Grip Training For Athletes

Athletes have to train grip, period. In most sports, the hands are connected to the object creating force. If you have weak hands and forearms, then less force will be generated or transferred to the object.

Think of it this way, having weak hands in sports is like trying to drive with square tires. You might have the most powerful engine in the world, but if the last part that touches the road doesn’t work right, then you are going to have a tough time getting anywhere.

Examples of when hands are crucial energy transfer in sports: swinging a baseball bat, throwing a football, throwing a baseball, snapping a pass in basketball, etc, etc. If you have the hand strength of a wet noodle, then none of these activities is going to be very successful. The athlete can generate tons of power from the core and legs while pitching a baseball, but if their wrist isn’t strong enough to maintain and accelerate this momentum, then they won’t be successful.

Well, being on Adam’s site, I’m preaching to the choir when it comes to the importance of hand strength! Let’s get to the example exercises.

When choosing grip exercises for athletic development they should fit into two categories: General grip strength and specific grip strength. I’ll be talking more about the later.

Being strong in one grip exercise doesn’t necessarily mean being dominant in ALL grip exercises. I was at the Diesel Crew’s US Grip National’s competition a few weeks back.

There was some extremely strong grip there! However, the same people did not win every event, as being the best at axle dead lift might not make you the best at two hand pinch.

Therefore, when developing an exercise program for athletes, make sure to include specific grip exercises to the demands of their sports (no, I’m not going to call these “functional” or I would have to choke myself…)

These exercises will fit some of Verkhoshanky’s Criteria for Dynamic Correspondence, but not all of them. Here are some examples:

Football players should include specific training that involves towels: towel shrugs, towel pull ups, etc. The players are often required to grab cloth on another player (tackling, defensive line moves, etc). The towel grip training will get them accustomed to their sport requirements.

Basketball players should work with thick grip and open hand training to get them ready to rip rebounds out of the air. Below is an example of bowling ball pull ups that would work extremely well

Baseball Players (swing) should include exercises to strengthen the forearms such as sledge hammer levering. This will help their wrists from being the weak link during the explosive swing.

Baseball Players (throwing) need to include hand dexterity exercises to hold the seams and snap the ball to where they want it to go. Sledge hammer finger walking would go a long way to help this need out.

In conclusion, analyze the sport demand and include these exercises in your grip training. Once the athlete has a strong general and specific hand strength program, their gains are going to be tremendous!

3 Great Training Hints For Fighters

Fighter’s training schedules are packed! There is no avoiding it if you want to be in the best competitive shape. However, there are a few tips that will help maximize your time spent training without compromising results (actually improving results)!

The first thing I will do is make these tips short and sweet so you can get back to training!

Training Tip #1. People often classify my work as being “a grip guy.” That’s not quite true. I’m a trainer that attacks whatever is needed for the sport demands and is the weakest on the athlete. With most athletes it is the grip.

However who has the time to add grippers, pinches, etc at the end of a workout? Instead work GRIP INTO YOUR CURRENT TRAINING. Towels, thick bars, and sandbags are all great options to add hand strength to your current program

Kettlebell Towel Swing

Sandbag Pull Throughs By Grapping Cloth (NOT HANDLES!)

Training Tip #2. Get your primary exercises in, and then add some working recovery periods during your supplemental lifts. For example, get your first lift complete and let’s say you have 2 minute recovery periods for the rest of the lifting session.

During those rest periods put yourself under a static hold for 30 – 90 seconds, then rest for the remainder of the time. This will help teach your body to recover under stress (like between rounds). Examples would include a plank or a sandbag/keg bear hug.

30 Second Bumper Plate Holds During Rest Period

Training Tip #3. Always make time for active recovery. Self myofascial release on a foam roller or lax ball will go a long way for fixing those sore muscles.

If you are maintaining a packed training schedule, that this is a MUST or your muscles will break down.

Work these tips into your current programs for more results, in less time – isn’t that always the goal anyways! Good luck with your training.

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Joe Hashey’s Bull Strength Conditioning

Get ready for a complete conditioning program that is easy to understand and even easier to implement!

