Raw Strength

Don’t be one of those people that rushes straight into a workout/sport without proper preparation, warming up correctly will benefit you in the following ways: A Focused Mind– It will help you set your mind to the task at hand, you can frame your challenges in a positive way – one step at a time - without them seeming too difficult as you’ve broken them into small pieces in your mind. Increased Strength – By gradually warming up and stimulating the central nervous system, you can generate more force Increased Flexibility – You know when you wake up in the morning and you feel all tight? You gotta stretch and mobilise the joints! The body won’t do it for you!  Better Technique – Practising your lifting technique, or your sporting movements (passing, catching etc.) with a slower/lighter intensity than when competing or training will benefit technique as you can run through the finer points without the stress of a heavy weight on your back or someone running at ya! Increased Endura

With all the great info out there regarding ways to get bigger/stronger/faster, there is a proportionally smaller amount of info on recovery methods. As we all know, you grow OUTSIDE of the gym. Here are a few great ways to recover, relax and improve as an athlete: Sleep At least 8 hours per night, uninterrupted. Simple but effective. Ban or Limit Alcohol Consumption Alcohol dehydrates you and takes away from your kidney and liver function. You NEED your vital organs to be healthy when you’re resting as they clean the blood, burn fat and a whole bunch of E.S.S.E.N.T.I.A.L stuff that will keep you healthy. Everyone knows this to be true, but how many of you actually limit alcohol? Plan Recovery Have light weeks, light workouts, easy days, cool downs, once a week go to the gym just to stretch. Plan it and you’ll do it, and vice versa! Focus on Diet Diet plays a HUGE part in training. I summarised the top ten diet rules previously on this blog. Read them, use them. Eat well, rec

Training is hard, understanding how to stay motivated and never give in is one of the greatest challenges of the sporting world! It is a war , and EVERY workout is a battle. If you win the battles, you’ll win the war. But how do you stay motivated? As in the Buddhist practice of Zen, “ THE ONLY TIME IS NOW”. Read it until it’s ingrained in your mind. During training your mind will play tricks on you. Don’t let it. Most commonly you will find yourself thinking, “I’ll do this set then leave it there, the next set will kill me! I don’t feel up to it today”, or something similar. STOP . Remember that the only time is now. Do your set and focus on it with everything you have! Thinking of the future will not help you. You should find training more enjoyable and that extra set or exercise won’t seem as daunting because it won’t be hanging over your head the entire time you’re in the gym! Here are a few ways to focus on “the now” in your training: Focus on one rep at a time, perfe

To support your training, you gotta eat SMART! It’s hard eating correctly, I prefer to give my athletes simple rules to follow before I give a more detailed diet plan. Here are my top ten rules for a good diet: You must eat breakfast! No excuses. Remember to include protein! Eat every 2-3 hours Eat protein with every meal Eat vegetables with every meal Limit sugars to after training only After training consume sugars and protein (a carb/protein shake blend, sports drink with protein etc.) Eat healthy fats every day (olive oil on salads, nuts etc.) Plan ahead (you may have to make and pack snacks at school, after training etc.) Eat a wide variety of food Drink a lot of water or green tea, no fizzy and sugary drinks. Simple. Join the #1 program for young athletes at rawstrength.co.uk   ONLY SERIOUS ATHLETES NEED APPLY Anthony Shaw Raw Strength   Technorati Tags: gym , strength , conditioning , coach , personal , trainer , warrington , Liverpool , Manchester , rugby

A good strength and conditioning program is essential if you want to WIN. Here a but a few positives of joining a great strength and conditioning program…. 1) Strength and conditioning, done correctly, is GUARANTEED to make you more CONFIDENT 2) You will experience CRAZY size increases in muscles that are needed for your sport, no muscles for show here (But its likely you’ll look good) 3) Your MENTAL TOUGHNESS will go through the roof. The ability to reach goals and never, ever give up no matter what is a HUGE requirement in high level sport, train the right way and you will toughen up your mind. 4) Co-ordination and body awareness will improve. You will learn new ways of moving your body, you will understand how to break the mental limits you previously put on yourself and become a better athlete through CONSTANT PRACTICE OF NEW MOVEMENTS. 5) You will always WIN. A good S&C program will be based on the successful attainment of goals. You should always be breaking records in t

