This is not easy and it’s actually the 3rd or 4th round of Jason performing it. I said it a few weeks ago and I’m sticking to it…. The racked sled walk (first exercise) is the hardest thing I have ever done. Put it in a metabolic circuit, preferably at the beginning, and you...

This could be the hardest damn exercise I have ever done and I hate Dan John for inventing it. Well, I don’t really hate Dan because he is like a sweet teddy bear (but obviously he has a mean streak). I’m not kidding when I say that the contraction from your abdominals during this...

I haven’t played on a set of monkey bars since I was a child and I’ll be honest, when my friends at Fitness Anywhere sent me a TRX/Monkey Bar rack, I felt like the uncoordinated kid on the playground. I COULD NOT BELIEVE HOW HARD IT WAS! I looked nothing like my primate...

Here are a few tough pushup variations for you to play with on the TRX. The first one requires two TRX’s and appears easier than it is. At the top position, where you can typically rest a bit, the TRX’s are pulling your arms into abduction so now the top position now becomes...

Here is an anterior core exercise we like at IPT. Like most of the TRX exercises, this is great because its so easy to progress and regress the exercise. For those of you that train groups of people, this is extremely important. Rather than having to explain an completely different movement...

Here is a great hip dominant selection that I picked up from my good friend Robert Dos Remedios. The nice thing about this exercise is how easy it is to regress or progress the difficulty (this is true with mostly all of the TRX exercises). Set the handles at about hip level, move away from...

This is an advanced progression off of a regular Valslide Pushup. You must have some impressive horizontal pushing strength along with core stability in order to do this….. Seriously, if you are weak you won’t be doing anyone any favors by butchering this great...

I have a Love/Hate relationship with the Bodysaw exercise…. it is now weighing a little heavier on the hate side. We have been having some fun in the gym with the sandbells and started throwing them into our bodysaw progression. Enjoy the...

Single leg squat with a sandbell.....

What do you do when Mike Boyle speaks? You shut up, listen and take notes. Coach Boyle has been my biggest influence in the industry as he always has a way of making complex subjects seem simple. That, in my mind, is the sign of a great coach. Here is what Mike has to say on some of the...

This is our final Sled/TRX exercise. Enjoy....

Here is the next exercise in our Sled/TRX series......

This is the first of a series of exercises I am going to show you with the combination of the sled and TRX.....

Timed sets are an interesting thing. Take a :30/:30 protocol for example (30 seconds of work followed by 30 seconds of rest). At first glance it seems to be purely metabolic given the short rest periods. We have been implementing these more at IPT and the rules of strength training are being broken...

Nothing fancy today… just hard work at the end of a training session. We did this for 3 continuous...

This is another great anti-rotation exercise on the TRX. The key here is that your hip stay stable as if a glass of beer is sitting on your low back...

This is a fantastic exercise that Chris Frankel from Fitness Anywhere came up with. We use this in our Anti-rotation progression. It is different than Stu McGill’s stir the pot exercise on the stability ball but the name is still...

This is a reactive core exercise we use with some of our MMA guys. By reactive I mean that they have respond to the coaches order to stabilize without knowing when the coach will call it out. This is to mimic the unpredictable nature of MMA....

I know! You can’t believe it right?!?!?! I am actually blogging. After getting hell from several people at the Perform Better Summit in Providence this past weekend, I figured I should work a bit harder to schedule time to update this blog. All I have today is a great warm up that we do...

The trick here is to use the pendulum effect as resistance. You can start behind the anchor point of the TRX to make it easier or move past the anchor point to create a more challenging...

Here is an article I wrote for Fitness Anywhere a couple months ago titled “TRX Core Training for Mixed Martial Arts”. I am a big fan of the TRX suspension trainer. It is such a versatile piece of equipment that can offer so many great exercises and variations that are not possible...

As you know, MMA is a passion of mine. From a sporting demand there is nothing like it. Many people ask how we train mixed martial artist. The truth is we train them very similar to any athlete. What is very different is our conditioning and in particular our use of metabolic circuits. These...