Ready to look in the mirror and see those lean muscles smiling back? Bull Strength Conditioning, with complete DONE FOR YOU workouts, will end your search for the most effective program!

10-15 Minutes Each Workout Can CHANGE YOUR PHYSIQUE!

These workouts are plugins. Replace these resistance cardio circuits with the boring cardio you are currently doing at the end of your workouts.

Visit Bull Strength Conditioning to put a permanent end to never ending cardio sessions that aren’t burning the fat they should.

Ankle Mobility Strategies

Today is a rare Saturday morning where I have some time to sit down and watch Sportscenter. They just showed highlights of the Miami Heat (basketball team) game where two starters of their rolled their ankles in a span of 3 minutes!

I also have read that the most common injury in football is….ankle sprains. Obviously, this is not just an issue for basketball players, but all athletes. There are some complicated strategies, but I’m going to keep this post SIMPLE and EFFECTIVE. Most of these suggestions won’t alter your time in the gym at all.

The sad thing is that ankle sprains can be HUGELY reduced with a few tweaks to the training program. A little information on ankle sprains first. There are ligaments that keep the ankle bones and foot in the correct position. A sprain occurs when the ligament is stretched beyond its normal range of motion. Sprained ankles often come from landing on uneven ground or off balance.

I know from personal experience that a sprained ankle is painful and annoying. I broke my right ankle in a high school basketball game by coming down on someone’s foot. I had issues rolling my ankles frequently. A few years later, I made some tweaks in my training program and have not had A SINGLE ANKLE SPRAIN IN 5 YEARS, despite a close call a few months back(story at the end).

Simple Ankle Health Strategies

GET OUT OF THE STIFF HIGH TOPS – Of course I’m talking about training, not games. I posted a “Who Trains The Best” NBA version a few weeks back and you will notice that nearly all of these athletes have stiff high tops on while training. These stiff shoes lock the foot and ankle in place and limit the training effect. The simple fix is to warm up and do appropriate exercises in socks. This will help increase strength and proprioception in the foot and ankle. Below is a photo of Lamar Odom training in stiff shoes and lots of braces. Which brings me to my next point….

LOSE THE ANKLE BRACES – As soon as the injury is rehabbed, its time to lose the braces. An ankle brace and taping are used to hold the foot and ankle in place, just like stiff high tops. Again, if the joint is constantly braced, it will not develop any strength and stability! Simple Solution – strengthen and rehab the ankle appropriately, then let it free! Here is another option to training in socks – Vibram Five Fingers. A new market is developing out of the realization that foot stabilization is often a crutch.

WORK ON ANKLE MOBILITY/STRENGTH – It is important to stretch the gastrocnemius, soleus, and achillies to achieve proper mobility. I have not had to incorporate many drills to strengthen the ankles. I occasionally use some band resisted ankle movements and marching on foam or a soft surface.
Most athletes have suffered from injured ankles. This is extremely preventable. I am excited to see the fitness and sport industry paying more attention to joint health.

However, I also see another disturbing trend, athletes dressing up more and more just for looks. This trend includes all these sweat bands and braces that kids are finding popular, but also spatting, especially in football. Spatting is taping the outside of the cleat. This is mostly done for looks,and often includes an ankle brace UNDER the spatting as well! No need for this in youth sports. Protect your body, not your perceived image!

Ankle health has been beneficial to my training. A few months ago I was walking 500+ lbs out of the rack for a box squat at a gym that had a worn down platform. One step out of the rack and my right ankle rolled over. Even with all that weight on my back, my ankle was stabilized and I was able to continue the squat. Could have been really bad!

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Joe Hashey’s Bull Strength Conditioning

Get ready for a complete conditioning program that is easy to understand and even easier to implement!

Ready to look in the mirror and see those lean muscles smiling back? Bull Strength Conditioning, with complete DONE FOR YOU workouts, will end your search for the most effective program!

10-15 Minutes Each Workout Can CHANGE YOUR PHYSIQUE!

These workouts are plugins. Replace these resistance cardio circuits with the boring cardio you are currently doing at the end of your workouts.

