Tag Archives: Personal Training

How To Pick The Right Coach

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A few weeks ago, John Meadows and Dave Tate released what they referred to as the “4 Golden Rules Of Picking A Coach”.  I wrote a post a while back called 10 Questions To Ask Your Personal Trainer and thought this scoring system would be a good addition to that.

Here are Dave and John’s 4 golden rules:

1. What is their education?
Do they have a degree? In a related field? BS, Masters, PHD? Certifications? Continuing Education? Internships? Work History? Mentors? Self Thought…? It’s very important that they understand how to translate education, studies, etc into actual client scenarios too. This is critical.

On a scale of 1-5 where do they rank? 5 would be advanced degree, internship and 2-3 very good mentors. Work back from there. If they are only self thought they get a 1 or 2.  Continue With The Awesomeness...

10 Strength And Speed Training Tips For Youth Athletes

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Here’s 10 tips to make sure you are getting the most out of your strength and speed training for youth athletes.

 1.  Strength Training Is Speed Training

Well known strength coach Mike Boyle is famous for saying “you can’t have speed without strength.”  Basically, he’s saying you can’t have a good speed training program without a good strength training program to accompany it.  The bottom line with speed is that you have to be able to apply force to the ground.  The more relative strength (think strength to bodyweight ratio), the faster an athlete will be.  Too many “speed” coaches and sport coaches get hung up on the speed training part and neglect the strength part.

2.  Do Planks

Basically every movement in the gym will require some sort of static stability in the torso.  I’ve talked before about how we train the core.  But, getting at least good at the plank will automatically improve both sprint technique and strength training technique.  Continue With The Awesomeness...

Why Is Childhood Obesity An Issue?

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From the CDC:

  • Approximately 17% (or  12.5 million) of children and adolescents aged 2—19 years are obese.
  • Since 1980, obesity prevalence  among children and adolescents has almost tripled.

Why are children more obese now than ever?

Is it a lack of youth sports?  Doubtful.  In youth soccer, participation has went from 15 million is 1987 to 17.5 million in 2002 and still growing.  Pop Warner football participation has doubled in the last ten years.  Going from 130,000 participants to over 260,000.

Is it a lack of quality physical education in schools?  This could be one of the problems, but surely not the only one.  Due to time and budget constraints, many schools have been forced to cut back on physical education.  But, the lack of funding has been a more recent problem.  As far back as the 1950′s, the United States has shown to be inferior to other countries in terms of child fitness.  Continue With The Awesomeness...

DeAnne Has Lost Over 30lbs! Check It Out!

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               Working out at Nunn’s Performance Training has been one of the best investments I have made in my lifetime.   I was feeling old, overweight, and definitely out of shape.  I did not have much of a workout routine and had never really been motivated to work out.  When NPT started the “Biggest Winner” weight loss challenge in January 2012, I decided to take on the challenge.  Continue With The Awesomeness...

Check Out Brian’s Testimonial!

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Hey Jason, just wanted to say thanks for helping me achieve some fitness goals.  I’ve had a fairly positive and consistent workout habit since about age 40, but made the mistake of taking about an 8 month sabbatical from physical training several years ago.  I didn’t take a sabbatical from eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and as a result added over 20 lbs and it sure wasn’t muscle.  I got back into a workout routine, but discovered I would also need to change some eating habits if I wanted to get back to a healthy, fit body weight.  Continue With The Awesomeness...

Should We Train Clients In Pain?

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As a person who trains both athletes and general fitness clients, I’ve had more than my fair share of folks come in with some sort of nagging pain.  So, the question comes, “As strength coaches and personal trainers, do we train people in pain?”  My answer is yes…sort of.

As a fitness professional, it is not in my scope of practice to diagnose or treat pain.  I simply don’t have the tools or the skill set required to do so.  For example, if a client comes in with shoulder pain.  There are a myriad of things that could be wrong with them.  It could be an AC separation, torn labrum, torn rotator cuff, or even bone cancer.  All of which would require a different treatment.

If I have a client who comes in with any sort of persistent pain, I always have them go see their physician (In Indiana, physical therapy requires doctor referral).  Continue With The Awesomeness...

Five Tips For Increasing Your Vertical Jump

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Having a good vertical jump is pretty important in most sports (Captain Obvious, I know).  As such, it’s a pretty important goal for most of the athletes I work with.  Most equipment manufacturers know this and try to sell various products like jump shoes and various band contraptions to improve this.  In this post, I’m going to outline five strategies for improving vertical jump that don’t need any of these.

1.  Move Better

Movement quality is the first thing we look at when an athlete walks in the door.  Can the athlete squat without their knees falling into valgus collapse?  Do their heels lift?  Do they have poor shoulder/t-spine mobility?  If the athlete has tight hip flexors, they aren’t going to be able to access their posterior chain as well.  If the athletes knees are falling in, their heals lift, and they have poor mobility, they aren’t going to have the best jumping ability.  Vertical jump – and jumping in general – is all about force production relative to your bodyweight.  If the athlete has the poor movement skills mentioned above, they won’t be able to apply as much force to the ground.  This means a lower vertical jump.  Continue With The Awesomeness...

4/16/2012 Strongman Events and Bench

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4/15

Axle

worked up to 300 for a few reps.  Was struggling with technique for whatever reason.

Yoke

Worked up to 810 then did several runs at 630, 540, and 450 for speed.

Stones

Took it easy as my back is still a little gimpy.  Did 275 for some reps.

4/16

I felt really sore from yesterday’s events, so I just worked up to 405 x 1 on bench and called it a day.

 

Should Athletes Olympic Lift?

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“Speed deadlifts are the lazy, uncoordinated answer to power cleans.”

-Jim Wendler

The olympic lifts are the snatch and the clean and jerk.  They have many variations that include but aren’t limited to the hang snatch, hang clean, power snatch, power clean, dumbbell cleans, dumbbell snatches, and many more.  They are all very explosive yet technically challenging total body lifts that are designed to increase the athletes power production.  More specifically, to increase power production in triple extension (ankle, knee, and hip extension).

Triple Extension

The big debate in the sports performance world is whether they should be used to train athletes.  The opponents of olympic lifts say that the lifts are too hard to teach, to technically demanding, and to risky for injury.  Continue With The Awesomeness...

4/6/2012 Snatch, Speed Hang Cleans, and Light Squats

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Foam Roll

Warm Up

PRI Drills

Snatch

135 x 5

160 x 5

185 x 5

Speed Hang Cleans

185 x 6 x 2 – 30sec rest. Catching them as high as possible.

Squat

365 x 5

425 x 5

470 x 5 – very easy.  I’ve been having some pain in my SI joint.  It’s starting to subside now, so I’m easing back into squats.