Here is one of our TRX Anterior Core Progressions: TRX Plank Coaching Cues:1. Maintain “pillar” type stability2. Do not allow excessive arching at the low back3. Perform a 30 sec hold. Once proficient progress to the next exercise rather than progressing in time TRX Body Saw Coaching...

This is great hip dominant exercise that we never really found efficient ways of loading. We now simply take a jiu-jitsu belt and load two kettlebells in...

To me, progression is the key to everything. I have a progression for every exercise I program. This is how you continually build success in an athlete or client. Here is a nice progression for the Inverted Row. Every single person that walks in the door at IPT will be doing some version of...

How should you challenge yourself more on plakning exercises?? You can do two things. Increase the time or increase the difficulty of the exercise. I prefer the latter (once someone can hold a plank for 30 seconds). Plus who wants to do a plank for 1 minute +?? There are endless ways to make...

I was having some “writer’s block” so I figured I wouldn’t write anything and rather post a few plyometric training videos that I had buried in my computer. Box Jump: Hurdle Jumps – continuous Lateral Bound &...

Here is a new progression for the SLDL that I did not have in my article The Deadlift: Teaching it and fixing it. It is a RFE (rear foot elevated) SLDL. I am almost embarrased that I have never thought of this. We catagorize (adopted from Mike Boyle) our single leg knee dominant exercises into...

Here is a nice progression for the plank exercise. Like always, spend time mastering the first exercise before moving on to the next. It’s about what you CAN do, not what you CAN’T do. 1. Kneeling Plank - This is a good entry level plank exercise for those who not yet have a...

The draw-in maneuver (hollowing) is commonly taught as a technique to activate the abdominals in order to stabilize the spine. In reality, this not a very effective technique for achieving spinal stiffness for a few reasons. First, drawing in the abdominal wall (belly button towards the spine)...

For those of you using the single leg squat, I am about to show you a much better way to train it that I learned from Mike Boyle a while back. Fist, take a second to look at the anatomy of the single leg squat as pictured below and in the last post. Pay attention to the non-working leg. What...

First off, if you are not training single leg movements for the lower body, you are crazy. Life and sport is on one leg. You don’t run two legs at a time….. rabbits do. Actually the reason for this post is not to state that single leg training is great for athletic performance or...

I thought I would post some of our favorite scap stability exercises. Many of our athletes tend to be a bit screwed up in the shoulder complex (and our normal clients due to sitting at the computer) when they first come in. We use a lot of different exercises but here are a few that we use...

This is a fun one that is a bit harder than it looks. It’s great for core/scapular stability. Focus on bracing the abdominals and pretend your favorite beer is on your hips……DON’T...

1. It seems a lot of folks in the fitness industry like gimmicks. Fancy speed ladder drills, stability ball exercises, bosu ball stuff, balance boards, tire flipping, and so on. What ever happened to the basics? Most everything has its place but people seem to jump on the bandwagon of the...

Q: There are conflicting views at my gym between the trainers on whether the toes should be turned out or straight ahead during a squat. What is your view on this topic? A: Many Coaches and trainers say that during loaded squats it is best to have the toes turned out 7-15 degrees. I completely...

RINGS!!!! I love them!!! Here some examples of a few exercises we use our rings for: Pushup (Horizontal Push) – This is one of the hardest pushups you will EVER do! Lots of shoulder stability…….I love it!! Inverted Row (Horizontal Pull) – I have shown this...

The side bridge is one of Stuart McGill’s BIG 3. One of the best benefits to the side bridge is that it gives you the highest abdominal load with minimal spinal load. It’s a WIN WIN. The video is a progressions that we do over several weeks. These are NOT done in one session. ...

The pushup is one of the most underrated exercises. It is a great corrective exercise, anterior core exercise and strength exercise. Yes big dudes, pushups are a great strength exercise (try throwing on a heavy weight vest and you will get the picture)! The pushup is what Gray Cook and Lee...

Aerobics suck!! There I said it. If you are doing 30 minutes to an hour of aerobic training to lose fat, you are wasting your time. If your goal is fat loss, high intensity interval training (HIIT) is your go to weapon. The downside to HIIT is…….well, it friggin’ sucks because it’s...