I shouldn’t get too sore since I wear Nike Free’s 5.0 most of the day, as well as doing a bunch of barefoot dynamic warm ups.

Since a bunch of people have been asking what the hell I’m wearing on my feet and why, I’ll touch on why you should start switching up your shoes and start working towards doing a lot training barefoot.

No, I wasn’t just surfing on Lake Washington….

Shoes may be the worst thing that has happened to the human foot. Think about it. Through years and years of wearing shoes (most of them with high soles, tons of “support”, high heels, air bubbles, etc.) we lose proprioception, fail to develop proper size and shape of our feet as well as shortening of tendons and ligaments, weakening of muscles and an increase of foot injuries. And that’s just the beginning, since it all goes up the kinetic chain and causes knee, hip and low back injuries amongst other things.

Our feet are the only part of our body that touches the ground the majority of the day and we decide to put a bunch of padding on them  (think of how capable our hands would be if we wore skiing gloves the whole day?). As soon as we add a bunch of artificial support with shoes it throws the foot of and makes a mess of the proprioception (this is the sense of where the feet are in space) and prevents the muscles of the foot from activating and working like they should. The better your feet get to grip the floor, the better you get to activate the muscles further up the kinetic chain.

People in the past knew the benefits of bareoot training….and it seemed like they were no woosies

Make the transition to barefoot training and I promise you will see improvements (significant improvements) in your lower body lifts, running, jumping, movement, lower body aches and pains, along with a lot of other benefits.

Please don’t go from one extreme to another and just start walking, training and running barefoot by next week. Just start doing warm ups barefoot and transition to a less supportive footwear for training. Training with Olympic lifts, sprints, plyometrics, etc. should take time to transition to and you should be more careful in doing barefoot training with those activities.

 Here are a couple of recommendations for footwear going from most support to least support:

- Chuck Taylor’s

- Nike Free’s

- Sanuks

- Vibram Five Fingers

Don’t let me find out you doing weighted box jumps barefoot right away and saying “Luka told me so”. Use some common sense and progress into fixing your feet and your body with barefoot training.

One another note I want to let you know about some great workshops going on in the Seattle area in the next couple of months. I should be at most of these as I’m always trying to learn new information that will help my clients as well as provide more great information to you guys. Click on the links if you would like to get more information on the workshops.

- Saturday February 28th, Miller’s Martial Arts Academy: Bodyweight and Joint Mobility Class with Steve Maxwell

- Saturday March 13th, Kettlebility Training  Studio: Hardstyle Kettlebell Certification (HKC) with Brett Jones RKC and Andrea Chang RKC

- Sunday March 14th, Kettlebility Training Studio: Kettlebells from the Center: Dynami, workshop with Brett Jones RKC

If you’re in the Greenlake area of Seattle then you should know that my friend and  fellow RKC Andrea Chang is also having a grand opening for her new Kettlebility Training Studio on Saturday February 26th from 5 p.m. till 9 p.m. They will be running some free classes, a transformation contest as well as some grub (how can you turn down the grub?). I should be there, so if you plan on coming drop by and introduce yourself, as I would love to meet you. 

Now the anything else I can think of part……

I haven’t mentioned it but I am extremely excited to be attending the Results Fitness Biz Mentorship second week of March. Spending three full days with Alwyn and Rachel Cosgrove working on training, business and life will be an incredible experience, which I know can only be an experience that will take Hocevar Performance to the next level.

I’m also planning to visit College of the Canyons and peak in on Robert Dos Remedios while I’m out there.

I will have an update on my trip as soon as I come back.

The truth is that a large number of the aches and pains people experience whether before, during or after training (especially if you’re not doing any training) are a direct result of bad posture, overcompensation, repetitive movement, tightness, weakness, muscles that don’t activate, a crappy training program, etc.

