New gym update

I didnt think Id be coming back to blogspot but its just way easier to use than many of these other blog tools Ive checked out. Eh well.

So heres an update-

Recently I have been really pushing to get this gym idea started. Originally I thought it was a good idea to get a large warehouse, around 5,000sq/ft, until I actually took the time to measure out how BIG that actually was. Holy crap. Our high school weight room isn't even that big in open space. Maybe with the trainer offices added on but damn. So I had to shrink that down. A lot. After some measurements it turns out 1250-1,500 would be a much better option. Maybe. MAYBE up to 2,000 but at some of the rates Ive seen 2,000s/ft might still be too much to start off. 1500 sounds about right. Granted its not just a square and had about 10-15yds running space. Or possibly a nice back parking lot to do some conditioning and throwing work.

So I've been browsing around. So far after eliminating some warehouses it turns out the solution may not even be a warehouse but a storehouse. Still need to get some more information but the rents a lot cheaper and its in a pretty nice location. Plus its behind the shopping center its located in so we may be able to get in some quality outside work as well.

Also, Im about to team up with Nick Wenzel at RAW Fitness and get this show going. We both have a wide array of training methods and different backgrounds (me being the power sport while Nick is wrestling/mma background) and Im feeling pretty good the array of clients we can attract should be very high. Essentially being able to cater to just about everyones fitness and athletic needs.

As for equipment Im running into a small snag getting everything I want to get started. Squat racks are expensive and at the moment we have 1 available to us. Plus I still need boxes, hurdles, some more med balls, dumbbells, and other misc items to be an effective gym. What I am not short on is specialty equipment. I have med balls as heavy as 30lbs, kettlebells up to 125lbs now, sandbags up to 100lbs, a full dufflebag of bands, 50' ropes, several sledgehammers, heavy tires with more on the way, and bumper plates. So the biggest thing we need is the bare essentials. Ya know, the crap that you're supposed to get first...damn. Small oversight.

A side note I have been looking more and more into writing a short ebook outlining my training method that has been getting some stellar results lately. We turned a lot of heads after the last test out as now 8 of my 12 throwers are on the top strength list at Brunswick. Probably should have 1 more had he shown up. Possibly another but a minor back injury cut his squat short and ruined his total(bench, clean, squat combined). Either way when the 3 that are left over are all freshman Im not too worried. Since the majority on the board are upper class men.

So this led me to think I should really put this program up for sale since I swear every time I do someone a favor and write them a plan they take a look, say thanks, then disappear never to be heard from again. Ultimately it ends up the same way; see them weeks later, notice they look exactly the same, they give me some story about how they found a different program (probably from Muscle Mag) that promised something ridiculous in 'just minutes a day!'. Thats it. No more freebies.

Except this part; I will need some volunteers. Mainly guys (and gals) that are willing to take this training method (at the moment named The Forge Method) and go by the program TO THE T and report back the results. In the past this plan has put on as much as 100lbs on guys squats in as little as 12 weeks. No, that is not a typo. Just recently with that combine that I mentioned I had several athletes who stacked another 60-80lbs on their totals withing 8 weeks. And this was AFTER already training hard for 12 weeks! I think I have some girls who literally have DOUBLED their numbers since starting back in November and are reporting vertical jumps over 20". Mind you these are 150-180lbs teenage girls with verticals that put guys to shame.

So if you catch this blog and are interested drop me a line. dprate200@gmail.com

The program isn't available just yet but will be soon.

New Workout Plan

So Ive been tossing around a lot of ideas lately as for what exactly Im going to be training for the next few weeks. I need to get my overall sense of strength back without goddamn hurting myself anymore than I already am. Thats the tricky part. I got 3 major issues going on plus a bonus;
1- Some major damage in my right shoulder. Any sort of pressing movement gives me a hard time. Its definitly the rotator but not exactly sure which one. Most of the problem happens at full contraction during a press. The only thing that hasnt really torn it apart is my Swiss Bar I picked up awhile ago.
2- Left Biceps injury. Somewhere around the insertion. This is another annoying injury since Im not even sure exactly which muscle I hurt to begin with. Could be all of them or just one. Either way certain curl or rowing movements are giving me crap so not only do pressing movememnts hurt but Im limited on pulling...fuck yea.
3- Heel spur. To add to everything up top my feet wanted some love and I still have a bone spur under my left heel giving me shit. Its fine to start but after some pounding gets swollen then hurts like hell. Only fix is rest, icing, some rehab, and a nightly splint to keep the foot dorsiflexed.
BONUS- My back still gets sore and tight from that injury over a year ago. I dont think thatll ever go away but its definitely stronger than last year. Maybe another year and itll completely go away.

