11.03.04
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Q: Joe,
I am a 43 year old male, who recognizes the need to
work out. I like the ideas your website espouses,
but, at the risk of getting my balls busted, the sport
I want to train for is golf. I know the strength benefit
required for this sport might fly in the face of all
you believe to be holy, but I am serious. What would
you recommend for training for this "grueling"
sport?. . .
Cheers,
Brian
A: Brian,
By no means should the strength benefit
required for golf be over-looked! I’m actually
pumped that you realize the importance of a properly
designed strength training program for golfers. Heck,
Tiger Woods has even publicly praised the benefits
of strength training. This doesn’t mean that
strength training should take precedence over your
time on the green, but it should be incorporated.
Here are a few tips to get you started:
-
Incorporate extra trunk rotational
work to your weak side into your program. I met
a pro golfer a couple of months ago and his latissimus
dorsi and spinal erector on his left side had
hypertrophied to about 3X the size of his right
side. It was the biggest muscular imbalance that
I’ve ever seen! Since he’s always
swinging a golf club to his left, I recommended
he do some extra cable woodchopper variations
for his right side a couple of times a week. Incorporating
this into his program may save him from a lifetime
of back problems.
-
Speaking of muscular imbalances,
train your external rotators twice a week. Once
a week perform 1 or 2 exercises with your upper
arm abducted; on the other day perform external
rotator work with your upper arm at your side.
This will ensure that both your infraspinatus
and teres minor are being activated.
-
Although golf is very different
than powerlifting or football, your lower-body
workout can be very similar. I would highly recommend
performing wide stance box squats or a deadlift
variation, then a unilateral exercise and then
an exercise for your posterior chain. Finish your
leg day by crushing your abs. Alternate between
weighted abdominal exercises and high-rep abdominal
training. This is a similar template that I use
with my football players, but you would benefit
from it greatly as well. Remember what I said
in my
10
Training Myths Exposed article, “
Playing
your sport makes the strength that you gain in
the weightroom sport specific!"
-
On your upper body days, focus
on strengthening your lats, upper back and forearms
(while still training all of the other major
muscle groups of the upper body). You can incorporate
abdominal work on your upper body days as well.
Don’t be afraid to train your forearms
like an animal! Get out of your “golfer”
mentality and train your grip like an animal.
Work on all variations of forearm training -
radial and ulnar flexion, crushing grip, supporting
grip, etc. Check out
dieselcrew.com.
Those dudes are obsessed with grip training
and you can get some ideas from their site.
People say that some of the biggest
business deals in the world take place on the golf
course. I say, “Who gives a shit! I’d
rather be lifting weights!”
Joe D.
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Q: Joe,
My name is Bert Sims and I was
introduced to your work through your
articles on T-Nation. I also purchased your video
and thoroughly enjoyed it. My goal as a career is
to be doing exactly what you are doing - training
driven athletes at all levels. I would like to know
what steps you took to get your own facility (if you
have your own, I assume you do from the pics I see
in the articles)? Also, what type of transition did
you make to having your own business? I am very interested
in what you have to say because from what I can tell,
you are doing what you love to do and are successful
at it.
Much thanks and appreciation
for your time.
Train Smart, Train Hard and
Prosper,
Bert
A: Bert,
Thank you for the praise and I wish
you the best of luck in this field. It is a great
career. Some days (when I actually have a free minute)
I sit back and reflect on how thankful I am to be
doing what I love for a living. Some people go through
life miserable and stressed out because they hate
their job. That is no way to live. Anyway, enough
corny BS, let’s discuss your question.
First of all, believe it or not, I don’t
even have my own facility yet. I run my business out
of Odyssey Athletic Center in Waldwick, NJ. I converted
an old storage closet in the back of this gym into
a private room that only my athlete’s can use.
(Most of the training pics on this website were taken
in this “Hole” in the back of the gym.)
I will have my own facility soon, but I don’t
want to discuss the specifics yet. It’s taking
longer than expected because it’s a BIG TIME
project and we’re making sure that everything
is right. We are going to set a new standard for training
athletes in this one-of-a-kind facility!
Anyway, I’ll tell you why I feel
that I have become a successful “businessman”.
