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The 7 Secrets of Hardcore Strength and

Conditioning Revealed

Within this report, you’re about to uncover some of the biggest, and highly

overlooked secrets of strength when it comes to building strength and muscle.

The problem that most lifters face is that of information overload. In this day and

age, information on training is everywhere you look and easily accessible at the

touch of a button…

But what do you believe? Who do you follow? What methods of training are

really that effective and which are total BS?

You are about to discover what strength methods to use and which ones to totally

get rid of because in this report, I will deliver the solid goods of what I’ve

personally seen to be REAL LIFE, IN THE TRENCHES TRUTH in terms of producing

results and transforming serious lifters into untamed beasts!

When it comes down to it, you don’t want to be wasting your time with

ineffective strength and conditioning training methods that are doing nothing

more than setting your two steps back. Instead, follow proven methods that will

have you leap-frogging past your previous bests!

Use the 7 different secrets of hardcore strength training I’m about to reveal to

you below within your programs and you will be well on your way to a totally

different physique and strength level!

Enough with the BS already!

It’s time to get seriously strong!

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The 7 Secrets of Hardcore Strength Training Revealed

Secret #1 – Get Stronger From Your Warm Ups

When I first started to train back in high school I remember it was all “show and

go.”

No dynamic warm up…

No foam rolling…

No active stretching…

Just grab your workout sheet

and get to work.

Since then I’ve learned the right

way to do things, but the sad

truth is a lot of lifters still follow

this same routine that consists

of NO warm up.

This is one of the biggest mistakes I see serious lifters make today.

It pains me to see lifters walk up to a heavily weighted barbell cold and attempt to

lift it right after they walk into a gym. They do no dynamic mobility work, no

stretching, no activation, and no actual set warm up that’s anything close to being

effective.

There should always be some sort of active / dynamic warm up in place to help

the body properly “awaken” for the training session that ‘s about to occur.

In a nutshell, if you’re seriously looking to have an highly productive workout, you

would want to spent a good deal of time within your warm up focusing on getting

the body properly prepared for battle.

The truth is, your warm up is almost more important then your actual workout!

For some people it is more important…

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However, the important thing here is that you understand that having a warm up

is critical, and what you do within this warm up is also very important as well. The

last thing you want to do is neglect the warm up all together.

Now, just touching on general warm up a bit, it’s would be a good idea to

incorporate some of the same movement patterns that you’re about to do in

the actual workout into the warm up. So for example, you could add in different

types of bodyweight squatting movements within your warm up before a heavy

squat session. Or, if you were going to be pressing overhead heavily, you would

want to maybe incorporate different type of movement patterns that mimic the

overhead press. Movements like light single arm dumbbell presses, handstand

push ups, handstand walks, band presses, ect. The main thing is that you get the

muscles your about to use with your main movement ready to go and properly

activated.

Just to be clearer, here’s what a possible sample dynamic/ active warm up

would look like for a deadlift session:

***Always start with - Foam Roll IT Band, Glutes, Hammies, Low Back, Upper

Back, Hip Flexors

***Do 10 reps of each:

1A) Single Leg RDL

1B) Lunge with rotational Reach

1C) Lunge with hamstring stretch

1D) Supine Hip Extensions

1E) Toy Soldiers

1F) Unweighted Barbell OH Squats

1G) Side Shuffles

1H) Power Skips

1I) Broad Jumps

1J) Deadlifts – Build Up Sets

That type of warm up would be a typical warm up you would see in my gym with

my athletes to get them prepared for a deadlift session. It can change at times,

but for the most part, that’s what it would look like. Lots of lower body, hip

dominant movements.

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Now, what I just went over should be common knowledge for most serious lifters

out there and if you didn’t know you were supposed to do that type of focused

work within your warm ups, now you’ll hopefully get a better picture of what your

warm up should be like.

There are literally thousands of ways you can approach a warm up to make it

effective, but what many people fail to see is that they can actually work on

building up more strength within their warm-ups!

This is where I want to reveal the real secret you may be missing within your

warm ups…

People have failed to understand that they can actually work on their major

weaknesses within their warm-ups! They don’t have to just focus on getting

stronger at their weaknesses within the main workout, it can be done before your

workout!

Now, let me just say that with any weakness you have, there is STRENGTH to be

gained. That’s what this is all about… getting STRONGER…

I’m not saying to add in your max deadlift into your warm up, what I’m saying

here is you can add in different types of key “assistance movements” that you

may be lacking in strength with right into your warm ups.

The idea behind doing this is to not only help put more focus in on these weaker

areas of your body /movement patterns, but to also add in more volume for these

movements without having to add them into your normal workouts.

So, for an example of how this would work, let’s look at the pull up. There are

lots of people that lack strength with the pull up. It actually amazes me at how

many people are unable to do at least 10 pull ups, but that is way beyond this

report as I want to talk about how to do more pull ups, especially if you’re weak!

Let’s just say that the workout we have planned is mainly focused in on heavy

overhead pressing. Since we already know we’ll be doing that in the main

workout, we can go ahead and add in a few high quality reps of pull ups right into

the warm up and even into your main workout without even having to program it

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in. You’ll just simply hit a few high quality reps in the warm up, and then just

scatter reps in between you other movements.

So an example would look like this:

Warm Up – You hit 4 sets of 2 reps with pull ups scattered within your warm up

1A) Barbell Push Press 5 x 5 – you would hit 1 pull up after every other set

2A) DB Bench – you would hit 1 rep after every other set…

And you could do this for the rest of the workout, but the main point is, after you

completed your workout, you would of have gotten in 20-30 high quality reps of

pull ups without actually taxing that movement to an extreme. Add in the reps

you had in the warm up, and it just helps the movement out even more.

I’ve had athletes do this with push ups, pull ups, pistols, handstand push ups, and

even rope climbs to name a few bodyweight strength movements and they all

steadily improved overtime and the major lifts that associated with these

movement patterns all improved as well.

I’ve used this volume method within the workout a lot, but more so within the

warm up so I know the power it holds behind it. So it just goes to show you that

you can in fact get stronger within the warm up. You’ve just got to do it right!

Secret #2 – How Training Twice In One Day Won’t Kill You!

One of the biggest and most overlooked techniques to use to get stronger and

more jacked is by training twice in one day. It can be done!

When I was lucky enough to finally open my own hardcore strength gym, The

Forged Athlete, I was then given the ability to train when ever I wanted to. This

gave me the opportunity to easily train twice within one day and when I was

giving this chance, I started trying out different splits and routines to see how it

would effect my results.

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The progress I saw was great! I was able to put more specific focus into my

routines as well as accomplish more work while not feeling so rushed within my

workouts.

While I know this isn’t available to everyone, if a person chooses to go with this

route and has the time to commit to train twice in one day, I’m about to tell you

how it can be done in the most effective manner possible that can in fact increase

your overall gains in strength and conditioning.

The main reason one would want to possibly consider doing two sessions in one

day is to help zero in on more focused training sessions as well as get work more

done. This would be an advanced technique, one that’s not meant for

beginners.

Most people think this is taboo, but that’s only if you are to do it wrong, which

is what most people do.

There are two different factors to consider

when training twice in one day…

1) The AM session is strictly for used

for strength, skill, and power NOT

conditioning.

2) Make sure to have at least 4 hours

minimum of rest in between sessions

For this to work, basically what you would

do is split your training routines into two

separate workouts. The AM session would

consist of nothing more than your high

skill, strength, and power movements for

the particular movement pattern you are

trying to train that day. The AM session would also include movements that are

non-taxing to the body. No high rep or fatiguing work sets would be done.

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For the PM session, you would come back and hit similar movement patterns, but

now move your focus more onto the conditioning and assistance side of things.

This is when you crank up the volume on your movements a bit more and hit

higher reps with less focus on rest, speed, and power.

Let’s use the workout below for an example:

AM Session:

1A) Power Snatch 5 x 2

2A) Snatch Grip Deadlift 5 x 2

2B) Broad Jumps 5 x 5

PM Session:

1A) HEAVY Sled Drags and Pushes 3 x

100 ft

2A) Good Mornings 3 x 12

3A) 21-15 – 9 of:

a) KB Swings

b) Box jumps

The way you would want to split these two sessions up would be to make sure

and have at least a 4-hour break in between sessions to make sure your body has

a chance to recover a bit from the first session.

As you can see, all the work that was done in the first sessions was based on high

power, speed, and strength movements. There was little volume and the work

being done would mainly only effect the CNS, not totally trash your muscles.

The second session was devoted more to assistance work, which was done with

more volume and fast paced intensity which would fatigue you out a ton more

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and heavily tear down your muscles. Hitting another training session after this

wouldn’t be a productive due to the amount of fatigue.

To get all of this work done in one session would be possible and can be done

which most people are used to. However, if you have the time, you can split your

sessions up like this to save time within your workouts which will allow you to

become more focused in on the separate sessions rather then rush through the

session to get in all the work.

This is an advanced method that would be most suitable for serious athletes

and lifters. It’s great to use to help bust through plateaus and strength barriers as

it allows you to split up your strength and conditioning sessions into separate

workouts. The bottom line is, you can train twice in one day and still get results!

Very good results!

Secret #3 – Training With High Reps and Getting Strong!

I can remember when I first started to train I would always train in the 10-15 rep

range. The more reps I did the bigger and stronger I thought I would get.

When I wasn’t making any more progress by doing high rep sets with light weights

all the time, that’s when I figured I would try training with heavier weights.

Now it shouldn’t be any secret that in order for you to get stronger, you need to

lift heavy weights. Everyone who’s seriously into training knows this, but what a

lot of people don’t know is how to train with heavy weights for high reps.

It may sound like something you can’t get done so, how can I train with heavy

weight for high reps?

Well, I’m about to share some seriously effective methods with you that you can

implement into your training NOW that will help produce solid results.

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Method 1 – E.M.O.T.M.

This first method is a new training modality I’ve been using with my athletes and

myself for sometime now with great success in not only strength gains, but also

overall increases conditioning as well.

If this is new to you, which it is for many people, you’re probably wondering what

the hell “E.M.O.T.M.” stands for…

It stands for “Every minute on the minute”… and the way this method is used is

simple; you perform a certain amount of reps at the top of a minute and when

the minute is up, you repeat the lift and reps again and keep repeating until either

you fail to complete the allotted amount of reps within the minute or you do your

prescribed amount of sets. After you complete the reps prescribed within the set,

the remaining amount of time you have left is allowed for rest.

This alone is great way to challenge yourself within your workout, but it’s also a

great way to lift heavy weights in a short amount of time.

An example workout using this method would look like this:

1A) Back Squats x 3 E.M.O.T.M. x 15 mins or until failure occurs within the min

At every top of the minute, you would do 3 ass-to-grass back squats and as soon

as your done, you would rack the weight and rest the remaining amount of the

min. As soon as the top of the min came back around, you would repeat this for

the total amount of sets prescribed or until you failed to complete the reps within

the min.

Usually you would have around 40 secs to rest and collect your thoughts and as

you got further into the workout, this rest time may become shorter and shorter

and that’s where the real adaptations occur.

This is a great way to train with near maximal weights to push strength and

overall conditioning, as you would want to use weight of at least 75-95% 1 rep

max for your lifts.

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The way you would set this type of training up with your program would be like

so:

Week 1 would be 10 mins or sets of 5 reps of your 75-80% 1 rep max weight

Week 2 would be 15 mins or sets of 2-3 reps of your 80-85% 1 rep max weight

Week 3 would be 20 mins or sets of 1-2 reps of your 90-95% 1 rep max weight

You could also modify the reps used with these sets depending on what type of

lift you are doing.

For squats, overhead presses, and bench, I use the set up above.

I’ve also used Olympic lifts with much success as well, but with a different rep

scheme… 3 reps week 1, 2 reps week 2, then 1 rep for week 3.

This is a great way to explode through plateaus and increase both maximum

strength and overall conditioning.

The best way to get into this type of training would to gradually build into it with a

significantly lighter weight then your 75-80% 1 rep max. A good starting point to

go from would be to go with 55-65% first then adjust from there. Overtime, you’ll

find yourself getting strong like kong!

Method Two – Rest / Pause Sets – The second method is one I used when I was

still training for bodybuilding and is one that I still find to be extremely effective.

Basically what you do with this method is build up to a heavy set of 1, 2, or 3 reps

max on a certain lift and start from there.

Let’s use the bench press for example.

What you would do is hit your heavy set of 3 and set the weight down for only

about 15-25 secs max, then pick it back up and lift it again for 1-3 reps.

You would repeat this until you couldn’t get one rep in a set.

This is a great way to move some heavy weight in a short amount of time with

incomplete rest periods.

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You would NOT want to use this method all the time as it will tax your nervous a

great amount, but it is great to use every now and then to bust through plateaus.

Similar to the E.M.O.T.M. method, Rest/Pause sets are great to work strength-

endurance and conditioning. While the two are very alike, they are still different

as the Rest/Pause doesn’t have as much rest built into it’s design. And shouldn’t

be used with power/Olympic speed focused lifts.

The bottom line is to use these methods every once in a while for your main

strength lifts to help break through walls and barriers. It would be best to rotate

these methods around while using different movements each training cycle.

Here’s an example:

Month 1 – E.M.O.T.M. with back squats, power clean and Rest/Pause with Bench

and Weighted Pull Ups

Month 2 – E.M.O.T.M with Power Press, Snatch and Rest/Pause with Front squats

and bent barbell rows

Each and every week you should feel yourself getting stronger and in better

condition. If you properly follow a 3-4 week build up phase and program in

specific de-load / recovery weeks, you’ll progressively get stronger.

Secret #4 – Strength is NOT Limited to Heavy Weights

Ever since I was a kid I’ve been doing pull ups and push ups almost daily. I really

never thought about it when I was growing up, but as I’ve gotten older, it

becomes more of a “I have to do this” type of thing. Back then I just did it and

really never thought, “I gotta keep doing this to get strong…” but I still LOVE IT

none the less!

The secret that I want to uncover here is that of relative bodyweight strength.

Too many lifters and serious trainees tend to overlook this aspect of their

strengths.

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You have maximal strength, which is

the max amount of weight you can lift

with external resistance. So things

like deadlift, squats, presses, ect.

Most people’s main focus when it

comes to strength is always geared

towards maximal strength, but people

should learn to not just focus strictly

in on just increasing their maximal

strength, as this will limit their overall

potential, instead they should also learn to focus in on other strengths as well.

This other “strength” I’m referring to is that of relative strength, which refers to

the amount of strength you have in regards to using your own bodyweight,

without any type of external resistance.

Now, I’m not talking about just adding in bodyweight training into your

programming, because you should already be doing this a ton, what I want to talk

about is the value of focusing in on relative bodyweight strength training and

properly implementing it into your program.

It’s not always about how much external weight you can lift with barbells,

kettlebells, and dumbbells, that will benefit you in the end, sometimes it’s what

you can do with you own body. And to be honest, getting stronger naturally with

your own bodyweight will easily crossover into and improve your other strengths

qualities as well, such as that with maximal strength.

If you were to look at your overall foundation of strength, conditioning, and

power, you will see that it all is created with a solid base of relative bodyweight

strength. Without relative bodyweight strength, you have nothing. Your

foundation will be faulty and it will only have a detrimental effect on the rest of

your strengths and abilities.

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So, since bodyweight strength is so important, what are some of the ways to

improve relative bodyweight strength to help increase overall strength and

performance?

Think of this in terms of overall progression. If you want to get stronger, it’s

always about progression and making things harder.

What are some of the ways we can take regular bodyweight training movements

and make them harder without adding external weight?

Well, when it comes to making bodyweight movements harder, there is a

multitude of different variables we can change:

taking away one of your legs or arms (pistols, single leg squats, 1 arm push

ups, pull ups, and handstands

changing your base of support (Jungle Gym Push Ups, Feet elevated push

ups / rows, your stance for squats, lunges, ect)

challenging your grip (thick bar pull ups, rows, towel pull ups, ropes

climbing, push up variations, pull up variations)

adding in more speed and power (plyometrics)

slowing the movement down (isometrics, eccentric training)

altering the natural direction of movements (rotational movements, side to

side pull ups, lateral lunges, jumps)

The lists of the different progressions and variations you can use to increase

relative bodyweight strength goes on and on, but the main point to think about is

the fact that you’re truly only limited to what YOU can imagine taking your

bodyweight strength levels to.

The best way to implement this to help increase your overall relative bodyweight

strength levels is to start experimenting with new and challenging bodyweight

movements every time you train.

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So, if you’ve never tried a pistol squat before, start doing them or going through

the progressions to do them. If you’ve never done a single arm push up or single

arm pull up, start challenging yourself to get closer to that point.

One of the best ways to increase overall bodyweight strength that I found to be

really effective is to challenge yourself with different types of static holds such as

levels, human flags, advanced planks, ect. Just think simple into HARD…

Keep getting yourself stronger in all of the ways you can think of and even if you

never accomplish some of these feats of strength, you’ll still be building up a

stronger YOU.

Just remember NOT to neglect the most important strength tool you were given

at birth, which is your own bodyweight. Maximize it’s potential!

Secret #5 – Failure Will KILL Your Gains

When I was in high school, I would hit push ups every night before I went to bed.

I would go to complete and utter failure every set. I would do multiple sets a

night and to be honest, I got myself up to the point where I could hit 97 full range

of motion push ups in ONE single set, but I never could hit the 100 mark and I

always wondered why…

Another thing I didn’t quite understand was that my bench press was absolutely

horrible. I would bench 2-3 times a week and do the same thing, train to failure.

I thought, “More was better”…

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Now that I really think about it, I went to failure on just about every set of every

movement I did back then. It didn’t matter if it was bench, pull ups, rows, or

military presses… I went to failure because that’s the correct thing to do right?

WRONG…

I can remember I always wanted to go up in weight to get stronger so I was

always adding weight to the bar. Even if my set called for 5 reps and I only

completed 3 in the last set, I was still adding more weight on the bar and of

course, I was always getting stuffed by failure.

None of my lifts steadily progressed, instead they got worse and it left me

dumbfounded as to why I wasn’t progressing. I was working my ass off, but my

results weren’t showing this at all and I was getting frustrated.

Well, the fact was that going to failure all the time on all the different movements

and lifts I was doing wasn’t doing me any good. In fact, it was doing more harm

then anything else.

Going to failure too often will destroy your progress and what happens every time

you push your muscles past failure is that you stress your Central Nervous System

(CNS) to the extreme. This is bad because you’re muscles recover quicker then

your nervous system, but the main thing to understand is the fact that it’s your

CNS that controls your muscles. If your CNS is still fatigued, your muscles won’t

be operated at an optimal level.

To avoid too much CNS fatigue, it’s best to always train to a sub maximum level.

While it’s good to include maximum training into your programs, you don’t want

to do this too often as I used to do in the past when I didn’t know any better.

Now, I’ll only train with a 1 rep max weight or go to complete failure on a lift or

movement a few times every 4-6 weeks.

What I do is whenever I’m training and performing a lift, if I start to really struggle

on it, I’ll cut the set right there, especially if your performing a strength based

movement like a deadlifts, squat, or press.

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The key is to avoid missed reps.

Let’s use this as an example…

Say it’ week 1 of your training program and you are to do 5 sets of 5 reps on the

bench press. This means, for week 1, you had better get ALL 25 reps completed.

Your reps should be crisp, fast, and explosive.

For week 2, obviously your now increasing the amount of weight your using, but

there should be some pretty challenging last few sets in there. You may even

miss 1-2 reps in the final set, but no more then that!

For week 3, now you’re going ALL OUT and trying to break records. If you’re

doing 5 x 5 , you may only get 2-3 reps for your last few sets and now, this is OK.

This would be your “high stress” week where you are pushing yourself past

failure, but it would be the only one you would do for a while. The following

week you would cut back intensity and start back over.

The key to this is the fact that less is way better. In order to make strong,

consistent, and steady gains is to hardly ever go to failure. Train with sub

maximum weights to keep yourself as fresh as possible and key in on being able

to lift your weights as explosive and FAST as you can, which is exactly what I’ll be

talking about within the next secret…

Secret #6 – Power Training is the Key

One of my absolute favorite ways to train is for power as there’s just something

about moving at high speeds that gets me going everytime! I love to jump and

sprint as well as throw things around and when I talk about power training, these

are the things I’m referring to.

When I talk power, I’m talking about moving and training EXPLOSIVLY. It’s what

all of your training should focus in around, even when we’re not training for

power per se, we should still be focusing in on it.

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To explain this a little better, your main focus overall when it comes to training

should be SPEED. You should always be trying to move your body as fast as

possible and if you’re training with weights, you should be moving the weights as

fast as possible (while under total control of course).

Power can easily be train

by doing different types of

plyometrics and jumps.

When we jump, there’s no

other option but to move

as fast as possible. You

can’t jump at half speed…

Adding jumps and

different typos of high

speed plyometrics into

your training at the very

beginning will help

improve your overall development of power.

Also adding in differed types of Olympic lifts and plyometrics like plyo push ups

and throws are beneficial as well. Again, when it comes to plyos, there’s no way

you can train them without going FULL speed.

Now, the reason you want to train specific power movements such as jumps,

plyos, and even Olympic lifts at the beginning of a session is so you can train these

movements when your fresh and not fatigued. In order to move at 100% speed,

you must be near full recovery otherwise you compromise training at full speed.

If you’re tired, you’ll move slower.

The reasoning behind this is to recruit our fast twitch muscle fibers (or to recruit

as many muscle fibers as we can) and in order to do so; we need to move as fast

and explosively as possible. It’s hard to do this in a fatigued state.

Now, let me explain a little further into the whole fast twitch recruitment thing to

clarify a bit. Basically, when it comes to contracting your muscles (i.e. lifting) it’s

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either ALL or nothing. That’s just how the human body works, so it really doesn’t

make any sense to me to lift slow. Unless you want to move slow and be slow, lift

slow.

I know there are books and coaches out there that promote slow, eccentric based

training, but if you’re somebody that wants to look and be strong and explosive,

lifting fast is the only answer in my mind.

In fact, I’ve never had anyone train slow…

Now, as far as speed goes, it needs to be on your mind all the time when you train

and in particular when you contracting your muscles. Going back to the point that

I made earlier about how when we contract our muscles, it’s either all or nothing,

well you might be thinking to yourself, how do I lift as fast as possible when I have

a close to maximum weight on the bar?

Well, for this, it all comes to your mindset… With every concentric portion of any

lift, your main goal should be to accelerate the concentric portion of the lift as

best as you can. If you imagine within your mind to move the weight as fast as

possible, you’ll naturally lift faster.

Even when you’re going to pull your max deadlift weight or squat for a heavy set

of 3, you should imagine accelerating that weight as fast as possible when you lift

it. Even though you may be moving slow, you’re still moving fast in your mind.

Sound confusing?

It’s really not, all you should focus in on is moving FAST and imagining moving the

weight fast in your brain.

Now, when we’re lifting with lighter weights or doing bodyweight movements,

the focus should be the exact same – to lift FAST.

Just imagine these two examples for a min…

You’re doing push ups… Every time you press up you’re exploding as fast as

possible… press up BOOM! Come down slow and under control… press up

BOOM!... and so on…

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Now the same holds true for say a single arm bent row…

You explosively pull the weight up as fast and explosive as possible… BOOM!

Then, lower it down under control… and so on….

Doesn’t matter if you’re pulling, pushing, rowing, pressing, it’s always got to be

FAST!

Now, along with just lifting fast, I always have my athletes stop a set as soon as

they start to really slow down. So for example, if you have a set of 8 and you get

to 6 and the speed of your lift really starts to

slow down to almost the point to where

you’re grinding the reps out, stop there and

end the set. This relates with how I talked

about avoiding failure earlier in this report.

When you get close to the point of failure,

end your set then to keep your muscles fresh

to avoid burnout. You may have to readjust

the weights your using, do so.

You obviously don’t have to follow this

protocol all the time, but to increase overall

strength and power, you should always try to lift as fast as possible no matter

what.

Bottom line - focusing in on lifting fast every time you train will definitely help

out with your overall results when it comes to strength and power. Some other

methods you can use to further increase your results with strength and power

are:

Use strategic speed days (dynamic effort days a la West-Side Barbell / The

Conjugate Method): instead of always trying to train with a near maximal

weight in a lift, say for the deadlift for example, have specific days where

you train at a sub maximum weight like 70-80% where you still train at reps

of 2-3, but your main focus is on SPEED and nothing else. It’s best to rotate

this type of training in with your lifts every other week. Sometimes it feels

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as if you’re not training very hard, but trust me, it’s benefitting you a great

deal.

Use accommodating resistance to work acceleration – using bands and

chains with different lifts and even bodyweight will help you increase your

overall ability to generate speed within your movements. For example,

using bands while you squat will help you increase your overall

acceleration, as at the top of the lift, the weight is greater then at the

bottom due to the stretch and tension of the bands. This forces you to

EXPLODE through the lift in order the to complete it. If you slow down

you’ll get crushed so you either move FAST or get your ass dropped!

Throwing objects will

greatly increase your

power and speed. Just

like with jumping, you

can’t throw something

slow. Things like med ball

tosses, sandbag throws,

and even barbell tosses

work great. The only rule

is the object must release

from your body. Try

things like a squat with a thruster but instead of holding onto the object,

release it at the top as you explode through the thruster. You’ve got tp be

moving fast in order for this to work. Not only id this type of power training

effective, it’s tons of fun!

Secret #7 – Your Conditioning Makes or Breaks Your

Overall Results

Nothing chaps my ass more then when a high school athlete comes into my gym

and can’t even get through the warm up. Same thing goes for my older athletes

and lifters. If you don’t have wind, you won’t have strength or power, especially

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when you need it. Plus it doesn’t workout to well if you’re strong and explosive in

the first few mins of competition but by the end, your toast.

You’ve got to be able to start strong and finish even stronger!

If you’re out of shape, it will be difficult for you to gain strength, build muscle, and

put 110% effort into all of your workouts and to add to this, your recovery ability

will also be hindered as well.

Now, when it comes to conditioning I’ve taken the teachings of Louie Simmons of

West-Side Barbell to heart. Louie’s athletes are notorious for maxing out

multiple times a week and one of the main reasons they are able to do so is

because they are highly conditioned and have awesome recovery abilities. Louie

speaks about how many athletes lack in general physical conditioning, or what he

calls, General Physical Preparedness (GPP). This is a special type of conditioning

that one must have and serves as your foundation for conditioning. This simply

refers to the amount of overall conditioning you possess in terms of bodyweight

strength and the general ability to properly move without major issues (jump,

sprint, climb, crawl), as well as to be overall athletic.

There are lots of lifters that I’ve met in my time that were strong as all hell in the

weight room, but when it came to playing other sports or getting out and actually

moving, they suffered dearly.

They couldn’t move and jump very

well and if they had to drop down

to the ground and quickly get up

they couldn’t as their agility was

terrible, and they would generally

be well beyond fatigued if you had

them run more then two sprints in

a row.

It’s my strong belief that the key

to overall conditioning comes

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down to how well you’ve developed

athletically. The better you’re able to

move freely and for an extended amount

of time, the better off you’ll be overall. For

this, I always recommend my clients and

athletes get out and move around beyond

the weight room.

So sprinting of all kinds, especially hill

sprints, rowing, agilities, bike riding, swimming, and even obstacle courses are

great options for GPP type workouts. Generally, we’ll do these types of

workouts at the END of a training session. And instead of always using weights

and being stuck in the weight room, this is where it’s important to break free and

train athletic or play sports!

Other things such as sled dragging, prowler work, and strongman walks and

carries are other examples that work very well for GPP type workouts.

The bottom line, in order for GPP to help aid you with your general conditioning is

to make sure you train like an athlete. Simply get out and move!

Now, it’s important to know and understand that GPP only serves as your

foundational conditioning. After you have that down, you should now have a

solid base to where now you can start focusing in on your extra conditioning.

This is where more focused and specific type of conditioning comes into play.

The truth is, if you can’t hit a few sets of push ups, pull ups, and squats right in a

row without keeling over and feeling like you’re going to pass out, you’re not

ready for the more intensive and focused conditioning sessions. The issue is

when people try to jump past building up their GPP… This is when they get

crushed by more advanced conditioning methods. Don’t do this. When you’re

ready, you will know.

The most effective way to use your more focused conditioning sessions is to

always separate them from your main strength sessions. You will always want to

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either be gaining or maintaining strength and a big mistake a lot of athletes and

lifters make is they start to put too much focus in on conditioning and neglect

strength. You must remember that strength will hold everything else together so

if you’re weak, you won’t be in a good position to be optimal for performance or

anything else.

After you’ve finished a strength session, you can then focus in on more serious

conditioning sessions, but one of the main rules is this; think fast and effective.

For conditioning, you want it to be about INTENSITY. The higher the intensity

the shorter you have to train which gives you more time to get out of the gym to

recover and get ready for your next training session.

Some great examples of fast and effective conditioning sessions would be:

tabatas – 8 rounds of 20 secs of work with 10 secs rest

metabolic conditioning circuits – 15-20 min MAX sessions using either set

rep schemes like 10 reps of each movement, or intervals such as 30/15’s,

40/20’s, ect

E.M.O.T.M. – Just as we used this protocol with strength training, it can

easily be used for straight up hardcore conditioning as well. These can be

done with a single movement, a super set, or even a tri-set.

AMRAP / Density sets – These can get brutal but are great tests for

measuring progress and challenging yourself. AMRAP stands for: As many

rounds as possible and basically what you do is set a timer and get to work.

The bottom line with your more focused conditioning sessions should be like I

said earlier, all about INTENSITY. You’re really only limited to your overall

imagination when it comes down to what to do when you condition. As long as

you have the intensity and general conditioning down you should be fine.

If all your after is supreme conditioning, just pick a few high return movements,

something like kettlebell swings, battleling rope, or even just some different

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bodyweight movements and hammer it out for a good 15-20 mins and call it

good.

Don’t get caught up in 45-60 min burn out sessions. If you’re able to sustain a

high level of intensity for that long, you’re either A) A total FREAK, or B) not

training hard enough. Usually it’s B but let’s make it b A ;)

And there you have it!

Seven of my biggest SECRETS and TIPS to help YOU dominate your training and

get strong!

Now, if you try to implement ALL of these secrets into your training right away,

you’ll probably get way too overwhelmed and quit.

My best advise would be to select one secret and implement it into your training.

After you level out and adjust to the next implementation, add in another secret

and repeat the same process.

The key to consistent strength gains and conditioning for overall perfoemcne is

just that. CONSISTENT…

The only way to be consistent is to be somewhat patient. Slow and steady gains is

way better then trying to obtain the whole world in one day. Guess what, it won’t

happen and you will fail!

Instead, be sure to write down your goals, set a timely deadline to hit these goals

and TRAIN smart and hard to get there.

There’s really not that much to it.

Always be going H.A.M. and cut out the excuses because when it comes down to

it… Just make it happen!