Many of the issues you may be experiencing can be fixed without having to go under the knife or visit a sacred shaman in the mountains of Tibet. What you do need is a training program that is catered towards your goals and addresses any issues you are experiencing.

While I will not go into the strength training and conditioning aspects of the program, I will dive into the dynamic warm ups that we use at Hocevar Performance to fix the problems that our clients may be experiencing (while I’m writing this I also want to point out how important it is to refer out when necessary as you cannot fix everything and you should always have your clients best interests at heart….this also means you should have a great network of PT therapists, ART guys or anyone else that can help your clients).

Our dynamic warm ups address (not always in that order):

-          Tissue quality (self myofascial release with foam roll, lacrosse ball, etc.)

-          Flexibility

-          Mobility   

-          Activation

-          Movement

Most of the time pain and discomfort in the body is present because there is a lack of one or more of the above. Just as one issue can cause another, fixing one issue can correct multiple problems (everything in the kinetic chain can affect other variables).

Dynamic warm ups can and should be used in multiple situations; at Hocevar Performance we use them for the following:

1. Warming Up – wow, didn’t see that one coming huh? The main reason we use the dynamic warm ups is to get the body prepared for the best training session possible. This means improving tissue quality, raising core temperature and getting the blood flow going as well as lengthening tight muscles, activating dormant ones and exciting the nervous system.

2. Assessments – I will resort to the BETA (Building The Efficient Athlete) and the FMS (Functional Movement   Screen) to asses clients but I found a great way to assess clients is putting them through some of the movements we use as our dynamic warm ups.

3. Corrective Exercise – almost everyone has issues so the dynamic warm ups includes exercises that address those issues. Who says you cannot integrate one into another. For clients that are coming out of physical therapy we will extend the dynamic warm ups so that it becomes part of their training. Since they are usually more de-conditioned they will provide enough of a training stimulus.

4. De-load Weeks – We will make the warm ups take over much of our training on de-load weeks. This way we can recover as well as address any issues present.

5. Fillers – fillers are dynamic warm up exercises that will be used in between sets during the strength training session. Fillers can be one exercise or a couple of exercises. This is a great way to get in some more exercises that will help fix the clients issues while they are waiting around to do the next set (this definitely goes for sets with longer breaks).

To give you an idea of how some of the warm ups look like I’m posting a couple of dynamic warm ups that we use before our upper and lower body training sessions:

We woulf foam roll the lower body thorougly before we would start with the warm ups…

Alternating Atlas Lunges x 5/each

Glute Stretch into Cosack Squat x 6

RF Mobilizations x 5/each

Ankle Mobilizations x 10/each

OH Wall Squat x 6

Inchworms x 5

Bowler Squats x 10/each side

Spiderman Lunge + Rotation x 3/each

Squat to Stand x 10

X-band Walks x 8/each

Jumping Jacks x 20

Seal Claps x 20

Highland Flings x 20

Foam Rolling: upper back traps, lats, chest, shoulders, triceps, biceps, forearms

Moving push ups x 5/each side

Scap Push Ups x 12

Reach, Roll & Lift x 5/each

TRX External Rotations x 15

Band Pull Aparts x 15

Barbell Muscle Snatch x 1o

DB Front, Lateral Raises, Press x 10/each

Pec Stretch x 20 secs./each

TRX Lat Stretch x 15-20 secs./each angle

Start implementing a dynamic warm up that will address the issues you may be facing into your training program. If you don’t have any issues, then add dynamic warm ups so you will continue to be without issues. It’s 10-15 minutes that you can’t afford to skip. Not only will it improve posture, get you more mobile, flexible and help you move better, but it will also fix weaknesses and indirectly improve your strength and performance.

What do your warm ups look like? Could you improve them?  

One of the most frustrating feelings you can have as a basketball player.

Or how about the one where you get shut down by a defender because you’re always getting beat to the spot?

