I know some people are going to look at these exercises and try to do them even though they can’t hold a good plank for 30 seconds, mistake! It does say advanced so if you do a 100 crunches a day you definitely don’t fall into the advanced category.

Some of the exercises are specificand I will use them with different athletes (ex. rope chin up position leg raises will be used with some MMA fighters, as will the KB rotations). The Turkish Get Up can be used by most people even though I would choose to load it differently depending on the level of the athlete. We will start with just the bodyweight movement and then go change it up with KB’s, sandbags, barbells, DB’s.

If you hang around training forums on any reputable training site, you’ll notice that the highest percentage of questions is directed towards fixing aches and pains (for example, go to the EliteFTS site and you will see the Q & A section filled with questions about fixing injuries, aches and pains).

The truth is that a large number of the aches and pains people experience whether before, during or after training (especially if you’re not doing any training) are a direct result of bad posture, overcompensation, repetitive movement, tightness, weakness, muscles that don’t activate, a crappy training program, etc.

I’m in my defensive stance driving the shooting guard to the left as it’s his weak side. My eye is on his waist so that I don’t lose focus of where his body is really going.  I take a step back in anticipation of his drive but none the less the guard hesitates and blows by me.

One of the most frustrating feelings you can have as a basketball player.

Or how about the one where you get shut down by a defender because you’re always getting beat to the spot?

Complexes. Created by Istavn Javorek in the 70’s, a former Romanian weight lifting coach who later brought the concepts to the U.S.

Love and hate.

I relate the former to the latter. I love the results that the complexes get me and my athletes/clients, but I hate thinking about doing them and waiting to pick up the barbell before my set is about to begin. They are probably one of the toughest things you can do when it comes to training/conditioning. If you don’t agree with me then please try a set of this barbell complex with 115 lbs on the bar (you should also focus on speed of movement as well as form and get through it under 1:30 minutes). Go for 3 sets with a 90 second break:

Since I’m quoting Dave Tate, it would be wrong not to write the original: “passion fucking trumps everything!”

Honestly, the sentence should have held true in 2009, the year before that, and the year before that…..you know where I’m going with this…..it should hold true for every day of your life!

Even better I think the combination of passion and purpose trump everything.

I would like to believe that I follow that everyday, doing what I do because of passion and purpose. At the same time I cannot lie that sometimes life can take you of track and get your priorities mixed up. It has happened to me before and it still happens when there is a lot of things going on at once and the stress builds up. When it does, it helps when you get inspired and reminded what you are doing.

Every basketball player wants to be able to dunk, especially when you’re younger! I was no different and even though I trained endless hours shooting and ball handling skills, the capability I wanted almost more than anything was to be able to dunk. I went through almost every program A-Z (ail alert, jump soles,etc…). I can’t even remember all the names, but all of them advertise adding 4-10 inches to your vertical jump within two months (or something in that manner). In all honesty none of them really worked. I improved on some of them but it was never close to what was promised.

I have never been a genetic freak with a crazy amounts of fast twitch muscle fibers or anything like that. I always busted my butt and trained hard, even though I can’t tell you how many mistakes I made along the way. The first time I dunked was when I was 17 and I remember it clearly (it just like remembering your…..fill in the blank). I took off one foot and it was official as confirmed by my team mates. I say that because when you almost get it, you tell people that you can dunk (I’ll be honest I did that too).

The first time I dunked was basically from training hard and getting in the weight room where I really pushed the intensity even though I can honestly say that I didn’t have much rhyme or reason in the exercises or programming. It was after I dunked the first time that I really started studying everything I could about it because when you get the taste you just want to jump higher. I can honestly say that I’m still chasing that 40” vertical even though I feel its not that far away. When I get it I will know that every single inch came with hard work!

When I was in my teenage years I used to do all the crunches in the world and did every single “angle” of an exercise to hit the abs and get that impressive six- pack. Not only did I realize that this was not the way to a set of six pack abs but it definitely didn’t improve my on court performance or make me stronger at any lifts.

First question I want to ask you, is do you have a strong core? How do you know, because you have ripped abs? Is it because you do thousands of crunches every week? Or maybe you can hold a plank for a minute? Well, I’m sorry to tell you that’s not going to do it and even though people with a strong core may have six-pack abs and hold a plank for a minute, it is definitely not what determines it.