At The Underground Strength Gym we hold regular competitions amongst the members. These are unannounced battles and they really hype up the crew to step it up. No one likes to lose and sometimes a loss exposes their weak area(s) and makes them work smarter AND harder towards filling those gaps.

 Our last contest was a weighted 1RM pull up contest. The winner received a Captains of Crush Hand Gripper.

Pull ups and Dips are like squats for the upper body. They're amazing at developing strength and adding muscle to your back, shoulders, biceps, forearms and they strengthen the hands as well. We never use straps to aid the grip.

I recommend getting a LOT of volume on chins and dips, just inmates do. Inmates do these exercises daily or almost daily. Athlete who struggle on calisthenics also avoid the calisthenics - avoidance is a weak mindset and never helps anyone.

We've also done TRM / The Total Rep Method for challenges:

100 Push Ups + 100 Squats

50 Pull Ups + 50 Dips

100 Walking Lunges

You can also do Total Reps with a partner where the athletes must collaborate and strategize on how to split up the reps.

The prize for our first contest was the Captains of Crush Gripper, and rightfully so. I know that when the hands become stronger the rest of the body becomes stronger. 

The hope is that our athletes do more work and training without being told to do extra. They must choose to do so from within.

Stronger hands will improve their pull up strength, increase deadlift strength and yes, it will even improve pressing strength in movements such as the military press and bench press.

The Underground Strength Gym Sandbag Challenge:

In the early days of The Underground, we made ALL of our sandbags. Today, you have much better equipment and we often use D Balls. We have them up to 150 lbs.

You can do 30 Total Reps or Max Work in a certain time.

When you have very large groups you can go with 10 reps for Best Time, using a heavy sandbag or D Ball. Teams love these challenges.

When the hands can wrap tightly around a barbell, or any object (sandbags, thick bars, etc), and crush it tightly, the entire body tenses and strength now becomes a full body effort, not just an isolated effort from one or a few muscle groups.

I suggest you start working your hands / grip 2 - 3 x a week. Work them hard and heavy and watch the rest of your strength increase. Two of my favorite exercises are Hex Dumbbell Holds and hand over hand sled pulls with a thick rope.

The Rolling Thunder from IRONMIND is also a favorite.

See the videos below for our pull up challenges:

Here's a few more challenges for you to test yourself / your athletes with:

• 3 Tire Flips for Time
• 4 Tire Flips for Time / 2 each way
• TEAM Tire Flip Relay (Distance)
• Rising Bar / 1 RM Deadlift (Last Man Standing)
• Run / Sprint ANY Distance: 100 mtr, 200 mtr, 400 mtr
• Vertical Jump or Broad Jump
• Flying 10 yard (Time or MPH)
• 5 Minute KB Snatch Test (Total Reps)
• Pause Bench Press Rising Bar / 1 RM (Last Man Standing)

Many athletes are foreign to competing against others. They get scared and so they don't engage. You hear teen athletes and their parents saying, "I'm on my own program" or Dad says, "I'm letting him do his own thing."

Teen and college athletes need coaching and guidance. They also need environment where they are challenged to level up.

Comfort is the enemy and when an athlete is "on my own program" I know that they are touching their phone 100 X and not getting better.

Coaches, Dads, Lifters - we ALL must challenge ourselves. And, if we train athletes, they must get challenged not just for sports, but for LIFE.

STOP giving athletes an out. This gets athletes good at making excuses. Those excuses bleed into everything they do, not just sports.

When it comes to challenges, I love the IRONMAN challenge that Coach Mike Gentry ran when he was at Va Tech. The Video below is with Dr. Ken

I have a friend who played at Tech and then coached there. He said even after WINNING The IRONMAN Challenge, the reward was actually MORE WORK. You received the Anvil and you had to carry back to the locker room! HELL YEA!

GRIT is lacking today more than ever before. Make your OWN Challenge and would love to hear about it and even more cool would be able to see it. Please make a video and let's SEE it!

See you in the squat rack!

Live the Code 365,

Zach and Team

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