When I had those things happen to me, my frustrations would drive me to train harder and stay after practice to play defense on the best scorers on the pro team (I was on the junior team at the time). It made me better on defense because I got better at reading the offensive players. But I didn’t get quicker and still couldn’t beat some of the players to the spot.

Still frustrated, it led me to reading and studying speed, agility and quickness training (and anything else that would improve it) from every resource I could get including going to Olympic track and field coaches and training with them. I believe that’s when my passion for training really begun (I had a purpose!), the first step to becoming a strength coach,  even though it would still be a long time before my basketball career ended.

Here’s a guy who’s basketball fast…

My experiences coupled with the knowledge, trial and error in the trenches, help me when teaching and training basketball players on how to get faster on the court.

I brought this issue up because I can honestly say that 80% of the questions I get asked by basketball players are either:

1. What do I need to do to jump higher?
2. How can I get quicker, faster and more explosive on the court?

Since I’ve talked about the first question quite a bit, I wanted to address the second question and go into a little more detail that will help you increase your basketball game speed.

Before I move on I would like to mention that basketball speed doesn’t have much if anything to do with your top sprinting speed. I’ve seen many basketball coaches outlining speed programs for basketball athletes with many sprints (sometimes the majority) going over 50 yards.

I’m not going to say that there are no benefits to this type of speed training but it’s not what you’re looking for if your goal is being untouchable on the basketball court. Let’s be realistic, when do you really ever sprint more than 20 yards in basketball game? Most sprints are between 5-15 yards and there is a ton of starting, stopping, as well as lateral and multi directional movement.

While I’m talking about no no’s for basketball game speed, let me mention another one – working on speed and quickness with short rest breaks and treating it as conditioning. Seen that before?

If you’re not quick and fast then training with short breaks and incomplete recovery will only help you run at the speed you’re already at over and over again. Conditioning is one thing, speed training is another.

Ok, now we can get to the meat and potatoes.

There are a lot of variables in becoming quicker, faster and more explosive on the court. I’m going to list the one’s that I think are the most important as well as some that are completely overlooked. In no particular order of importance:

1.       Posture – this is definitely one of the points that are overlooked! When I’m talking about posture I mean having optimal alignment to transfer force for sprinting, starting, stopping, jumping.  Here are some of the most prevalent issues when it comes to messing up your posture:

-          Tight hip flexors

-          Gluteal amnesia (a.k.a. your butt doesn’t activate and work like it should)

-          Weak core

-          Tight hamstrings

-          Stiff ankles

-          Rounded upper back (shoulder forward posture)

-          Forward head posture

Let’s just say his posture is holding his speed development back…..

These are definitely some of the most important issues that cause postural issues. If you are not in good alignment then you have what is called power leaks. These “leaks” prevent you from applying all the force and into the ground, making you a lot less powerful, as well as more prone to injury. The good thing is that a lot of times fixing one helps fix some of the others.

How to fix them?

A good program design that will address the issues with foam rolling, stretching, mobility and dynamic warm ups, as well strength training and corrective exercises that are going to get you where you need to be.

2.       Technique – Yes, you actually have to have good technique for accelerating, running and stopping. Fixing your posture will help with technique but you still have to work on it to get good at it (especially when you’ve done it engrained the wrong technique). I know many players that have good speed, quickness and power only to have really crappy technique which is slowing them down.

Making sure the hips are working without the back bedning…

 3.       Relative Strength – Just get stronger! I’ve talked about this many times before but one of the best ways to get faster is to get stronger. Even though it sounds simplistic, it goes back to force production. The more force you can apply into the ground the faster you will go. There is a catch though; you have to apply that force quickly. More on that later….

Yes, this will make you faster (noises included)….

 Front squats, box squats, deadlift variations, bench press, chin ups, strongman training and everything in between. If you want to get stronger you’re going to have to get to know the above exercises and start lifting in lower rep ranges (1-6 reps) rather than constantly doing higher rep pansy exercises (which may help you get in a Speedo on stage…….take that back, it won’t even help you with that).