Ok so on to the fun stuff.
Right now Ill prob look at these tests to determine what exaclty Im going for-
Box squat- max is 475 at the moment although Ive been putting up some decent numbers lately with bands.
Front squat- this lift is a joke for me. Its so bad at the moment. 225x5 is far from acceptable. So that is now a priority.
Pushups/ pullups for time- This is a new trial for me since I used to just heavy row and bench. Well heavy crap is out of the question so now im forced into high rep time trials.
Body weight- since my heel is giving me such a hard time I figure I should take the load off. Currently Im at 260 and figure that needs to come down. As a bonus Ill look better when we go to Put-in-Bay in July.

Im leaving things like vert, oly lifts, 30yd, etc out since those tests usually aggrevate something thats already hurt.

Ill post up with my training log later since I gotta get ready for a big relay meet tonight.

Meet Writeup - Amherst Relays ... and that Medina thing

Standard of Performance.

That was the buzz-phrase going into Saturday mornings meet. I wont go into detail too much into Wednesdays dual but despite some nice PR's from the younger crew we had some serious issues that needed to be ironed out before we were ready for another big meet. It all started with a recurring injury and a blown opportunity. Jesse was looking to go big again in the shot but couldnt keep the long throws in the ring and on his last throw seemed to reaggravate his groin injury from a week ago. Then at disc we had a shot at beating one of the better throwers in the conference but to lose it outside the right sector. 8 fouls later from one thrower and some incredibly substandard throws the meet was over. The 40 degree temperatures didnt help at all either.

Moving on...

Saturday from the get go was shaping to be a much better day. It rained hell all night but luckily stopped to let the sun out for the meet. Even crazier it was HOT. First time all season I had to tell my throwers to get out of the Sun. Not being used to the heat I knew we were going to get some serious sunburn- which they did. More on that later.

Discus was the first event for both sides making my job less than easy trying to run back and forth. Those of you who have not seen Amherst fields setup the two disc rings are roughly 200yds apart. Guys looked good in warmups although Jess was off jumping so it was up to Marko and Jake to set the tone. Both had a decent series with Jake going 128 and Marko hitting a 125. Jesse made his way back and looked sluggish at best finishing the day with 159' totaling our relay just over 412. Good news is we won the boys disc relay. Bad news I felt we had probably another 20-30 total feet missing. Eh well- to the girls.

Definitly a better showing overall than Wednesday but still I felt was another blown oppurtunity. First off Heart Attack Hedy didnt make things simple fouling her first two. Kristen opened with a 91 and finished with that. Karly had a few decent 100 foot throws but decided to save the best for the right sector launching one around 115 or more out the side. Hedy finished with 91 while Karly settle for 103 finishing us off at 3rd place with 288 and change. Second place was around 294 and 1st was 307. Wouldnt have been easy but definitly within reach.

Shot put was a little more exciting. As the temperatures kept rising apparently my throwers fed off that. Hedy hit a new season PR in the shot going 33'11. Kristen had a solid 32'6 mark and Allissa finished with a lifetime PR going 31'11. This put us just over 98' but the disapointment came after the announcements letting us know we lost 1st place by a whole 8". In relay terms thats literally next to nothing. BUT cant be down as that kind of performance as a whole is what we strive for on a daily basis.

Boys shot went well with a lifetime PR from Jake at 41'11 and Ryan just missing his at 42'11.5". Jesse once again showed hes more than capable of 57' throws just not capable of staying in the ring for them. During warmups he may have had a half-turn over 53' and 2 fulls around 56-58'. During comp 53' is what he would settle on and the relay secured 6th place. Once again the differences between the next places were within inches.

Next week its Hudson dual and Friday will be Berea Relays. Both meets I am not exactly looking forward to. Berea due to their '1st rate' officiating and Hudson just because... eh I'll leave it alone.

p.s. Ill have videos up from the Amherst Relays later on. Need to do some editing first.

