The TRUTH About Quickness?

Every year, I make it a goal to really dive in and learn as much as possible about several new topics.

Last year it was the diaphragm, elbows, and ankles.

This year, my biggest focuses are building better athletes – and most notably, focusing on speed, agility, quickness, and change of direction.

As a result, two names I came across in my search were Alex Maroko and Kelly Baggett. Now I’ve known about Kelly since he originally posted on Rugged Mag, and wrote his Vertical Jump Bible.

But Alex is someone I wanted to learn more from, and luckily, he agreed to do an interview for the site.

Enjoy!

Continue reading →

Posted in Sport-Specific | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Re-Re-Building the Reverse Hyper

This week is going to be a bit random around here.

We’ve got some guest blogs, an interview, and the return of our Random Friday posts!

Today’s guest blog comes to us from Ben Bruno. Ben is definitely an up-and-comer in the fitness industry, and he’s rapidly built one of the most popular fitness blogs on the Internet.

If you’ve followed Ben’s journey at all, you know he’s recently suffered from some knee issues. As a result, he’s been looking for ways to train without putting undue stress on his knees.

I think you’re really going to enjoy this post. Here’s Ben!

Continue reading →

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Posted in Back Pain, Guest Posts | Tagged , | 5 Comments

4 Parallels Between Wealthy People and Elite Athletes

In my life, I’ve been incredibly blessed to work with a wide variety of clients and athletes.

Looking back, I’ve literally worked with every end of the spectrum – from some of the most beat-up and beat-down rehab clients you can imagine, all the way up to elite athletes from virtually every major sport.

One area I don’t talk as much about was the three years I spent doing private, one-on-one training in the homes of incredibly wealthy clients.

And when I say wealthy, I mean crazy rich – several of these people had families whose net worth reached well into the nine figures range.

Needless to say, this time was incredibly impactful on me – not just from a coaching perspective, but from a general life perspective as well.

One of things I always reminded myself was that these people, no matter how rich, or how powerful they might be, put their pants on one leg at a time – just like the rest of us.

And the craziest thing is, these were some of the most kind and generous people I’ve ever met in my life. Continue reading →

Posted in Business Posts, Coaching | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

3 Reasons I Returned to Powerlifting


A few weeks back, I wrote an article for T-Nation titled 7 Reasons Everyone Should Doing a Powerlifting Meet.

It got great reviews, and almost all of the commentary and feedback was awesome. And hopefully I inspired a few people to do a meet in the process.

However, one guys’ comments stood out – essentially, he said that as a young guy with a business, and more importantly, a family, I should hang it up and forget about competing.

There’s a valid point there, and I respect his opinion, but it also got me thinking:

Why exactly did I feel the urge to compete again?

And herein lies that answer. Enjoy! Continue reading →

Posted in Powerlifting | Tagged | 8 Comments

How to Do LESS in 2012 (But Enjoy Yourself MORE!)

It’s the New Year, and everyone and their mother has a New Year’s resolution that they’ve probably already broken.

In fact, I wrote about this pretty extensively last week in my 2012 To-Do List post.

BUT, here’s the thing with New Year’s resolutions – they almost always focus on adding things to our plate.

Starting a new training program.

Making more money.

Getting more done.

One of the most profound things I’ve ever heard, in training and life, came from Brett Jones. It was several years ago at our Midwest Performance Enhancement seminar, and Brett said something to this effect:

“The first question you have to ask yourself after you’ve decided to add kettlebells to your program, is what are you going to subtract from your program to make room for them?”

Think about that statement for a minute, and not just in the context of lifting, but life as well.

Everybody is telling you how to do more – I’m going to tell you how to do less (or at least do things more effectively), and enjoy your time on this Earth even more as a result. Continue reading →

Posted in Business Posts, Programming | Tagged , , | 11 Comments

My 2012 To-Do List

Those of you that know me know I’m incredibly goal-oriented.

Quite simply, if I don’t have a goal, or if I’m not working on achieving that goal, I’m not a fun person to be around.

Seriously, if I go more than a day or two without doing something productive for myself, I’m cranky, irritable, and downright unpleasant.

Which is why I have a very simple rule for myself: 

Do something, every single day, to make myself better.

With that being said, I thought you guys might find interesting to see what I have planned for myself in 2012.

And this isn’t one of those New Years Resolution type posts, where I lay out a bazillion different things and accomplish approximately zero of them.

This is what I fully intend to accomplish over the next 12 months, and by releasing this information, I have you guys to help keep me accountable.

Here we go!

Continue reading →

Posted in Random | Tagged , | 17 Comments

4 Reasons EVERYONE Should Squat with Chains

Not only is squatting with chains one of the coolest things you can do in the gym, but it can be one of the most effective as well.

I was originally turned onto the concept by powerlifting legend Louie Simmons. Louie was using chain squats to improve the lifting speed of his powerlifters, and as a result, bringing up their squat poundages in the process.

Many of you reading this, though, aren’t powerlifters.

And as such, your goal probably doesn’t involve cramming yourself into a squat suit, hitting an ammonia cap, and then pulverizing a maximal squat attempt.

Regardless, there are numerous reasons you can and should use chains in your programming.

Here are just four reasons I feel anyone and everyone can benefit from squatting with chains. Continue reading →

Posted in Coaching, Exercises, Powerlifting | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

10 Most Popular Products of 2011

Last week, I gave a recap on my most popular blog posts of 2011.

Sticking with our “year-end” theme, here are the 10 most popular products that I’ve featured over the past year.

RTS Products

Assess and Correct

Assess and Correct is THE premiere product yet again this year.

Quite simply, this will work for anyone and everyone. If you want to move better, feel better, and have a legit, dialed-in warm-up when you walk in the gym, Assess and Correct is where it’s at.

Furthermore, A&C is fantastic because the tests allow you to determine exactly where your weaknesses are, and gives you strategies to correct them. Continue reading →

Posted in Product Reviews, Products | 3 Comments

An Interview with Dean Somerset

One thing I love about our industry is when I start reading new material from a guy who I think “gets it.”

Dean Somerset is one of those people, and if you haven’t heard of him before, I wanted to put him in the spotlight today so you can learn a little bit more about him.

Plus, he’s Canadian and it’s Boxing Day, so it just kind of fits! Continue reading →

Posted in Coaching, Injury Prevention | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Ep. 36 – In the Trenches with Zach Even-Esh

Before we get started, let me apologize on two fronts:

  1. For taking so long to get another podcast out, and
  2. The audio quality of this recording.

When we had Kendall it greatly cut down not only on my “extra” time, but specifically my time when it was totally quiet in the house.

Obviously a lot of background noise isn’t conducive to a great show, so for the time being, I had to put it on the back burner.

The other issue I ran into occurred when trying to record this show. After upgrading my laptop to Mac OS Lion, I found out Lion and isn’t compatible with my podcast recording software, so Zach and I had to improvise on the fly to at least get something recorded.

Next time, I’ll do the show on my desktop and we should be good to go! Continue reading →

In the Trenches Fitness, Episode 36 [ 37:00 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1898)
Posted in Podcasts, Sport-Specific | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments