The Bulgarian Deadlift

One the best movements that I have come across in the last several years in strengthening the musculature in an integrative manner to help get one out of the blocks or off the line in a hurry. The single leg application of the posterior chain is a unique movement than the single leg reverse hyper [...]

What It Takes to Be No 1

Every competitor, no matter how successful, NEEDS to hear this once in a while… You’ve got to pay the price. Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all-the-time thing. You don’t win once in a while, you don’t do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is [...]

Running Technique: Running while Jumping Rope

Run with one end of a jump rope in each hand. The rope swings beneath the body during the floating phase, turning a cycle each step. Because the arms cannot cycle either, and in order to avoid the dangers of tripping, the push-off phase must short and reactive. Forward velocity will be increased while skipping. [...]

Train for Speed…Get Off Your Feet!

To properly engage the posterior chain (which is designed mainly for horizontal displacement) use exercises that will engage those muscles directly against gravity – AKA reverse hypers & glute bridges. These are great exercise for firing the glute -hamstring complex with more direct stimulation that say.. the Olympic Lifts. IMHO, please don’t misunderstand what I’m [...]

Athlete Training at ICON

Nutrition and Soft Tissue Health

Everyone is aware of the importance foam rolling and stretching for soft tissue health, but few people are aware of the impact of nutrition. I challenge anyone with multiple chronic adhesions, trigger points, or tendonitis to give up all wheat (gluten), corn, legumes, and dairy products for a week. Eat as many whole meats and [...]

Explosive Dynamic Isometrics (EDI’s)

This training protocol is great for building an incredible amount of isometric (static) strength, explosive concentric (accelerative) strength, and decelerating (breaking) strength ALL AT THE SAME TIME. This training method also is great for increasing one’s ability for “turning off the breaks” and allowing one to turn on one set of muscles maximally and turning [...]

Vertical Jump Tip: The Equation

When executing a vertical jump, people do change direction during their countermovements (transition from down to up) at different speeds, but in much the same way, everyone pretty much straightens their legs at the same rate of speed. The main determining outcome in the vertical jump isn’t how fast your legs move, it’s the amount [...]

Serious High Jumping…

Starting Strength – Exploding Off the Line

Starting strength is the ability to instantly apply lots of force at the very beginning of a movement. Try this. Sit back in a chair in a “ready to jump” position. Make sure your butt is touching the chair. Now without rocking backward simply jump up from this dead stop position. This is an example [...]