 4.       Explosive Strength – This type of training will help us generate force fast and without the use of any elastic energy (momentum). Think about the first step in basketball, or jumping without momentum.  

 To train explosive strength you can use a lot of different tools. Some of my favorite are Olympic lifts (clean, snatch jerk) with a barbell or kettlebell, pause squat jumps and box jumps, speed box squats (chains and bands), tire flips, broad jumps, sled pulls, medicine ball throws and different accelerations and deceleration drills (and honestly, any other innovative exercise that will help you with explosiveness). These exercises should be done for lower reps with maximum acceleration and power.

Cleans are great if a player can do them, if they have restrictions there is other tools and exercises….

 5.       Training Deceleration – You have to learn how to stop first. Most injuries in basketball come at a time of deceleration because the body cannot handle it. Train to decelerate whether it is from jumping or running, stopping and changing direction.

 How should you train to decelerate effectively? Strength train and do absorption and plyometric drills to handle forces of deceleration. Drill proper landing and stopping mechanics, as there is an optimal way to stop (watch some players that always land on one leg when coming down from a jump).

You’d never think “slowing down” would be so important for speeding up!

 6.       Reactive Strength (Reactivity) – Reactive ability is extremely important. Basketball is an extremely reactive game as it is so chaotic and changes on play happen quickly, so when they do you want to be able to stop fast (which we covered) and then change direction and re-accelerate. Since this happens so fast, your tendons store the elastic when you stop and reapply into acceleration. The same happens when having to jump consecutively without pausing.

Reactivity can be trained to a pretty high degree (we will touch on genetics later). Plyometrics are a great way to improve reactive ability. There are progressions depending on the physical preparedness of the player which can range from simple hops and jumps to single leg bounding, depth jumps, etc.

 7.       Multi-directional speed and quickness – This is a combination of starting and stopping and being able to transition into different movements and directions. In basketball you may have to backpedal, then sprint and immediately drop down into a defensive stance and do lateral slides. All the above point will help you with multi directional speed and quickness but that doesn’t mean that training it with specific drills and technique will not help you, because it certainly will.

 8.       Chaos Basketball Speed – Chaos speed training is putting all that we have learned into chaotic drills where change of speed and direction will be unpredictable and specific to the sport. This type of training is very broad and can be applied in many different ways but it is an incredible tool in improving basketball game speed.

Even though it is a volleyball team doing the drills, it’s a great example of the chaos speed training that could be applied to baskteball. Robert Dos Remedios Chaos Sport Speed DVD is a great resource for this type of training!

 Many times we will use a basketball while doing these drills to really get a more game like feel and have the player get used to doing all the drills at full speed with a basketball.

 9.       Basketball Skill and Playing The Game – All the above doesn’t matter if you’re playing basketball, you’re on offense and you have crappy ball handling skills, because you may have a quick first step and end up leaving the ball behind you. Being fast and quick and being crappy at basketball is not going to get you far on the hardwood (well, maybe you can still change sports and you can give me credit for being fast and quick there).

 I know that should be self explanatory but how many times have you met someone that has trained their vertical day and night, they can dunk like no other, only to find out they really suck at playing the game of basketball.

Above is a thorough list of the things you need to fix or improve on to get quicker, faster and more explosive on the basketball court. You may already be good or proficient at some but need work on some others. Ussually the aspect that you hate working on the most, is the one you need to work on the most!

Who needs what will be pretty individual and can be found out with some testing. To make it simple think of it this way, if you’re already a really reactive player but you’re too weak to lift up a bag of groceries, then you will see a lot of progress with improving relative strength and explosiveness (and make sure you’re posture doesn’t suck!). If you’re strong but feel like the weight of the world is pulling you down when you try to explode, then you may do a lot better with improving reactivity, explosiveness and training deceleration (there is also a slight possibility you’re a fat ass and you need to get your nutrition in check….that would explain the weight of the world thing). For most players, they will do besy progressively improving all the above aspects.

