Raw Strength

Quick post here, got some sandbags in the gym and they've been kicking some ass recently! Last Friday me and some mates went in to the Raw Strength Gym and did some sandbag cleans for time, quickest time wins, here is an excerpt from said workout....basically me wrestling the heavy 60kg bag! Train Hard Ant Shaw

Here it is, the best 5 leg exercises to use to become a better athlete; faster, stronger and more powerful. In no particular order here we go.... Bulgarian Split Squats My personal favourite! This movement trains one leg at a time and trains the leg extensors extremely well. Its great for improving acceleration and has a good transfer to the squat itself so could be the best assistance exercise around for building up the squat. It also has the added benefit of reducing the amount of weight going through the abs and low back ('core' as many like to call it) due to training one leg at a time, so the resistance used for each leg can be increased and the legs will give out before the 'core', giving excellent training efficiency. Front Squat Many coaches advocate the front squat over the back squat as it is supposedly more sports specific, not too sure what they mean by this but it does train the quadriceps to a greater degree than the back squat (actually activates more of ...

Absolute KILLER lower body workout today! All the prowler runs I've been doing after upper body workouts have really given me that do-or-die attitude, not to mention better conditioning so I can work longer and harder through those heavy sets! Anyway, here's what I've been up to: Warm-up (focusing on hip mobility) Did the following as a circuit 2 times through, 10 reps each. Bird-dogs Fire-hydrants Mountain Climbers Lunges Prone Scorpions Following this I did some foam rolling on the IT band (real painful if you're new to it!) and some jumping to hype up the nervous system. As my calves are a massive weakness of mine, before the main workout I completed 5 x 30 second timed sets of single leg calf raises, then 3 more sets after I finished the whole workout. Main Workout Front Squat to Box: 3 sets of 8 (working up to a max weight for 8 reps) A1) Bulgarian Split-Squat: 3 x 10 reps A2) Romanian Deadlift: 3 x 10 reps Did a bit of extra work on pull-ups after these exercises ...

At the moment I'm working on my pull-up numbers, currently at 12 rep maximum and not happy with this! I'm aiming for at least 20 reps as my next goal in 3 months, so this is how I've been training for it... Here is how the whole workout looked...loads of supersets to get more work in! Just to clarify how I've written the workout below, if the exercises have the same letter they are in the same superset, so A1 and A2 means you go straight from one to the other then back until all sets and reps are complete A1)Pull-ups: 3 sets of 5 reps A2)Sandbag Shouldering: 3 sets of 4 reps (2 reps each shoulder) B1)V-Grip chins (using a V-Bar handle over the power rack): 3 sets of 4 reps B2)Press-ups: 3 sets of 30 reps C1)Inverted rows: 4 sets of 5 reps C2)Kettlebell One Arm Press: 4 sets of 6 reps D1)Barbell Shrugs: 3 x 30 second timed set (as many reps as possible in 30 seconds) D2)Lateral raise: 3 x 30 second timed set Pretty tired after all of this! As you can see I trained the ma...

Today I went to see the guys at Strength & Performance gym in Stockport, Zoran Dubaic and Sean Keefe. Really great to see what my gym could eventually become and so inspiring to know there are other people in the UK pushing for the hardcore athletic training facilities that we so sorely need to improve ALL sports in this country. I thought I was one of the only ones! Definitely will be staying in contact with those dudes and who knows maybe a bit of a strongest athlete competition could be in the pipeline. Anyway, check out their site Great stuff going on in North West England! Ant Shaw