Raw Strength

Here’s part 2 of the ‘Eating For Winners’ Series of articles. Part One is Here. WHY YOU NEED TO EAT DURING COMPETITION During any high-intensity exercise your body is going to need a lot of energy, the reason athletes get fatigued, cramp up and injured during the later stages of competition is because they just run out of ENERGY! High intensity exercise includes weight lifting, rugby, football, tennis and any sport that requires repeated, intense activity for upwards of 60mins. The energy source used is called GLYCOGEN, and it is derived from all the carbohydrate (carbs) you should’ve eaten if you’ve read Part One! The benefits of ingesting carbohydrate during exercise include: You can play at a HIGHER intensity for LONGER when you eat or drink carbs DURING your performance. Your skill performance is going to be helped as you can last LONGER before exhaustion. You will immediately use what you ingest for energy, saving your body’s stores of glycogen, so you will perform BETTER ...

Here is something you’ll undoubtedly hear all the time……."If you aren’t eating correctly, there’s no point in training!” Now whilst I’m not quite inclined to agree with this it does carry some merit, especially if we look at the benefits of correct nutrition, PRE, DURING and POST exercise. The benefits of eating in the right ways include: 1) Greater fat loss 3) Greater mental clarity 4) Greater physical performance 2) Greater rate of recovery (Think muscle growth!)   WHY YOU NEED TO EAT BEFORE COMPETING For athletes competing in the mornings, the PRE-COMPETITION meal takes on a greater significance. The overnight fast whilst asleep has depleted a lot of your stored carbs. You gotta break the FAST, refuel the body with CARBS and RE-HYDRATE  the body. It takes 3-4 hours to digest, absorb and most importantly, STORE energy in your muscles.   Stick to eating carbs and lean protein BECAUSE: 1) Carbs digest and absorb into the body faster than anything else 2) ...

So you wanna be a rower? Ask yourself the following questions: 1) Are you doing HEAVY strength work using basic exercises?  e.g. squat, deadlifts, pull-ups 2) Are you doing sport specific conditioning? AKA do you get in the boat often enough?! 3) Are you complementing your HEAVY strength training with assistance exercises for the correct movements? You MUST be answering all 3 of the above questions with a resounding YES in order to succeed in rowing. Not to mention other questions on diet, recovery, sleep, tactics, teamwork. But as I’m going to assume that you are constantly rowing throughout each week lets just look at how to get as strong as a VIKING!   THE MOVEMENT Simply; the rower is constantly pushing with the legs and pulling with the upper body. So all of your training MUST centre around standing up with and pulling heavy weights. THE BASICS FOR STRENGTH To intensely stimulate the correct muscles in a similar movement pattern your basic strength training m...

This is part 1 of a series of articles giving modern updates to tried and tested and AWESOME OLD SCHOOL methods of strength and muscle building. Part One: Super Squats (Information from the book ‘SUPER SQUATS’ by Randall J. Strossen Ph.D.) The ‘super squats’ or ‘squats and milk’ program is famed for its ability to pack on muscle, quickly, and also infamous for its intense and difficult workouts! It has to be the BEST example that “simple does not necessarily mean easy!” Method: Super Squats proposes to help you quickly gain muscle and strength by completing the following: Pick a weight for squats that you can lift for ten reps and no more Do one set of 20 reps without putting the bar down Seems impossible! But there lies the biggest, perhaps only theory on how this program will increase muscle mass…. DOING TEN MORE REPS THAN YOU THINK YOU CAN DO, WILL MAKE YOU GROW There is also a basic program in the book which I probably can’t share here completely due to copyright laws but...

Today's society is cursed with several postural issues, mainly due to being seated for the majority of the day at a desk, car, breakfast table or watching tv. How long do you spend each day seated compared to standing or moving around? I’m willing to bet most of your time is in a seated position. Sitting down and constantly rounding your back as you lean forward creates what is called a ‘KYPHOTIC POSTURE’. Which is essentially a rounding of the upper back and can cause a whole bunch of other problems in the body. Imagine the body as a chain, and the head as the first link in that chain. The chain follows that first link! And if the head is out of line due to bad posture it can lead to hip and lower back problems as the rest of the body compensates the forward lean of the upper spine with a backward tilt of the lower spine. Naturally, if the spine is tilted the wrong way at both ends you end up with WEAKER MUSCLES! BAD TIMES So how do we sort our broken bodies out? Here are...

This is a HUGE deal, so pay attention! Especially if you don’t ‘believe’ in the benefits of resistance training. SO many times I’ve been into gyms, and worked within clubs, and seen athletes training for their sport using the wrong methods! I’d typically see bodybuilding style training…or training for ‘the pump’…which will NOT benefit sports performance as much as training for strength. STRENGTH training is the basis of any good strength and conditioning program and will enable you to turn that strength into superior performance in competition. Training to get stronger makes you a BADASS! Here are my top 5 reasons to be strong: 1) Greater Endurance: If you need endurance in your sport you gotta be strong! (This means football and rugby players too!) Gains in strength in the RELEVANT muscles for your sport will improve movement efficiency and therefore expend less energy. For example, lets say you have 80 units of strength in your body, and to go for a run this requires 40 units ...

When all else fails, turn the tunes up and lift some heavy stuff! The only way to guarantee victory is to TRAIN HARDER than your opponents…check out the vid below. The second guy in the video is Jacob (Warrington RUFC Under 15s), with his first EVER flip of the heavy tyre. Just shows the faith I had in his strength by filming the attempt!   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 , football , young , athlete , sport , raw , north , west , Anthony , shaw , workout , training , weight , lifting , lunge , tyre , sled , drag , finisher