Now that you know what you need to work on, get to it! Knowing what to do and doing it are two separate things and action takers will always rise to the top. Are you one of them?

Love and hate.

I relate the former to the latter. I love the results that the complexes get me and my athletes/clients, but I hate thinking about doing them and waiting to pick up the barbell before my set is about to begin. They are probably one of the toughest things you can do when it comes to training/conditioning. If you don’t agree with me then please try a set of this barbell complex with 115 lbs  on the bar (you should also focus on speed of movement as well as form and get through it under 1:30 minutes). Go for 3 sets with a 90 second break:

- Deadlift x 10

- Bent Over Row x 10

- Clean x 10

- Push Press x 10

- Squat Jump x 10

- Alternating Reverse Lunges x 10

Ok, now take around 20 minutes to get yourself together, drink a post workout Surge recovery drink  and try not to pass out. Maybe they got your attention?

Lately, complexes have started becoming “popular”  again and you will see more written about them in the near future. The reason why you probably won’t see everyone doing them at your local gym though,  is because they’re crazy hard and uncomfortable and that’s just not acceptable for most people (sarcasm intended). Most prefer the hamster wheel for 45-60 minutes of steady state cardio which includes a nice dose of muscle breakdwon and a spoon full of overuse injuries.

Fortunately there is not enough space for a human sized hamster wheel at Hocevar Performance, so we stick to things such as barbell, kettlebell and other complexes to get mutant conditioning

But let me back up a little bit first…..I might have jumped the gun without even explaining what complexes are. For those of you who don’t know what complexes are, I will try to make it as simple as possible to understand. You would choose two or more exercises using the same implement/tool and load (we can use just about anything, barbells, dumbells, kettlebells, cable’s, sandbags, etc….), then choose your number of repetitions, sets, and load. Then you would perform the exercises in a back to back fashion. Just as an example, if you chose to perform a barbell from squat into push press for 3 sets of 10, you would perform all 10 reps of your front squats and then immediately perform 10 push presses without putting the bar down. We usually do four or more exercises in a complex and we will change the repetitions depending on goal and load.

Some things you should stick to when doing the complexes:

• The exercises should follow a smooth transition pattern
• You cannot put down implement/tool until the whole set of the complex is over
• The load should be determined based on the weakest movement. For example, if your complex is made up of deadlifts, rows, snatches, overhead squats and lunges, you would choose a load that you could handle for your weakest lift (which in this case would be the overhead squat)

Enough with the instructions……

Here’s what we use the complexes for (and how) at Hocevar Performance:

- Meatbolic Conditioning and fat loss: This is what we primarily use the complexes for, creating a huge metabolic disturbance that is great for fat loss. It is also an incredible tool for anaerobic conditioning. For this we will use 8-12 reps per exercise and we will never go over 120 second break (usually 90 seconds or less).

- Muscle Building: Since complexes will make you stay under tension for long periods of time (many times over 60 seconds), they are also great for building muscle. We will stay within the 5-8 reps per exercise range here.

- Strength and Explosiveness: Even though you cannot load the complexes as much as you would the exercises by themselves, heavy complexes have had a significant impact on our athletes strength and power. We will go as low as 2-4 reps on these. To give you a better idea of how a heavy complex would look like check out what we did on Saturday using a 195 lb barbell (3 reps per exercise)…

So what part of the workout do we put the complex in?

Mostly we will put it after the lifting session or it will be done on the off days as your cardio strength training (replacing the regular cardio).

The great thing about complexes is the ease of progressions (load, time, speed, sets, reps) and the amount of tools you can use them with. We will change it up in different cycles and move from barbells to dumbells, kettlebells, sandbags, etc. To get an idea you  can check out some complex loaded kettlebell conditioning.

