Comparing apples and bananas

willwayland said…
hmmmm $1000 +$500 flight dorrars to spend a week with joe defranco?

or a €105 and a short drive down the country? does that €105 include the magical Ireland markup?

Will,
Thanks for the comment and you have a very cool name by the way.

With regard to the whole Joe DeFranco thing….why would you want to spend 10 times as much on an IMITATOR when you can have the real deal right here…I mean Joe’s most famous bloody program….the ONLY thing he’s famous for is Westside for Skinny Bastards….and where did he get that from….that’s right…he ripped it off Westside Barbell.

Joe thinks just because he has outstanding success year after year and because he produces fantastic athletes and has an amazing business and love for what he does that people will just brush over the fact that he thinks he’s better than me…he thinks he can keep me down just by holding it over my head that he has a Poliquin Certification and I haven’t. It just ain’t going to happen.

I already outed Joe for what he is in the Joe DeFranco is rip off artist post…but if you want more proof have a look at this:

On January 10th…I post this video of ROK doing some Box Squat Broad Jumps

This was posted on the 11th of January.

Does this exercise look familiar to anyone who trains in the facility? I mean there’s athletes who’ve had this in their program at least since last summer.

It is sad really…I mean…I really should of just let Joe take a franchise…it would have been far less embarrassing for him.

Actually though the reason that I am only charging €105 and only taking 15 people is because I want the $1000 for Joe and $500 for flights so I can go to one of Joe’s seminars.

A quick update on the lack of updates

Apologies for not being in a position to post anything of late for you all to waste your time reading. Normal service will resume shortly I promise.

I’ve had too much work to do of late and not enough time to do it…and I know you all believe me when I say that because people should know full well by now that there is nothing I like better than wasting my time updating my blog and generally annoying people on the interweb.

In the news this week:
1. I weighed in last Tuesday at 109.8kg…not that it’s news but I forgot to put that in my diary at the time.
2. Haven’t trained as well as I would have liked this week but that was unavoidable.
3. Everyone else has trained pretty well…next week things should be quieter work wise so I am planning on doing a bit of an update of where people are at.
4. ROK is still not dead or injured.

I should of got her to hold a newspaper while she was doing these.
5. The weekend presentation/coaching extravaganza is coming together quite well and as I said I will name a date and set it in concrete before Xmas.

I have to get back to work so more news on everything and anything in the not too distant future.

She made it through another week…

…without me killing her.

These were the squats got so many peoples panties in a twist.

Like I’ve said lots of times…I don’t ’set up’ videos. We video a lot of stuff in training…probably about 30-40 minutes worth of video every single day…obviously it doesn’t all get posted and obviously it isn’t all perfect…I don’t see many of the people who seem so quick to offer criticism rushing to post all their videos of their athletes training though? Funny that.

Another of the reasons that I think the internet is so funny

Ages ago I posted this video….

Squats and Depth Jumps.

Thankfully TruthAxe finally got around to commenting on it.

Here are his comments and my responses:

TruthAxe
The girl means well. She’s getting bad training here.

If she has to rest on a stool, she’s using too much weight and thus not firing the stablizing muscles as well as the glutes on the way up.

Worse, is this that held squat at the end of plyo depth jump.

Plyo training is about the spring effect gained when off the ground (extension of muscles akin to a pulled slinky), and not about compressed muscles (contraction phase).

willheffernan
Brilliant insight.

TruthAxe
Thanks.

As you can see, because of the chair, she’s putting bad, excessive stress on her knees on the way up from the chair sitting position.

Also, in plyo, the key is maximum jump up so the fall distance, thus reaction force is highest.

She should jump as high into the air as she can, spring off the floor, hit the second box and jump off that straightaway.

willheffernan
Spoken like a true internet expert.

TruthAxe
Ignorance is bliss eh?

The Irish. Same on both sides of the Atlantic.

willheffernan
Feel free to post all your training videos…show everyone how it is done.

TruthAxe
Thanks for showing the world HOW NOT to do it.

The child in this video is ruining her knees, shoulders, lower back and inner upper feet.

At her age, she should not do any squats.

Rightly, she should perform Bondarchuk step-ups, which would put the load where it belongs, hams and glutes first, calves and quad second and not where her ignorant coach has the load placed.

Are you ripping off folks, taking their cash while claiming to be a “strength and conditioning coach”?

willheffernan
So I take it that’s a no then? You won’t be posting your training videos and showing everyone how it is done.

TruthAxe
You acted so cocksure that you brazenly posted vids showing your bad training advice, ruining children’s bodies for future athletics.

So now you’re exposed. Crying like an effeminate doesn’t help your case Liam, er, Will.

I checked out your blog.

It looks like you’re an asshole to the whole world and not only to those who post comments on your YT vids.

Good luck defending the rest of your false beliefs during your living. You shall need it.

willheffernan
So that’s definitely a no then? You sure you won’t be posting all your excellent training videos?

TruthAxe
So you going to continue ripping off people pretending to be a strength and conditioning coach?

You’re going to continue posting videos exposing your bad methods while damaging children?

willheffernan
You are a complete moron…but don’t worry…I’ll make you famous.

TruthAxe
As opposed to what a “partial” moron?

Wow, dumb and obxnious you are.