Visit Bull Strength Conditioning to put a permanent end to never ending cardio sessions that aren’t burning the fat they should.

Do You Have Bull Strength?

I wrote the Bull Strength training manual (www.bullstrength.com) to address many of the problems I see in athlete training. As a high school football coach and a gym owner I have noticed that many athletes work extremely hard…but have no idea what they are doing. The unfortunate thing is, for the most part, these athletes just do not know better. They are willing to do the work, but do not know what work to do.

When I was a high school freshman my older brother was one of the top tier players on the varsity team. The coaches, a former All American from West Point and another from Alabama, claimed he had this natural “bull strength.” He wasn’t a gym rat, but was just strong. A game into the season, they brought me up to varsity for the same reason, but I didn’t quite understand it at that time.

Looking back on the situation, it is now obvious where our strength came from. Our father was a mechanic and a furnace man. Since my brother and I were in middle school, we would help carry furnaces up and down basement stairs, lift heavy odd objects, and turn wrenches. This kind of “labor” turned out to the best kind of training for us. We were able to push lineman around and perform extremely well at our positions.

After that I got into the gym, but my father used to say, “You want a real workout, turn pipe and hang it all day!” That was the kind of man he was. His friends in the business were all big and strong, but never performed a curl or a leg extension in their lives!

Bull Strength Concepts

Of course I’m not going to have athletes hang pipe to become better at their sports, but there are a few concepts that need to be applied to successful athlete programs. Here are the general principles of creating Bull Strength:

1.Lift Free – I am a huge proponent of athletes lifting with free weights. They need to create the proprioception required for athletics. I do not agree with the argument “sports aren’t played on a machine, so you shouldn’t lift on them.” If you used that reasoning, there is no reason to perform a squat, dead lift, bench, etc, since they aren’t exact replicas of an athletic endeavor. However, free weights require the lifter to stabilize and control themselves and the weight. Body control and stabilization is essential in athletics. With the exception of rehabilitation, the vast majority of lifts should be performed without machines.

2.Use Odd Objects – This concept applies two-fold – to both mental and physical training. Odd objects include things like sandbags, kegs, stones, BUT ALSO include regular gym equipment used in a creative way. This is one of the strengths of the Bull Strength Manual. If you have the odd objects, use them, if not I explain ways to use gym objects in creative ways.

The objects train your mind to get used to working in different situations. Whether it is a football lineman trying to secure a block, a baseball player trying to make a diving catch, or a basketball player trying to box out, they all require use of their body and coordination against odd objects (person, ball, closing space, etc). It prepares them for dealing with different scenarios. Additionally, they help train the musculature to handle varying forces.

3.Train Hard AND Smart – Too often I see strength coaches beating their players’ bodies up until they actually get weaker. There is a distinction between hard training and hard plus smart training. Pushing athletes to throwing up is one of the most catabolic things a coach can do. Soon their players will be weaker and hurt, and they wonder why.

4.Recover hard – To achieve Bull Strength you need to rest and restore with as much attention as you lift. Restoration will allow you to push more weight, feel better, and avoid injuries.

I actually heat my foam roller sometimes to relax the muscles.
My restoration includes: foam rolling, contrast bathing/showering, contrast hand dexterity work, lax ball “poor man’s massage,” active release techniques, Thera Cane use, massage with “The Stick,” stretching, mobility work, eating, and sleeping (the last two are my favorite, but it’s all important!) If you neglect this phase, you will never achieve your strength potential.

Conclusion

Authoring the Bull Strength Manual has been a pleasure. I have been able to meet many of the top athlete trainers and discuss serious training with them. If you apply the above principals to your training, the results will be outstanding! Good luck, and keep training.

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Joe Hashey’s Bull Strength Conditioning

Get ready for a complete conditioning program that is easy to understand and even easier to implement!

Ready to look in the mirror and see those lean muscles smiling back? Bull Strength Conditioning, with complete DONE FOR YOU workouts, will end your search for the most effective program!

10-15 Minutes Each Workout Can CHANGE YOUR PHYSIQUE!

These workouts are plugins. Replace these resistance cardio circuits with the boring cardio you are currently doing at the end of your workouts.