This is what you absolutely MUST be doing each and every time you train to become the ULTIMATE athlete …. You might not like these rules but LIVE by them and you will be UNSTOPPABLE!     1) Lift Heavy – The foundation of all fitness is strength. Get stronger using basic and heavy exercises and you have a great foundation to transfer into endurance, power, speed or whatever your sport requires. Bottom line = lift heavy and often . 2) Do what you don’t like doing – Take a good look at yourself. Do you only train what you enjoy doing, e.g. curls? Cos that’s a BAD idea. It’s probable that whatever you like the most in the gym or in your sport is what you are best at. Get into the habit of forcing yourself to train or work on whatever you don’t like doing, whether its heavy leg work or just practising catching a ball, if you don’t like doing it you probably suck at it!  3) Never miss a workout – Because somewhere out there your opponents are always training. Ask yourself the questio

Check out the video below ….GROW SOME GUNS!! Stronger arms will benefit your sport if you come into contact with your opponent, especially useful for rugby players for all types of contact. Increasing arm strength also benefits bench press, deadlift, pull-ups amongst others! The stronger you get in the main lifts, the better you can perform. Training the arms directly stops them being your weak point. Now go and GROW!   Episode #4 - The Friday Night Gun Show Uploaded by rawstrengthgym . - More professional, college and classic sports videos. 3 Rounds of: 1A. Piked Tricep Extensions: 8-12 1B. Close Grip Press-ups: 15-20 1C. Barbell Curls: 8-12 1D. Hand over hand sled pull: 5m   Join the #1 program for young athletes at rawstrength.co.uk Anthony Shaw Raw Strength   Technorati Tags: gym , strength , conditioning , coach , personal , trainer , warrington , Liverpool , Manchester , rugby , football , young , athlete , sport , raw , north , west , Anthony , shaw , workout ,

Increased strength AND muscle growth you say? Well you need to lift a heavy weight loads of times. Simple But it is impossible to lift a heavy weight loads of times! How can I do this?!?! You need to drop CLUSTERS into your workouts. Clusters are groups of repetitions that are separated by short rest periods but count as the SAME set. So if you wanted to achieve muscle and strength increases in the back and arms,for example, and lets say you chose to do pull-ups, you may find the problem that you can only get around 8 reps in one go, but you need to get around 40 reps as your main exercise! What are you gonna do?! 2 reps, REST 5-10 seconds, 3 reps, REST 5-10 seconds, 5 reps, REST 1-3 minutes and repeat for a total of 4 times. You will never get close to your 8 rep limit but you will be getting 10 reps per set (2+3+5), for 4 sets, for a total of 40 reps. For strength work try using 3 reps, resting 5-10 secs and doing 3 more reps with a HEAVY weight. You could even drop the reps t

If you want to compete at a higher level in your sport, be aware, it’s HARD, only a select few can do it, but believe in yourself above all else, use the following advice and you will have a GREAT chance. Join a good club and play consistently well , if you’re good enough you will get selected for a county squad. Play consistently well at this level and you may get selected for a clubs youth academy and from there the real HARD WORK begins. You will be competing against ELITE players in your sport who are hungry for a pro contract. But stick to what you know, play consistently well, never give up, always strive towards your personal goals and have self belief. You can make it if you believe in yourself.   What else can you do to help your QUEST to be the BEST? 1) Practice hard on your key skills EVERY day. 2) Develop an intense self-belief and focus on your goals. 3) Ensure you are in top physical condition with a sound strength and conditioning program . 4) Occasionally p

