It's Not The Taking Part... It's The Winning!!

Does anyone ever remember their mum saying that after a hard fought, hard lost game of football? Don't missunderstand the title here, i'm not saying that you should be walking around following a hefty defeat with your head in your hands lamenting your iminent demise from the competitive sporting scene. No, if you got your arse whooped by a stronger athlete or by a better, more skillful team on the day then it's time to suck it up, deal with it and move on. When I say move on at this point I mean you should be allready disecting your performance in terms of weak areas. Why was it that you lost? Did your conditioning (or lack there-of) let you down in the final 10 minutes of the game, or did the guy next to you simply have more strength or power or just simple grit and determination when it came down to the crunch?

You should be asking yourself these questions when the s**t hits the fan. At the end of the day do you want to be average or would you rather be the best in the business? In this game you have two choices; either you can go through the motions, training hard, eating well and putting in good performances on the track, field or whatever. Or you can get up every morning after a good 8 hours sleep, fully rested and recovered and fired up to go and tear it up in the gym, ready to train harder than you have ever trained before - train to be the BEST, the STRONGEST, the most powerful, finely tuned athlete you could possibly be in order to destroy the competition!
Without this drive and determination to succeed we will only ever be average. Do something about it! I know which way i'd rather go...

Send me your thoughts and questions on an e-mail and i'll get back to you.

Yours as always, in strength.

Smash it!

Strength & Performance Coach

Z**

zorandubaic@hotmail.com

A Question Of Grip...

Guys, i cannot reiterate this enough but there's something that concerns me slightly about the lack of emphasis that gets put on one's grip strength. Call me crazy but does no-one use any form of grip training in their routine anymore?? It's something that baffles me to be honest, i mean, would you enter a cooking competition without first having perfected your pastry making skills? No you wouldn't, so why is it that it appears to be ok to train for a sport such as rugby where you need a grip like a vice and for you to not be working like a dog on perfecting your grip strength?

It's a no-brainer. If you want to be the best in sports where your grip strength is paramount then you need to train to improve your grip strength. The old skool wrestlers and power lifters from the eastern block countries didn't become the best in the world at their chosen sports because they just trained the basic lifts, they became the best because they trained for every single aspect of their chosen disclipline, they left nothing to chance.

I had the pleasure of taking a couple of guys who play rugby and do a little MMA stuff through some basic kettle bell drills today. Nothing fancy but it opened their eyes to a few things, namely the importance of having a strong grip and forearms (something they both lacked).
We finished off with a little grip comp - kettle bell lifts with a towel woven through the handles, just so I could make my point. It was a close call in the end but I managed to come out on top with a best left hand lift of 66kg and a right hand lift of 72kg. I need to work on my left hand grip!

This article's main purpose is really just to emphasise what my colleague Sean was saying a few articles back. (If you missed it, have a look at 'seankeefe.blogspot.com' and check the archive out). To be truly 'strong' you have to have a strong grip. Make sense? Good, now go and smash it next time you train and think on, if you play a sport that involves a holistic approach, are you looking at it in a holistic sense or are you just focusing on the basics and not on the detail?..

Drop me an email or post a reply to this blog if you have any questions.

Yours in strength.

Smash it!

Strength & Performance Coach

Z**

zorandubaic@hotmail.com

Long Time No See..

Fellow undergrounders et al. My apologies for the long wait. Things have been a bit crazy round here over the last few weeks or so. In just over 2 weeks time, I am getting married to my beautiful fiancee Amanda so things are hotting up regarding last minute organisation of things which probably should have been organised some time ago if truth be told!

This however does not stop me from training like a son of a b***h and smashing into some serious iron and i intend to post some awesome articles outlining what has been going on during my absence and a little something on future plans regarding our Strength & Performance enterprise. It's high time in my opinion that the tallented athletes of the Greater Manchester area ne the whole of the UK have somewhere they can hone their skills in order to be the best. For too long we have accepted adequate facilities and average results... no more i tell you! It's time to man up and make this thing happen and i am SO fired up it's untrue. Stay tuned for more kick-ass articles.

Yours in strength

Coach Z

Strength & Performance Coach

zorandubaic@hotmail.com