Visit Bull Strength Conditioning to put a permanent end to never ending cardio sessions that aren’t burning the fat they should.

The Beginners Guide To Working Out – The 8 Rules

I get a lot of questions about dead lifting and squat from guys that are 100 percent new to training. I love dead lift and squat, don’t get me wrong, but I hate when people try to go heavy with no form and relative body strength. It looks terrible and the only results they get are injuries.

However, I can’t always blame them. You glance at the magazine rack and its packed with bodybuilder and star athlete’s training programs. Ask yourself this, who are they marketing to? Do they expect other start athletes to pick up the magazine and try out the programs? No!

They are marketing to youth and guys that are new to lifting. Unfortunately, these programs SUCK for someone at that strength level.

I’m going to try to lay the ground work that these new lifters SHOULD follow, not some marketing BS!

The Great 8 Rules of Strength Training

1.Relative Strength – Some people might call this ‘a strength base.’ What I am talking about is an ability to control your own body weight through exercises like push ups, pull ups, dips, body weight squats etc. Long story short, don’t bench if you can’t do push ups well. Don’t squat if you can’t do bodyweight squats efficiently and with good form.

2.Compound Lifts – Focus on compound lifts for quicker results. Don’t get obsessed with all the fancy machines. Keep basic.

3.Form – Especially with compound lifts, form is essential for maximum gains and safety.

4.Plan – Write down your workout before you go to the gym. Don’t just choose a body grouping and go.

5.Test – How strong are you now? What’s your goals? Choose a few lifts and test them. Perform your strength training program and then test to see if you are stronger. If not, it’s time to re-evaluate your program.

6.Don’t Obsess with Numbers – Compare yourself to yourself, not to some pro athlete or someone that has trained for months. Along with #5 and #6, don’t lie to yourself. If your bench is 50 lbs, don’t write down 100. Keep things relative.

7.Don’t Train Like a Pro – I don’t care how the top athletes train via their magazine articles (which are only a glimpse at their program, if that). Train to your own strength.

8.Ask Questions – Get on sites like this and ask your questions! Check my post on Top Strength Sites, but don’t get overwhelmed, that’s why I’m stopping at

Follow these simple rules to set up your program. There is no doubt that this will be effective.

Final words of wisdom – enjoy training, be passionate, work hard AND smart.

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Joe Hashey’s Bull Strength Conditioning

Get ready for a complete conditioning program that is easy to understand and even easier to implement!

Ready to look in the mirror and see those lean muscles smiling back? Bull Strength Conditioning, with complete DONE FOR YOU workouts, will end your search for the most effective program!

10-15 Minutes Each Workout Can CHANGE YOUR PHYSIQUE!

These workouts are plugins. Replace these resistance cardio circuits with the boring cardio you are currently doing at the end of your workouts.

Visit Bull Strength Conditioning to put a permanent end to never ending cardio sessions that aren’t burning the fat they should.

Barbells or Dumbbells?

A few months back I posted the differences between Kettlebells vs Dumbbells but today is a different discussion.

I’m making the case for returning to barbells….

Preface: I like to have my athletes use primarily dumbbells with the accessory lifts. Dumbbells are easy to increase weight and use with large groups. Also they are great for making sure the “weak side” gets the proper amount of training. I’m not advocating abandoning dumbbells.

Observation: I have seen most people use exclusively dumbbells when it comes to accessory lifts. Dumbbell lunges, step ups, floor press, rows, etc.

The simple integration of a straight bar will make a drastic difference.

Dumbbells are often used in a slight swinging motion and the momentum can be used to aid the lifter. Additionally, when one training tool is over used, the body accommodates (read more on accommodation) to it and progress is slowed. By the same reasoning if you are only using barbells, then a switch to dumbbells may be beneficial.

Your Barbell Workout

Perform this lower body workout to know what I mean! Post your results in the comments.

Squat 6 x 2

Walking Lunges 3 x 25 yards and back (or 3 x 15 reps each leg if no walking space)

Romanian Dead lifts 4 x 8

. Straight Bar Sit Ups 4 x 10

Don’t be scared to go heavy on the lunges and as heavy as possible on the RDL’s while maintaining good form. I know some people will be skeptical that it is only 4 lifts but trust me. Perform EXACTLY this lower body workout and post your results.

