of athleticism together: strength, power, speed, anaerobic-endurance, flexibility, balance, mental toughness, spatial and kinesthetic awareness. By doing this the athlete will fit into his body naturally with some changes in his diet. I am not a certified dietician nor do I claim a vast knowledge of nutrition. I know enough to identify folks that need some help with their diet and try to direct them in the right place.

We believe the combination of Olympic lifts (hybrids), Powerlifts, bodyweight calisthenics, dumbbells, kettlebells, speed work twice a week, agility work twice a week, tumbling, plyometrics, static and dynamic stretching will benefit all athletes.

I remember one of our baseball coaches coming up to me at Ohio University telling me that a couple of the pitchers didn’t understand how the tumbling or agility ladders would help them as pitchers. I told him that the two pitchers he mentioned were not very good at ladders or tumbling. Also, I informed him to tell the pitchers when they get good at ladders and tumbling they’ll understand why we do them. They both went on to have their best seasons that spring.

Everything we do is based on the ability to move. The only way to get good at moving is to move everyday! As the athletes get stronger and more powerful in the strength room they will move faster and more explosively. However, their flexibility or lack of flexibility will be a limiting factor if they don’t do both dynamic and static stretching each day.

Static stretching should be done at the end of the workouts or after a dynamic warm-up. We feel it is more important for athletes to spend more time on dynamic flexibilty like: tumbling, hurdle flexibilty drills, form running drills, and agility drills.

What we are trying to develop are athletes that can move more efficiently for sport. They must spend the bulk of their training time working on the technique of their sport in order to be successful! However, they must also work on being more well-rounded athletes. This is where strength coaches come in to play!

The strength coach must also realize that strength and athletic development, by his prescription, is just a piece of the pie. This is why we stress that strength coaches train athletes to be better athletes on the field of competition. They should focus on making their athletes better athletes not so much on getting bigger lift numbers to be posted on the strength room board.

4) What are some things in / out of the weight room that you would discourage football players / wrestlers to do? Are there any training methods / techniques that are used commonly today yet have no carry over to their sport?

Coach Reeve: We tell our athletes and sport coaches that there are many ways to become a champion. Some are more efficient and some are less efficient. We have found many ways to gain strength, power, speed, athleticism and size! We try to incorporate as much variety as possible without compromising our philosophy and efficiency while also delaying boredom.

Weight machines are not used by me or my two assistant strength coaches here at Wake Forest when working with our sport teams. This is part of our philosophy. We are not saying you cannot have success using machines. Of course you can! We just don’t train our athletes with machines during the team workouts. We don’t discourage our athletes from using machines during their personal “champion” workouts individually. We do have machines in our strength room, just not many.

We prefer training our athletes with total body lifts to develop strength, power and athleticism. In our opinion, using weight machines is less efficient in developing these qualities. Isolation of joints or muscle groups is a less efficient way of training athletes. If the athlete desires, during personal workouts, to do isolation work then we do not discourage this!

The sport coach has the duty to encourage the “champion’s attitude”. “Did you do any extra workout today?” he will ask! The strength coach and sport coach must not design team workouts that will take every bit of energy out of the athletes. Leave some energy for the “champion” to do his extra workouts. This way the champion can take some ownership in his success. The sport coach and strength coach should design the team workouts to make them difficult enough for the team to have success.

If the strength coach and sport coach designed workouts around the champion then he will find few athletes left to coach. I have had many of these types of champion athletes ask why I don’t push the whole team harder.

My answer is “how many athletes would be willing to work like a champion?” Not many!!! However, by encouraging the “champion’s attitude” maybe we can get more athletes doing their “champion” workouts. The key is to get the athlete to “want” to be champion not “pushed” into being a champion. We push our teams hard enough to win as a team while encouraging the champion’s attitude in those individuals that decide to be a champion.

7) As the head strength coach who works closely with the football coaches, how do the coaches at your university & other universities view the combine that high school football coaches compete at?

Coach Reeve: Our football coaching staff will look at results from the combine. However, most importantly, they get to know the football player, his family and his character to see if he fits Wake Forest University. I can’t answer for other universities.

I will tell you that combine results are of little value if the football player does not exhibit being a good football player on game day. From my experience, the NFL scouts feel the same way. They will look at tons of game film. If the player lets up on plays and doesn’t play all plays with his “hair on fire” then the scouts will not ask me much about him. We give the NFL scouts strength room results dealing with speed, agility, strength and power. These results don’t matter if the player doesn’t produce on game day!

Hopefully, this will be of some value to some of the high school football players to make sure they always play hard each and every play.

Thanks, Coach Reeve. This was an amazing interview and I am honored and grateful for your time, guidance and effort!

Coach Reeve: Anytime, Zach! My pleasure. Keep up the great work you do with your athletes!

=============================

Well, I hope you enjoyed this ‘Blast from the Past’ interview. It was one of the first interviews I ever did for my web site way back in the day, and, to this very day, Coach Reeve remains a great inspiration to me and has always been the most influential Coach on the methods I use today. His philosophy is awesome and his success as a Wrestler, a Wrestling Coach and a Strength Coach and really blew my mind as did his training methods.