I hope that you’re using complexes in your training as I promise that you wil reap the benefits especially when it comes to conditioning and fat loss.

Let me know what type of complexes you use. If you don’t use them yet then finish of your next training session with three sets of the complex that is presented at the top of the post with a weight that is challenging for you. Let me know how it goes!

Honestly, the sentence should have held true in 2009, the year before that, and the year before that…..you know where I’m going with this…..it should hold true for every day of your life!

Even better I think the combination of passion and purpose trump everything.

I would like to believe that I follow that everyday, doing what I do because of passion and purpose. At the same time I cannot lie that sometimes life can take you of track and get your priorities mixed up. It has happened to me before and it still happens when there is a lot of things going on at once and the stress builds up. When it does, it helps when you get inspired and reminded what you are doing.

This Christmas I got reminded by someone I didn’t expect…..

For Christmas I went to Slovenia again to visit my family. When I’m there I train at two places, one is the gym I co-own Ljubljana Kettlebell Center and the other is an old (and I mean old) underground weightlifting gym I got hooked on when my friend Ziga took me there for the first time a little over a year ago. In the old weightlifting gym the atmosphere there is completely different then what you’d expect, as its really focused and quiet. No music or yelling allowed! It’s an Eastern Block mentality where the rules were that you should only be able to hear the sound of your coach and the sound of the weights hitting the ground. Not what most of you would consider underground and hardcore right? It was a little weird for me too since we get pretty nuts at Hocevar Performance.

A completely different atmosphere…..

After only a couple of visits I started to get it though. Being there was almost therapeutic, and the focus I had there was incredible. I’ve done about 9-10 training sessions in that gym this past year and three of them I set personal records on lifts. Needless to say it is a special place.

But here is the real reason it is special, coach Peter. He is 72 years old and he comes to the gym 5 days a week, opens it up and trains whoever is willing to be taught olympic lifting (and any other type of strength training for that matter). He used to be an olympic lifter back in the days of Yugoaslavia and he has been teaching olympic lifts for over 50 years!!

He reminds me of Micky from the Rocky movies and he is the real deal. Always encouraging, never negative and so many nuggets of training wisdom broken down to the simplest instructions. He never complains and cares about every single person that comes through the doors (even if its just a couple of times a year like me). This is the crazy part, he charges $15 a month for the use of the gym as well as hands on training every time you’re there. I couldn’t believe it when I heard it. I had to ask why so little as I would be willing to pay ten times that just to train there. He said that he just needs to cover the costs and he enjoys it so much that seeing people get better is more than enough. He also feels that the great training information from the past is not being passed on as it should be so he is trying to instill it in others to continue what he is doing.

My friend Ziga told me that he has got less and less time to go to the underground gym since our gym is thriving and his schedule is busier then ever, but that he goes none the less because of how much it means to coach Peter. He has even started doing olympic weightlifting competitions because Peter has convinced him he can do great in them (and honestly for a 185 lb guy Ziga has put up some pretty good numbers!).

On my way to a hang clean PR…

Coach Peter’s passion and purpose have really helped me light up mine as well, and I thank him for that! Hocevar Performance is of to the best start ever in 2010 and sky is the limit from here.

When you get of track or if you feel like you’ve never been on it, I urge you to find your passion and purpose and pursue them with everything you have. You cannot imagine (or I hope that you can) all the things you can achieve.

What are you passionate about and what is your purpose? What goals have you set for 2010?

Wow, its been a long time coming…….long, long time……but WELCOME!

First I have to apologize for being MIA for so long and even though I have had a ton going on, there really isn’t any excuse for not providing you great information all this time. I hope you accept my deepest apologies. Really.