The barbell on lunges is the brutal part of this workout. It will make sure you brace properly with the core and keep your torso upright.

We performed this workout last week and I had a few athletes come to me two days later and say the legs on their boxers are almost too tight! Talk about instant feedback.

If you want an upper body workout, make sure to post up your thoughts in the comments and I will put one out for you!

Oh, and the truth is if the barbell “bothers you” to put in on your back, you either need to work on the placement or get bigger traps.

==>Lose that ridiculous pad.

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Joe Hashey’s Bull Strength Conditioning

Get ready for a complete conditioning program that is easy to understand and even easier to implement!

Ready to look in the mirror and see those lean muscles smiling back? Bull Strength Conditioning, with complete DONE FOR YOU workouts, will end your search for the most effective program!

10-15 Minutes Each Workout Can CHANGE YOUR PHYSIQUE!

These workouts are plugins. Replace these resistance cardio circuits with the boring cardio you are currently doing at the end of your workouts.

Visit Bull Strength Conditioning to put a permanent end to never ending cardio sessions that aren’t burning the fat they should.

The 8 Best Ways To Maximize Your Training

Everyone that reads this site is already passionate about strength training; there is no doubt about that! This article contains methods I have used in my own training and with my athletes to add a “little something extra” to the programs.

Let’s cut the small talk and get to the meat, here’s the list:

Real Primary Exercises. Choose a primary exercise that is a compound lift and is proven to help you reach your goals. If you are an Olympic lifter, then choose those. If you are a powerlifter, then get to benching, squatting, and dead lifting. If you are a recreational lifter (here’s where we get in trouble), choose something off the list above. Smith machine curls don’t fit. Activate the most muscles you can right off the bat.

Warm Up HARD. Warm ups should not be all slow and steady stretching. Time it, and get it done. Here’s the timing I use with my athletes – 3 minutes active recovery or mobility, 4 minutes dynamic stretching, then 3-5 minutes specific warm up (lighter sets and reps of their exercise, this includes rest periods for a group of 3). Everything is up on a board for them to read and their first working start needs to start within 12 minutes of them walking in the door.

Use the Training Economy. Supercharge your training session with choosing exercises that give you the biggest bang for your buck. Instead of listing them all, here are some guidelines. These are the lifts that use multiple muscle groups and rarely involve machines. More muscles used = more adaptation.

Finish Strong. Many of my athletes have benefited from incorporating a “finisher” exerciser. On certain moderate volume or intensity days I will allow them to choose a finisher. These exercises range from Jail Yard pushups to hand walking competitions and everything in between. The competitive nature of people that work out should be utilized! The guys enjoy some healthy competition; it gets their adrenaline pumping, and leads to a positive training effect.

Realize You’re Weak (nesses). If you keep training the same lifts and program non stop, you may develop some weaknesses. Make sure you identify the areas of concern and catch them up! Keep in mind that “weaknesses” are all relative. A powerlifter may find that their triceps are their weak point; however those “weak triceps” may still be very strong compared to anyone else!

Play within Yourself. The worst thing you can do is find the strongest guy in the gym and compare yourself to them, however, its one of the hardest things NOT to do. Hell, I’m saying it, and I still make that mistake (and probably will again). They may have been training for 15 years and if you have only 2 years under your belt, then they should be that much stronger! It is good to take notice of the characteristics of strength, but don’t get down if you can’t deadlift 500 lbs after a year.

Don’t be a sissy. I’m being serious here, and I’ll admit I’ve been guilty of this before as well. Who here hasn’t talked themselves out of a big lift? I certainly have, and I’m still bitter that I went sissy for that moment. Get a pattern of thinking down before you perform a big lift. It can be you against the weight, it can be you and the weight working together, it could be you picturing a hot girl in the room that you have to impress…Whatever it is, just do it and stick to what works!

I’ll let you in my mind here for a second. My go to thought is my younger brother performing the lift easily and smirking at me. After I get that ingrained my mind, there is no choice but to get the lift.

