Split squats and reverse lunges are commonly performed with an athlete holding one dumbbell or kettlebell in each hand. Naturally, this allows for an even distribution of weight on each side to help with balance and stability. After that, we typically have our athletes use a variety of other holds, loading patterns and positions such as: Goblet, Front Rack, 1-Arm Front Rack or 1-Arm Offset. But, what about loading …
Matthew Ibrahim
Support Your New Year’s Resolutions by Developing Consistent Health Habits
It’s a new year. 2022 is here. This means that we’ll be seeing New Year's resolutions and goals coming in waves related to fitness, nutrition, health, and performance. Just remember, the most potent “secret” to achieving them all is consistency. That’s the key. In order to support your New Year’s resolutions, let’s identify 4 key areas that you can begin targeting in your approach: Strength …
The Soleus: A Forgotten Powerhouse Muscle
If your athletes walk, jog, run, sprint, cut, change direction, jump, land, or do anything along the lines of locomotion… You should definitely be training the soleus muscle. When it comes to lower body power and explosiveness, the soleus muscle might be the single most important area. Let’s take a closer look at; what the anatomy and evidence tells us, key benefits of training the soleus muscle, and exercises …
#FindYourTrueCoach as a Way We’re Helping Coaches Grow
TrueCoach has been an amazing online platform that has grown exponentially over the past couple of years with a primary goal of supporting the growth of strength coaches and personal trainers. Consider how much change and growth has occurred in the online world recently, which has truly forced coaches and trainers to change up their overall services as a way to stay afloat. TrueCoach has been a shining light …
Keys for Building Up Client Fitness Levels Post-COVID for Summer 2021
Winter came and went. Like most of us, you likely spent a lot of time on the couch crushing a Netflix series and ordering Uber Eats. Spring is almost over, which had you stepping outside from time to time to avoid being called a vampire, or better yet, a homebody. Now, summer is right around the corner, you want to build up your fitness levels, but you’re clueless as to where to begin. Here’s a major key: …
5 Ways to Incorporate Arm Farm without Going Overboard
Arm farm has definitely become popularized in recent years for obvious reasons. Everyone wants to fill the sleeves. Well, now that summer is upon us, it’s a good time to start! Without getting too far ahead of ourselves though, let’s highlight key areas that you’ll want to target on your quest to Arm Farm County: Build the bicepsTrain the tricepsStrengthen the shouldersUse tempo work to your …
2 Keys for Lower Body Durability through Calf Training
When you think of calf training, your mind immediately time-travels to the classic bodybuilder pumping out calf work on the seated or standing machine.And, we only think hypertrophy and muscle growth. Even so, why do we think that's a "bad" thing? Calf training is super important for athletic development, long-term health, aesthetics, and so much more. Strong and durable calves help us do a ton of things well, …
3 Simple Strategies to Educate Your Athletes in Training
You went to school to become a strength coach. You learned the X’s and O’s of personal training through certifications. You gained knowledge and skills through educational seminars. And now, your job is to coach your athletes through training to improve their overall health and performance. But, they don’t really care about being educated. They just want to achieve their goals. Now, what? Simple: …
An Intelligent Approach to Core Training
Training the core (midsection) muscles isn’t as complicated as most make it out to be. Let’s start by first saying that your spinal column was designed to bend, rotate, flex, extend and move, in general. Some seem to have a train of thought that disallows spinal flexion or fear mongers when an athlete extends their spine. None of these movement patterns of the spinal column are dangerous or harmful for long-term …
How to Navigate Instagram by Finding Quality Accounts to Follow
Instagram is action-packed with information, news, updates, media, posts, etc. Quite frankly, it can become overwhelming at times, which makes it important to be able to sift through and find what is most useful to you. If you’re a personal trainer or strength coach, I’d imagine that you use Instagram primarily for two reasons: to learn more about other people doing awesome stuff in the field and to have a …