The wall-sit is a very common exercise used by athletes and coaches as a regression to the squat, or as a lower body strengthening exercise. You won’t see me selecting wall-sits for my athletes at Skill of Strength. Today I’ll share with you why I have beef with wall-sits and what I use instead! Frankly, I … Read More
High School Strength Training
Sports Performance Training – Part 2
Did you miss part one where I shared some updates and feedback from Skill of Strength athletes who are participating in fall sports. Today, we’re diving into my phone again to see some more recent text messages from SOS athletes and I’ll share a few things we can learn from some of our most successful athletes. Take … Read More
Sports Performance Training Part 1
Athletes worked hard day in and day out in our COMPETE Sports Performance Training program at Skill of Strength this summer preparing for bigger and better seasons this coming year. Summer is an off-season for nearly all sports and it’s easier for most athletes to dedicate more time to their strength and conditioning while they are on a … Read More
Rethinking Your Warm-up on Deadlift, Squat and Bench day
You likely have a standard warm-up that you do before each workout. (You do warm-up, right?) After you leave the locker room your pre-workout routine probably looks something like this: You do some sort of bouncy tip-toe walk on your way to the foam roller (because that seems like the more athletic and loose thing … Read More
Putting Power Back Into Power Cleans
The power clean is one of the most common exercises used by athletes and coaches in an attempt to build explosiveness. In sports performance facilities and high school weight rooms athletes are often asked to perform this exercise. If you’re a collegiate athlete, it’s likely your coach recently gave you a workout book with designated … Read More
Three Tips to Get in Shape This Summer
Oh the start of summer… High school students everywhere have been dreaming about everything they want to do over the next couple of months. On the list may be things like building an energy-efficient tree fort, striving to get a tank top tan, learning to surf and eating at Chipotle as much as possible. Joking aside, the summer … Read More
The Trendy Strength Coach
This post could also be called, how to find a strength and conditioning coach who knows what he/she is doing! Today’s post is inspired by something that happened last week. An athlete we just started working with told me about a guest strength coach who came to his school to take his football team through … Read More
Five Reasons to Stop Comparing Sports Performance Training to Working Out
It’s been my experience that a lot of people misunderstand sports performance training. You may be thinking, what’s to misunderstand? Isn’t sports performance training just a fancy way of saying you are an athlete working out so you’re not completely out-of-shape when the season rolls around? Kind of, but not really. Here’s the issue. Many people view sports performance … Read More
Use Kettlebells to Increase Your Vertical Leap
Did you know you can train with kettlebells to increase your vertical leap? The kettlebell swing, in particular, is a great exercise for many reasons, but today we’ll discuss how practicing and nailing this exercise can help you improve your vertical leap. The vertical leap is used as a measure for athleticism among high school, collegiate … Read More
Five Common Program Design Mistakes
Over the last few years, I’ve pretty much emerged myself in program design. I’ve followed programs, designed them and tweaked them over and over again. I’ve learned a ton along the way and this with these experiences I’ve become a better coach. Here’s the really cool part…I have been lucky enough to have a mix … Read More