Author archive for: Greg

The Simple Truth

Published by hammershed on November 13, 2015

Exercise: Squat, Hinge, Push, Pull, Bridge/Weighted carry, and Repeat.

Nutrition: Eat less grains, eat vegetables with every meal, and drink mostly water.

That’s it.

If your coach or trainer is not teaching you this, you need to contact me!

Tuning Up :: The Off Season for Throwers

Published by hammershed on October 31, 2015

The most common thing I hear from athletes at the end of the season is a variation of, “I’m going to live in the gym this summer and come back jacked”. I love that enthusiasm but can’t help feel like I have failed a little bit as a coach. Don’t get me wrong, general strength is an important part of throwing, but its not everything. What I really hope to hear from my athletes is “I am going to work my ass off this summer and come back a BETTER THROWER“. Looking “Jacked” or simply getting stronger in the bench press and back squat isn’t necessarily going to make you throw further. General strength will ALWAYS be included in my athletes workouts, but there are so many other aspects of the day and training habits that should be addressed. In this article I will cover some things you can do to tune up your daily routine. The off season is the perfect time to reassess everything, make new habits, and prepare for fall training.

Throw More

If you want to get better at something, do it MORE. I have always been fascinated with throwers taking the entire summer off from throwing. Stop it! You need to be throwing year round! Do you think Michael Jordan took three months off after the season? No, he and every other great athlete spend their off season working on things that need improvement.

Throws Specific Strength

This is a big one. I think that this is where we as American throwers have gone wrong. Being able to squat/bench/dead lift a bus does not translate to a world record throw as much as we want it to. Being strong never is a bad thing but we need to be stronger throwers not stronger power lifters. After we finish throwing my athletes work on throws specific strength with exercises like heavy implement throws, kettlebell throws, shot throws, and other exercises that mimic the throws.

Learn

No one can know everything about any one subject. Look at any great coach, professor, or entrepreneur and you will find they are always seeking more knowledge. Devote at least 30-60 min. a day to learning more about your sport, it will make you a better thrower.

Walk

I have found that there is something very therapeutic about going on walks and there is no doubt that moving more is great for us all. This is especially true for people like me who sit at a desk all day. For the last year or so I have made it a point to go outside and walk on my lunch break. On nice spring and summer nights I take a second walk after dinner. These walks give me the opportunity to unwind, get away from the pressures of life, and learn something new (walks are a perfect time to feed your brain with knowledge from audio books and pod casts).

Eat Real food

This subject could be several posts in itself and people have a lot of political, ethical, and religious views that influence their food choices. With that said I think that we can all agree that there is always room for improvement in our diet. Michael Pollan reminds us that, “We are what we eat eats” and that a lot of what we consume is “edible foodlike substances”, not REAL FOOD . My advice would be, eat as far down on the food chain as possible. Eat whole, organic, and local foods. The fewer ingredients the better.

Goals and a Plan

Goals get us motivated, plans KEEP us motivated and give us the directions to our goals. Don’t limit yourself, put real thought into what you want to do, and then map out a plan of how you are going to get there. Having smaller goals can serve as milestones and show you that you are on the right track.

The better I am at following the above mentioned things the better I feel and the better I throw. If I am feeling “Off”, low on energy, or my motivations is missing, chances are I am slacking off on one or more of these items. There is nothing ground breaking in any of these suggestions nor are they meant to be a quick fix to anything. What I hope you do take from this is, always having goals, being dedicated to those goals and putting in the work will always help you improve at anything.

Starting a New Journey

Published by hammershed on October 26, 2015

backSquat102415 Today is day 14 in a journey of doing squats everyday. For the last several years I have neglected back squats in my training. Exercises such as Rear Foot Elevated Split Squats (RFESS), Front Squats, and Pistol Squats; along with Power Cleans and Snatches have been the majority of my leg work. As a result my ability to load a lot of weight onto the bar, put it on my back and bust out a big full depth squat just isn’t where I would like it to be. Several months ago I started adding Back Squats into my workouts and I simply was not comfortable in the the positions Back Squats put me in. Never one to just give up on something I started to obsess over improving my Back Squat numbers.

I started reading about how the Bulgarian weight lifters trained heavy most days of the week. I found articles from people like John Broz, Corey Gregory, and Dan John. All well respected lifters and coaches who have incorporated much higher frequency into their programs and found great success. The idea of spending more time doing the things you want to improve just makes sense to me. I haven’t been comfortable with heavy weights on my back for years, so why not just get comfortable with it by doing it more? I figure If I were to do heavy Back Squat 2-3 times a month its going to take much longer to be comfortable with heavy weight compared to doing it 4-5 times a week. Not only am I doing squats everyday but each workout I am working up to heavy triples and singles each workout. To keep boredom from setting in I am changing the variation of squats I do from day to day. Front Squats, Back Squats, Pause Squats, Narrow and Wide Stance Squats all get worked into the program so the weight I am doing for those heavy triples and singles can vary significantly.