I must warn you that my advice is NOT the advice that
you would find in any business books. But, below I
will let you in on the #1 reason that I feel my business
has become very successful. This, in turn, has led
to other lucrative business opportunities for me.
I have literally become successful training
athletes out of a storage closet! What does this tell
you? It tells you that this business is about results!
A fancy gym with a high-budget marketing campaign
might get people in the door, but it doesn’t
keep them there. Simply put, the success of my company
hasn’t been because of some witty marketing
campaign; and it certainly isn’t because I’m
working out of a big gym with fancy equipment. I attribute
the success to a tireless work ethic and an unmatched
passion of helping athletes achieve their goals. Every
single one of my clients has come to me through word
of mouth advertising. Athletes talk. And if your athletes
are seeing results training with you, they will tell
everyone that they know about you. My schedule is
jam-packed and I currently have a waiting list of
over 20 athletes. Simply put, when athletes train
with me, I make sure that I do everything in my power
to get results. When I first started my business,
I even asked a couple of the athletes that I was training
to leave. I kicked them out of my program because
I cared more about their
training than they did.
Obviously, this was not a smart “business”
move at the time because I was struggling to pay my
bills. It’s funny, though, because the word
got out that if you’re not serious about training,
you shouldn’t go to DeFranco’s. This reputation
ended up making my program even more attractive to
serious athletes and now my phone literally rings
off the hook.
By no means is this business easy. If
you want to be successful, you must be willing to
put in the time. It’s a 7-day-a-week job! Besides
training athletes for 40+ hours a week, there’s
phone calls, meetings with the accountant, payroll,
insurance issues, tax issues, scheduling issues, managing
the business books, updating the website, etc., etc.!
I’m telling you this because after completing
all of the above tasks, you must still have the passion
and dedication to continue your education. This field
is constantly evolving. I still spend at
least one hour every night reading new
information on training. Sometimes this “continued
education” takes place at 2 o’clock in
the morning, but I don’t care. I don’t
do this because I have to;
I do it because I want to.
I’m not saying that I’m the smartest strength
coach in the world, but I refuse to be outworked by
anyone! You should have this same attitude.
I don’t know if you wanted me
to help you market yourself, discuss the best liability
insurance for trainers or any other business related
topics. If that’s what you were looking for,
I apologize. But, I truly feel if you are the hardest-working,
most knowledgeable strength coach in your area and
you treat your athletes as if they were your own kids,
then the business side of things will fall into place.
Sorry for the rant.
Joe D.
(Speaking of education, I highly recommend
attending the Yuri Verkhoshanski and Michael Yessis
seminar on February 11-13 in Chicago. I have re-arranged
my entire schedule for that weekend just to make this
seminar. If you’re serious about the science
of strength training, you won’t miss this once
in a lifetime opportunity. For more details go to
www.UltimateAthleteConcepts.com
)
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Q: Coach DeFranco,
Do you ever train both power and
strength within the same training session? I know
you follow the conjugate method of peridisation, but
there’s different schools of thought regarding
training for power and strength within the same workout,
as opposed to separate days. Do you have any experience
to share on this topic?
Carlos
A: Carlos,
I have used both methods with great
results. For most of the year, I train for strength
and power on separate days (but within the same training
cycle).
Recently, I have been experimenting
with training them on the same day and the results
have been interesting. We have performed a power exercise
before a strength exercise on some days; we have also
performed a strength exercise before a power exercise
on other days. Interestingly, both ways have improved
performance. For example, performing a heavy single
in the bench press prior to performing a medicine
ball chest pass improved the distance of the throw.
On the other hand, last Thursday I performed
a 3-rep max in the close grip bench press after
performing 6 sets of 3 reps of ballistic bench presses
(I used 45% of my 1RM and the mini bands). The ballistic
benches stimulated my nervous system and I hit a huge
PR in the close grip bench!
Needless to say, I think all of the
methods can be successfully incorporated into your
program.
Joe D.
Note: NEVER perform
dynamic box squats with bands and then take the
bands off and attempt a heavy set of squats with
“straight” weight. I experimented with
this about 2 years ago and I got STAPLED to the
box! Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!
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