Ok, you’re in the gym, repping out some curls for the girls, maybe even a few pull-ups if you’re lucky, perhaps even a set or two of what can only be called ‘terrible partial squats’ with a ridiculously light weight, cos you gotta train your legs right! Yeah whatever. You’re doing it all wrong, so wrong it makes me want to hit you over the head with the nearest 1kilo dumbbell. Maybe someone sets you straight and you begin to focus on correct technique, you only bench, squat and deadlift and do assistance work to support these movements, you’re getting somewhere, muscle and strength levels shoot through the roof! But are you RELEVANT? In other words, if your workouts don’t reflect what happens in your sport to a certain degree, you are wasting your time. Obviously don’t go messing around with the rules of strength training, you still need to lift heavy weights, with good technique, to build whole body strength, but you have to replicate your sport as best you can….. Ask yourself th

You are slow. You need to speed up. Check out why timed sets make you do more work in a set time. The result: SPEED!     I see people all the time, lifting weights and moving their body slower than is actually possible, most people don’t know what they are doing wrong. When you see 100m sprinters compete, are they taking it easy? Are they controlling the tempo? Hell no, they rip it up as fast as they can! So when these guys and girls train, I’m sure they do the exact same thing. Focusing on speed. If you’re sport requires speed, in ANY movement, does your training reflect this?   Step up to the #1 program for young athletes at rawstrength.co.uk   Anthony Shaw Raw Strength   Technorati Tags: strength , conditioning , coach , personal , trainer , warrington , Liverpool , Manchester , rugby , football , young , athlete , sport , raw , north , west , Anthony , shaw , workout , training , weight , lifting , lunge , tyre , sled , drag , finisher

I train athletes . The sport that they compete in is the training priority. Getting big and strong is lower down the list of things to do, but still essential. Which gives us the following dilemma. Q: How do we come up with a training solution when you have limited time to commit to a strength and conditioning program? A: Increase the efficiency of the workouts that you DO have time to do.   It’s called training economy, and it’s a game changer if you do it right.   Here are 5 ways to add to your workout without taking anything away: 1) Add skill patterns specific to your sport into the warm-up. E.g. work on correct arm angles and footwork to practice correct sprinting technique. 2) Inbetween sets of a main exercise perform injury prevention work. E.g. postural exercises, dynamic stretches. 3) Train the whole body, EVERY time you train. Pick a whole body lift as your first exercise, then train lower body, then upper body. 4) Always progress from your last workout. Never

  No money? Can’t afford a weight set let alone monthly gym membership? That’s no excuse not to build a great body and stay healthy. Get a tyre. Hide it away behind your house or in the shed when you’re not using it. They are free, call any tyre yard and just ask. They kick ass as a training tool and you will get monster strength from constantly handling a tyre that just wants to be left alone! The neighbours might stop and stare but who cares? You will be getting stronger and better conditioned for FREE. It doesn’t get better than that people! To get you started, here are 8 ways to use a tyre     Step up to the #1 program for young athletes at rawstrength.co.uk and follow Raw Strength on facebook:   Anthony Shaw Raw Strength   Technorati Tags: strength , conditioning , coach , personal , trainer , warrington , Liverpool , Manchester , rugby , football , young , athlete , sport , raw , north , west , Anthony , shaw , workout , training , weight , lifting , lunge , t

Getting leaner = improved performance Best way to get lean? High intensity exercise, short rest periods, extended workouts. To get your heart rate up and blast away the fat try the following once or twice a week, every week: Find a place to run that is at least 50m. Run 50m AND BACK! Rest 90 seconds, repeat 5-10 times. If you can get all 10, reduce the rest period. If you can’t get all ten, keep progressing each week until you can. You will get lean. No hassle, no thought required. Simple….but not easy. Get lean. Step up to the #1 program for young athletes at rawstrength.co.uk Anthony Shaw Raw Strength Technorati Tags: strength , conditioning , coach , personal , trainer , warrington , Liverpool , Manchester , rugby , football , young , athlete , sport , raw , north , west , Anthony , shaw , workout , training , weight , lifting , lunge , tyre , sled , drag , finisher