Raw Strength

Visit the new home of Raw Strength Gym and the Blog right HERE Thanks :) Anthony Shaw

You have got to train for speed! It’s no good getting strong as hell if you’re slow as hell! I’ve said it time and time again; When you’re an athlete, you have to be strong to be fast, but remember that lifting weights is not the main event! You have to be fast, skilful and have a never-quit attitude. Heavy strength training will give you the necessary foundations to develop all of the above, but you ABSOLUTELY MUST combine heavy strength training with lighter speed training. This is what will set you apart from everyone else. With that said here is a look inside the Raw Strength Gym on one of our dynamic lower body sessions so you can see how we develop speed, explosive power, strength and muscle in all the right areas to create BEASTS! Take some notes and start applying what you learn!     If you want to become the best athlete you can be, join Raw Strength by clicking on the menu bar above or visit the website . Join the gym for athletes at rawstrength.co.uk ONLY SERIOUS A

Rugby players and other beast athletes! You gotta bench! Read the following tips and watch the video to learn how to immediately improve your bench! The bench press is what we call an ‘indicator’ exercise because when your bench press goes up it proves that your program is working. So periodic testing of the bench press gives us an INDICATION of the development of upper body strength. Benching allows you to lift HUGE amounts of weight and build a load of muscle in the arms, chest and shoulders. The stronger you get, the bigger you get. Simple as. So here are three techniques we use at Raw Strength that will IMMEDIATELY increase your bench: 1. Set up Properly The ‘set-up’ is the way you position yourself on the bench BEFORE you pick the weight up out of the rack, it’s so important it could literally have its own article! For now I’ll just give you a few tips…… Lie on the bench with your eyes in line with the bar Position your feet on the floor, underneath your hips and staying

Welcome back to part TWO of my top ten training tips for in-season rugby players. This is how to MAINTAIN your strength and fitness from your off-season…and how to build more strength too. If you missed part one check it here 6. Train Your Hamstrings To become a monster on the field and protect your legs/hips/knees from injury, you gotta train your hamstrings! Strong and well developed hammies make you faster, stronger, heavier and an all round unit! Strong hamstrings will also support the box squat, which should be your main lower body lift! The simplest way to train your hamstrings is with a glute ham raise bench, throw them in as a warm-up on upper body sessions and work them hard after your squat on lower body days. Do them at least twice a week and you will reap the benefits. Now I know a lot of people don’t have access to a glute ham bench, you guys need to do good mornings and loads of glute bridge and hip thrust style movements for the above recommendations. 7. SLEEP!

You should be in shape right now! After a good 3 month off-season of sprinting, lifting, growing, eating and skills training, you should be the strongest you’ve ever been! The problem is, most players forget that you must MAINTAIN your off season gains during the playing season. Just playing rugby games on the weekends (or 2-3 times a week for the younger guys!) is not going to maintain your strength OR muscle size. You WILL, without question, get smaller and weaker during the season if you don’t MAINTAIN your strength! This is due to 2 things: 1.   Endurance or Long Duration exercise makes you weaker (and skinny!) The human body is incredibly adaptable, and will transform itself to perform as well as it can in any situation that you CONSTANTLY throw at it. So whatever you do the most of, your body will adapt to. If  the majority of your exercising hours each week are spent running and playing rugby, you will adapt to become better suited to endurance exercise. Your fast twitch m

As I see it, strength and conditioning coaching for amateur sports clubs is an afterthought. Skills training and sport specific drills are always going to be, and should be, the priority. But there’s more to a team than just being good at the skills, you need to be physically fit for your environment, FOR YOUR SPORT, and there’s a whole host of other disciplines that sports coaches should be looking at, not necessarily to hire a team of professional nutritionists, physios, strength coaches etc. But you must review your sports club, see what you can outsource either partially (buy a book/dvd, learn it and implement it) or fully (hire someone else to come in on an hourly rate, rather than a full time salary). Just because your club is amateur doesn’t mean you should treat your athletes as such…..every pro athlete starts out as an amateur and I’m sick of hearing people blame pro athletes in the UK as being unfit to compete on a global stage, as we really should be focusing on improvin