Although it’s still early in this program I have already had a couple highs and lows. I have been able to add a good amount of weight to my front squats and I feel more comfortable doing squats. I have also had days when just getting under the bar was a chore and a heavy triple was only 185 pounds. I don’t know where this journey will take me but I invite you to follow along. To keep me motivated and honest I post “proof” to Instagram everyday. When I have the time I will also post “Squat Progress Reports” summarizing how my training is coming along.

40-Day Workout

Published by hammershed on August 12, 2015

Back in 2012 my venture into the 40-Day workout was an experiment based off a suggestion by Dewy Nielsen. I had also seen this workout posted by Dan John but never thought to give it a try. This workout involves 5 exercises, 40 straight workouts, and 2 sets of 5 repetitions for each exercise. Every repetition is done with perfect technique, and not a single repetition or set gets missed. My variation of the 40 day workout was Turkish Get-ups, Front Squats, Bench Press, Pull-ups, and Ab Roll-outs. I did the workout M-F taking Sat and Sunday off. Looking at this workout on paper my first thought was, I don’t know if this is enough, its going to be too easy. I found that as the week progressed the workout got harder, but it was never too hard. I never found myself sore in the morning, and I was always able to do at least the same weight I did the day prior. Mondays I felt the most fresh and typically was the day I added weight to my lifts. The key to this workout is the frequency and quality of the repetitions not the intensity. Therefore my priority was NOT to lift to failure or for maximum weight. Regardless, the weights DID get easier and I did find myself making improvements in EVERY lift.

Exercise	Day 1	Day 40
TGU	16 kg	24 kg
Front Squat	175 lbs.	225 lbs
Bench Press	185 lbs.	225 lbs
Pull-ups	Bodyweight	+25 lbs.
Ab Roll-out	2 sets 5 reps using a fitness ball	2 sets 6 reps using ab roller

Pretty amazing stuff! Going into this experiment I never would have thought I could make these type of gains with a lower intensity workout. I attribute my personal success to my focus on performing EVERY SINGLE repetition perfect, and making sure that I never missed a repetition. It was that focus that allowed me to learn a lot about my body and how it moves. I think that it is safe to say that most of us don’t concern ourselves with the quality of each repetition like we should. The 40-day workout is a great tool for reminding us its not always about how heavy we lift. Frequency and quality are major contributors to success.

40 days…. Yeah its a long time to be doing the exact same workout 5 days a week. Mentally I did have some struggles with it. There were days when I could not bare the thought of doing another TGU. Other days I would catch myself day dreaming about doing a few good sets of hang cleans. There is a time and place for this workout, choose wisely.

Generally speaking, my college athletes are strong but most of my freshmen did not have a high school strength and conditioning coach and are not technically sound lifters. As a coach I love this workout. Used as a fall training workout it allows me to teach my athletes safe and proper movements through a handful of exercises for 8 weeks, rather than 7-10 exercises that change every three weeks. I could also see this being a good workout while we are “in-season”. Unlike other workouts I NEVER felt sore from the 40-day workout and it never affected my hammer throwing, which is important during the season when we are focusing on technique throwing our best.

What is HammerShed

Published by hammershed on July 10, 2015

Physical fitness and sports have been part of my entire life. I played every sport I could growing up and I have been lifting weights since I was 12 years old. Its been an obsession, its been part of my formal education, its been my job, and will always be my passion. Sports and Fitness not only feed my competitive nature they provide health, happiness, and opportunities.

My resume is not full of world records, national championships or advanced degrees but rather full of diversity, experience, and LOVE for sport, competition, and exercise science. I have competed and coached at the national level in collegiate track and field. I have a Bachelors of Science in Health and Human Performance. I have been a personal trainer for a variety of demographics from professional athletes to men and women in their 90’s.

My body has served as the laboratory for an innumerable amount of philosophies of coaching, nutrition, conditioning, and natural healing. I have taken myself from a 60 meter hammer thrower to a 3-1/2 hour marathon runner in less than a year. I’m not that “Kettle Bell Guy” or that “Power Lifter Dude”, but I have coached and trained with them. I have buried myself in Gray Cooks functional movement world, preached the transfer of training principles of the Dr. Anatoli Bondarchuk, and frequent numerous sports medicine and exercise science journals. All this hard work and study hasn’t made me a world class discus thrower, nor will my knowledge and research allow me to grace the stage at the next Mr.Olympia. What it has given me is perspective. When I train my athletes, personal training clients, or myself I pull from every field I’ve studied to fit the needs and goals of who I am working with.

HammerShed is a place to share my views and perspective on a wide range of topics from Coaching, Personal Training, Fitness, and Nutrition.