But as always I want to focus on today and the future, not what was (that’s my way of getting out of it). With that said, I present to you the new Hocevar Performance site. Definitely more schick (I hope that means anything to you, if not, then my excuse is that I’m European) than what was up earlier. Even though it’s not completely souped up yet, it’s got a lot more firepower then before

So what are you going to see from the new Hocevar Performnace site? More content, articles, videos, workouts, guest content, interviews, did I say videos?  I’m also contemplating on putting up a member area (really, I have no idea how to do that….but I know someone who can).

One things for sure, there is no shortage of things to talk about as there has been so much going on at Hocevar Performance along with testing a whole bunch of training and nutritional protocols, supplements etc. Actually I’m writing this post in the middle of the night because I’m having trouble sleeping. Reason? The super accumulation program with 9 training sessions per week! I will keep you posted how that is going and what the results are going to be like….if it doesn’t kill me.

I really want to hear what you what you want to see more of on this site as I’m going full throttle in 2010

1. They work!
2. The training is versatile and fun (well, I call it fun).
3. They work!

I have been using kettlebells for almost 7 years now and there was a time where I trained exclusively with kettlebells while getting some of my greatest gains in strength and performance. I became an RKC (Russian Kettlebell Instructor) around 3 years ago and my team leader at the time was Kenneth Jay.

Kenneth is unique in the fact that he walks the walk, as you can see from some of his feats of strength (wait till the part where the senior instructors show their skills, you can even spot me in te vid)while also having an incredible knowledge base and staying in the trenches training Olympic and elite athletes as well as many others. His new book Viking Warrior Conditioning is an incredible resource on V02 max training and building a unstoppable conditioning machine. I have used the protocols for fat loss training and we’ve had some pretty crazy results.

You will be happy to hear that Hocevar Performance and Kettlebility are hosting Kenneth Jay for a 1 day workshop on The Quickest Way To Achieve Fat Loss and Forge a Heart Of Steel (the V02 max protocols). Kenneth will also be covering some of his insights on program design (this cannot be missed!). The workshop will take place at  downtown Seattle Xplore Fitness.

We are really going all out with some of the bonuses (an extra workshop?) and spots are filling up fast, we have 12  8 spaces left. To check out all the information about the workshop, go over to http://www.kettlebility.com/content/workshops

As Dan John states in his book Never Let Go, out of five training sessions one will be great, one will suck, and three will be the trainings that you get in, get it done and get out. Every once in a while though you will have “that” training session where you just got nuts and it you couldn’t repeat it if you tried a hundred times.

Here is the thing, we always go hard and do what we came to do (even if its a recovery session), but never the less your body and mind can’t always be in peak performance. Anyone that has been training for a long period of time will understand what I’m talking about.

But this Saturday morning was “that” training session! We all actually came in a little sluggish and it wasn’t looking great during the first part of warm ups, but thankfully a floor full of crushed Spike cans changed the mood and everyone started to get that look like they’re ready to go. This Saturday it was our Strongman day and rather than giving you vivid descriptions I will write what we did and give you the rest in video’s.

Foam (PVC) Rolling, Stretching, Dynamic warm up, Activation, then…..

1. Reactive Jumps of a 14” box coupled with Barbell Squats Jumps 4 setx x 6 reps

2. Barbell Snatches 4 sets x 3 reps coupled with band resisted heavy Tire Flips 4 sets x 10 reps

Honestly we could have been done after that and it would have still been killer…

3. Keg Clean & Press 3 sets x 6-8 reps coupled with KB Clean and Press 3 sets x 10 reps

Heart rate is through the roof after the keg, 170 and above

4. Tire Wrestling 3 sets x 40 seconds

And we finished it all of with real heavy sled drags for 3 sets of 50-60 yards (I admit I didn’t measure anything, I was too smoked at that point in time). My wife seemed to be a little more fresh since she just got to ride the sled.

Enough said!

This training cycle is going to run for only two weeks with a lower volume week as its really taxing on the body. No matter what you do for training make sure that the training is leading you to accomplish the set goal. It’s hard to look at our program from one day and say where I’m going with it but at the end of the day my main focus is to get my athletes to their goal which is improved performance on the playing field. Don’t do shit just because!