I would love to hear your comments on this interview below. Please take a moment and share this with interview via twitter or facebook.

In Strength,

– Z –

PS: I’ve also got my favorite audio interview of all time in my Underground Strength System, with Coach Reeve. Check it out HERE along with audio interviews with Joe DeFranco, myself, Elliott Hulse and the most kick ass Strength Coaches I know!

Recommended Resources:

The Underground Strength System

Train To Pin

Underground Strength Coach Certification

There is more to come from this FUN, FUN day!

Come on, when do you see atmosphere like this?

BTW, dig my PR at 150 lb 1 arm rows on that OLD globe dumbbell….and, I almost sold my life to get that 150 lb globe dumbbell, you would die laughing if I told you the story!

Check out what happens below, Louisville vs The Prowler of Death….

as Joe DeFranco said, that things has kicked more ass than Randy Couture!

These dudes know how to work!

Whatcha think of the vid?

Did you see the stains on the cement from the last dude who lost his lunch out front???!!!

Kill it!

–Coach Z–

PS: Wanna get the blue print to my methods and my system of training? Get your hands on it at http://UndergroundStrengthKit.com

WOW!!! I am honored & flattered.

Joe Kenn, aka “House”, the Head Strength Coach of Louisville’s Football team, formerly of Arizona, asked if he and his crew could visit The Underground Strength Gym as their team pitted against Rutgers University. His assistants were stand up, hard nosed, strength fanatics.

You could tell these guys “walked the walk”, all of them looked to be around 240 and solid.

Guys like this quickly command respect when they run a collgiate weight room, you can tell these men lead from the front. I respect that, BIG time.

“House” rules are that his assistants must do whatever the Strength Coach does – with my back feeling tweaked I knew it would be smart to skip deadlifts, and go with more of a work capacity style workout, but of course, we had to go heavy

This is a lil’ glimpse inside what we did with more to come tomorrow….

I did leave out our post workout meal at a Dirty Jerzee Diner, and man, these dudes know how to eat, well, except for Mike, who feared what came through the revolving doors of The Plaza Diner

Check the vid kids…..

 Post your comments below…

 There’s more to come, so stay tuned!

Kill it!

–Coach Z–

PS: Kettlebells are not the end all be all tool, but, they are a damn powerful tool when you know how to kill it with them. Check out the most bad ass Kettlebell Training Kit on the planet HERE.

After I make the record board check out this rockin’ gym tour and an inside look from none other than Joe D, a first time video tour of his pad!

How ironic….years ago I was paying Joe D for a consult, today, we’re good friends and I’m on the record board.

I took action, what action steps are you taking to kick ass? Let’s hear it in the comments below!

–Coach Z–

PS – Time is running out to get into the November 1st and 2nd USC Certification. Who wants to Kill it? If you do, e mail me! No half assers!

Loue has a new book out and it is awesome.

Here’s a little gift for you so enjoy it and feel free to let others know about this Blog.

Click HERE for the Louie Simmons Podcast.

In Strength,

-Z-

30 Day Trial in The Underground Inner Circle

‘The Westside Barbell Book of Methods’ HERE.

Got a question via e mail and wanted to share this bad boy….

Question: I own a small gym in St Louis and have recently added a few thick bars to my collection.  I had a new member ask me an interesting question the other day, he wanted to know what muscles were benefiting from using a thick bar that would not benefit by using a regular size bar.  He also asked if you only used the thick bar would that hurt him in the long run because he is a pitcher and a quarterback on his high school team.  I told him that I would ask someone with more knowledge than I had on the subject.

Please help

DeAndtre D.

Answer:

DeAndtre, great question my friend, and I respect your humility and willing to look elsewhere for answers! That is the sign of a true teacher, one who is always willing and looking to learn

Using a thick bar will stress the hands, wrists and forearms to a greater degree compared to the regular barbell. Also, there are various sized thick bars. We have a 2″ thick bar which is plenty big enough when using various pressing, rowing, curling and deadlifting movements.

Should this athlete ONLY use thick bars, absolutely NOT. It can be done, but, I suggest utilizing a variety of barbells to stress the body differently. Also, using only a thick bar will limit the amount of weight he can use in critical movements such as deadlifts and barbell rows.

The wrists, hands and forearms can be stressed through many tools and variations, thick bars being just one of them. I personally love using a thick bar when performing rack pulls, sometimes adding chains to this awesome deadlift variation.

We also perform floor presses, cheat curls and military press variations with a thick bar.

Your athlete will definitely notice a greater degree of grip strength for his sports which in turn can lead to greater success, especially since the majority of high school athletes greatly underestimate the importance of a mighty grip.

Another added value of the thick bar is that it forces the rest of the body to tense up when lifting the weight because you are gripping the barbell so aggressively, the rest of your body tenses up to help translate strength throughout the entire body.

I’m glad to see you’re using thick bars and discovering the importance of hand, wrist and grip strength!

Keep me posted on the progress of your athletes!

In Strength,

–Z–

PS - Wanna see some awesome grip training methods from other strength coaches who are putting their methods to the test on other athletes? Check this Out!