Post up some of your thoughts in the comments here at the Diesel Crew! I’d be curious to hear.

Don’t drown in information while searching for knowledge. The internet has created put an amazing amount of information out to people. Answers to nearly every question are just a button click away. However, what is hard to find is true knowledge.

There are thousands of strength training sites with information out there, some right, some wrong. The problem is who is right? There is so much information, but a real lack of knowledge. Stick to the basics, learn from people that have experience (ie not off a 12 year old on a forum), and get that knowledge!

I’ll end with a challenge. Anyone can read this information, say “yeah that’s good,” then go on making the same mistakes as before. I challenge you to internalize at least ONE of these 8 tips and make it happen! Please post any results in the comments.

There it is, 8 simple things you can do to bump your workouts up to the next level. I know, as readers of the Diesel Crew site, that many of you already have some sick super charged workouts. Keep up the good work, and thanks for reading.

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Joe Hashey’s Bull Strength Conditioning

Get ready for a complete conditioning program that is easy to understand and even easier to implement!

Ready to look in the mirror and see those lean muscles smiling back? Bull Strength Conditioning, with complete DONE FOR YOU workouts, will end your search for the most effective program!

10-15 Minutes Each Workout Can CHANGE YOUR PHYSIQUE!

These workouts are plugins. Replace these resistance cardio circuits with the boring cardio you are currently doing at the end of your workouts.

Visit Bull Strength Conditioning to put a permanent end to never ending cardio sessions that aren’t burning the fat they should.

5 Killer Ways to Aplify Your Workout

Most of here are not professional lifters. We have many obligations such as family and a career to fill our schedule. This means that when you step into the gym, you must get the most out of your limited time!

Every person that lifts or performs other workouts has made mistakes along the way. One of the biggest errors is wasting time. Before you know it, the lifting session is over. Here are five tips to maximize your time spent in the gym.

Workout Maximizers

1. Have a Plan. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” My mother used to use that phrase to explain to me the importance of lesson planning as I was in graduate school. The concept applies to the gym as well. You should know your workout plan before you touch a weight, a sled, a treadmill, or anything else.

2.Monitor Rest Periods. In order to achieve your goals, you should be aware of a proper rest period. Also, the rest period should vary according to your objectives. Not only will this save you time, but it will make your workout more effective.

3.Include Compound Lifts – If you want to maximize your time gym, it makes sense to work multiple muscle groups simultaneously. Free weight lifts like the squat, dead lift, overhead press, and, bench, are all excellent choices.

4.Be Creative With Conditioning – Many people are looking “to get in better shape.” This doesn’t have to mean trotting away the hours on a treadmill. You can lift AND condition on the same days. Since we are focused athlete training, strength development is important, however it won’t go far if the person is always fatigued. During pre season preparation, we include things like 6 x 30 yard hills, DB circuits, rope battling, and sledgehammer conditioning. Often, these exercises only take 10-12 minutes to perform at a high intensity.

5.Vary Your Training Techniques – Running out of time? Instead of skipping a lift, superset your last two lifts. Not enough time to finish out a set? Perform a dropset. There is always a way to get your training in!
These are general principles that can be adapted to fit your training goals. For example, my rest periods on maximal effort lifts are longer than on repetition and supplemental exercises. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t pay attention to time, it just means I need to adapt the rest period to meet my goals.

With everything on your plate, your training session should be well paced and planned to be efficient and maximize results! Remember, make corrections, not excuses.

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Joe Hashey’s Bull Strength Conditioning

Get ready for a complete conditioning program that is easy to understand and even easier to implement!

Ready to look in the mirror and see those lean muscles smiling back? Bull Strength Conditioning, with complete DONE FOR YOU workouts, will end your search for the most effective program!

10-15 Minutes Each Workout Can CHANGE YOUR PHYSIQUE!

These workouts are plugins. Replace these resistance cardio circuits with the boring cardio you are currently doing at the end of your workouts.

Visit Bull Strength Conditioning to put a permanent end to never ending cardio sessions that aren’t burning the fat they should