Dublin - Meet Writeup

Well as pointed out by one of my throwers Ive been slacking in my writeups so time to quit slacking.

This whole week has been dominated by our discus throwing. Which works for me since thats always been my specialty but the progress we've been making is unreal. Just to make a quick note about Wednesdays duel against Strongsville I believe we had over 25 PR's in the two events out of 24 throwers. It was a fun meet to watch and despite a groin injury Jesse still stole the show with a 160' half turn. We managed to win all 4 events and scored well with a big PR from Kristen (102) in disc for 3rd and Karly going 106' to win. Strongsville girls must have fed off our intensity since they had some solid PR's in both events as well.

So moving onto our overnighter meet down in C-bus. There was threatening weather all day but it luckily hit late Friday night and mostly held off for Saturday. Definitly had some bad wind but it worked well for discus. Despite the HUGE delay with some incompetent kids (apparently sending results to the press box translated to leave them on a table with 30mph winds to blow them away) and near 20min warmups. All that resulted in roughly 6+ hours of throwing.

So enough griping because we had a pretty solid day. Ryan opened up with a decent toss in the shot but missed out on finals. Jesse went 53 to win the event and once again had some monster fouls. Seriously, quit fouling so damn much. You too Kristen. Speaking of which Kristen had a 97' half turn in disc but missed finals as well and struggled with her fulls. Karly on the other hand opened up with a big PR of 113' and for awhile was winning the meet. Unfortunately she hit some big throws during finals warmups and couldnt connect during the comp ending up in 4th.

Switching events Hedy and Kristen had a good showing in the shot with Hedys 33'5'' which is an outdoor best scoring 3rd while Kristen (again with the half turns) went 32'8 for 5th. Marko apparently needed some 'encouragement' since his first 2rds were almost identical at 115' before going 132' in the 3rd round for a PR in disc. Once again- barely missing finals. And speaking of repeats Jesse again stole the show with his prelim series. Opening with a very conservative 165 he worked up a 170 int he 2nd round but was still releasing low and not getting enough air. That changed in the 3rd as he waited for the wind to settle down and launched a new PR at 183'5" destroying the old meet record of 167'10" and moving himself into 3rd in the overall state rankings.

This effort BARELY misses Butch Newhouse's 23yr old record for Brunswick of 184'10". During finals he fouled his first round, hit 173, then fouled his last throw. This is definitly a great sign for the rest of the season since conference is still over a month away!

Everyone had a solid day and now we have 2 relays coming up and a big dual vs Medina this coming Wednesday. Too bad the weather wont cooperate as it wont be over 60 the whole week and mostly rainy.

Rugby Circuit

So today I wanted to get a good metabolic workout in instead of my usual grind. Stupid idea. Especially when its making up my own workout that isn't tested, tried, or proven. Stupid, stupid idea.

Anyways I set a few parameters up to help somewhat simulate a 10's game of rugby. I wanted to incorporate strength with complex lifts while still keeping my heart rate up and utilizing movement exercises.

10 minute halfs
30 seconds 'on'
30 seconds 'off'
4 minute rest between halfs

Hit each station for as many reps as possible with a set weight or height or ...whatever. Point is to go as hard and fast for the time limit. Then rest for 30 seconds before moving to the next station. Now I figured that seemed like a good amount of rest for a circuit and dammit I was wrong. Especially considering Im still not in the best of shape and the exercises I picked.

Swiss Bar Curl to Press- 105lbs
MB Slams - 18lb
DB Swings - 40#
Box Jumps - 18"
Double Rope Slams - 2" rope
Renegade Row/ DB Pushup - 35#
Band Sprints & Backpedal - 2xLight bands @5yds
Band Shuffle - 5yds , alternate sides
Fire outs - 1x Monster band, 2xAverage Bands
Prowler Sled Run - 150# 10yd

First round went 'ok'. Second round was goddamn awful. Mostly since after I got a feel for it I could tweak some of the exercises and make better use of my time. End result was almost puking on the Prowler sleds.

All in all a good workout. Followed up with some band stretches and foam rolling. Still feeling it 2hrs later.