Let me know if you remember “that” training session that you had at some point in time. The one that you will always remember. If I get more than 10 comments I will post the crazy conditioning session from Thursday, and yes I’ll remember that one too.

Last week I was at the Perform Better Summit in Long Beach as I make it one of my goals to continuously get better at my craft whether from a training or a business standpoint. I attend the PB Summit every year because it is the most information packed weekend when it comes to new and relevant fitness, performance enhancement, rehab, fitness business etc. information and most importantly networking.

The biggest downside to the event is having to choose who you are going to see as there are overlapping lectures and hands on sessions! I don’t think that’s too bad of a downside.

So why am I bringing up the question “Are you still learning?”

It seems that many people feel once they have made it to a certain level, they really don’t need to get better at what they do. You wouldn’t believe how many online fitness “experts” haven’t been to a training seminar, trained others or invested in a product that would make them better at their craft, in a long time.

When you come to the Perform Better Summit it’s a different story. You will see some of the top minds in the fitness industry in the back of the lecture room taking notes from other presenters! Presenters that are taking notes at other lectures, that’s what it means to constantly keep learning and getting better at what you do. You are either moving forward or moving backwards…..there is no standing still or maintaining!

This brings me to another learning experience that happened this week. I had the Atlanta Hawks head strength and conditioning coach Chattin Hill come by the Hocevar Performance Gym as he was visiting his hometown. We talked shopped and exchanges ideas, information and tips and more importantly trained together with the athlete group because you learn more in the trenches than in any textbook.

Chatt getting ready to snatch after Martez

So you start seeing a common trend. The best in the industry just keep getting better while the people that need to catch up the most keep stagnating a.k.a. keep goin backwards.

So ask yourself, what have you done today or what are you going to do tomorrow to get better at what you do? I know I have already scheduled my next two seminars/mentorships and I just went on a shopping spree at Barnes and Noble (not what most people would call a fun shopping spree).

What was the even, experience, book, that you attended or read lately that has made you better at your craft? Would love to hear your thoughts….

If the answer to that question is no, then my question is why the hell not?!

Training outside in nature is not only refreshing, it also changes the pace of workouts and takes you back to nature. I will train outdoors not only to get a change from always being in the gym but it’s a mix of hard training and relaxation. I can’t explain the feeling I get after going through a hard workout on the beach or on the trails. Afterwards I’ll just sit there and relax and think about things and because my mind is so clear it’s when I come up with some of my best ideas.

I could give you all this scientific evidence why training outside is great but I’m really not. I’m just letting you know my experience. Experiment with it a little and tell me how it feels after you get done getting through a brutal outdoor training session.

We won’t use this as our main training program but rather for conditioning, extra GPP and building work capacity. If you are trying to lose body fat then these are some perfect workouts to change the pace and get outdoors.

So what happened today?

Location: Coulon Beach Park

Time: 8:45 p.m.

Tools: Kettlebell and bodyweight

Started with 1. KB clean and press + pull up ladders 4 sets x 1,2,3,4,5

2. (KB Swings x 10, Broad Jumps x 20 yards, Sprint x 20 yards) x 5 rounds

 3. KB Snatches x 10/each side, Jumping Lunges x 5/each side, Crab Walks x 40 yards) x 4 sets

4. (KB Clean and Throw x 2/each side, Figure 8 to flip x 5/each side) x 3 sets

Now that the weather has been nice in Seattle and it stays warm late, I’m getting in at least 2 extra workouts a week outside on,of walking a lot (yes I said walking) and a lot of arefoot interval sand sprints.

My mind is so clear when I train outside I find it to be one of the things that can take me from stressed to calm faster than anything else. So why do I train outside? Because it’s refreshing, hard, relaxing, releasing and free.

If you train outside, what does it do for you and what type of training do you do?