I’d love to meet your mommy and daddy to what pieces of work they must be.

Now I have a few observations and comments to make:
1. Do people really think that I can’t see ROK’s form breaking down here? We had ‘worked up’ to this weight…and yes…it was too much. Another thing is that we weren’t doing the depth jumps for their plyometric effect. So essentially everything that TruthAxe had to say in his original comment was total rubbish…she wasn’t ‘resting on a stool’…as for putting stress on her knees…the stress is coming from the fact that she isn’t holding them out as she was in earlier sets because she was fatigued…the stress isn’t coming from ‘the chair sitting position’ as TruthAxe pointed out…as for the Plyo element…without going into too much detail here…what we were looking for was a super short contact time on the ground and on landing I actually wanted her to hold that power position longer…not shorter. We do a lot of work getting strong in and around that ‘power position’ both statically and dynamically as it has a huge impact on performance and I might make a post about this in the future…just for TruthAxe.

2. TruthAxe has all the elements of what I love about internet experts…he reads a lot obviously…he has the vocabulary down pat…he even slips in a bit of pseudo name dropping…there are heaps of people like this on the internet…they’ve read all the articles, read all the books etc etc and they know everything and nothing simultaneously. They give themselves away almost as soon as they open their mouths or post a comment. I also love all the insults about my nationality…I’m just surprised and disappointed he didn’t make a drunken fighting Irishman comment…I mean talk about clichés…I mean honestly…how could he not know from looking and listening to the blog and videos that I’m actually a drunken fighting Australian…thus going out of his way to prove my point that he’s a moron.

3. People get confused I think about the blog and videos I post…let me clear a few things up.
- I post vids that I think people would find interesting.
- I post vids of athletes ‘actually’ training…they aren’t set ups.
- I purposefully post stuff that isn’t perfect…because I think it is more interesting than me going over the videos when I get home and picking ones to post that show me in ‘the best light’.

4. With regard to this particular video…there are a huge number of flaws in ROK’s technique…like I said…she was too fatigued in this last set. I knew this…she knew this…we look at video and we fix things up…I think from memory we went back after this set and did a light set just to work on her technique. As for me damaging her and my bad training methods…give me a break…I think her performances and the massive improvements she’s made in the gym might going a long way to disproving TruthAxe’s well thought out analysis…maybe he should email the coaches at Irish Basketball and see what they think…or ask the guys her age who’s arse’s she kicked in testing? She has made massive improvements in both her squatting and deadlifting and maybe from now on I should just ’set up’ all the videos of her training so TruthAxe doesn’t report me for child abuse.

5. Heaps of other coaches and trainers have emailed me have told me to delete and or just ignore the ‘negative’ comments…to take the high road. The thing is…that just isn’t me…I like the low road. I love annoying people, I love winding people up…I love doing it on the internet as much as I love doing it in real life.

I didn’t start this blog as a chance to ’show off’ or to try and put myself out there as some sort of expert. I’m just a strength and conditioning coach…that’s it…I’m not the best…but certainly not the worst either and blog or no blog…internet or no internet I would be doing exactly the same job that I’m doing right now. The reason the blog came about was because people were saying I was too negative and didn’t make enough of a positive contribution…and I agreed with them…so I started it.

I deliberately don’t want it to be like all the others out there…it isn’t about optimising revenue, exploiting market opportunities, show casing my talent as a coach…it just is what is…there’s a reason I don’t write ‘articles’…it isn’t about ME telling YOU how to train…this is just what WE are doing…and take a wild guess how much WE care about what YOU think about what WE do?

You have to guess what happened here?

I’ll give you a hint…the same thing that happens whenever anyone doubts me or bets against me…they get smoked.

Can you guess what happened?

As an aside…have a look at the size of that honker!

Even with Mick trying to sabotage me by cutting off my supplement supply and a super hard week of cardio and intervals…meaning I weighed in at 115.9kg today…still had enough to get the job done.

I’ll give you a hint if you still don’t know…then check this out. By the way the reason it is a week later than planned is because some of the lads couldn’t be there last week…so wanted to move it to this week.

Just so we all know where we stand:
Brophy – €75 (Paid)
Penguin – €75 (Unpaid)
Logi – €75 (Unpaid)
Nasher – €25 (Unpaid)
Killer – €25 (Unpaid)
Louis – €25 (Unpaid)
Jimmy – €50 (Unpaid)
and lastly…Bushy…who was sooooo convinced I wasn’t going to get it that he went in for €100 (Unpaid)

I would also like to say to all those others who wanted to pile in against me who I stopped from betting for their own sake…never ever bet against me doing anything that I’m told that I can’t….simple as that.

I love getting emails like these…

This is an email I just received from ROK. I thought I’d post it because I always believe in credit it where it is due….particularly when it also means making a total show out of others….which everyone who knows me knows I am a massive fan of.

Hi Will
I’m off to Bulgaria tomorrow but I thought you’d like to hear this story. The boys team came to Luxembourg as well and they found out about all the push ups I can do. They were all like no way you probably cant even do one. So, I had to prove them wrong and I did all my push ups and none of the boys could beat me. None of the English boys team could beat me either. I think I did 20 maybe 30 more than the highest boy?

Any way,
Rebecca

Apparently she got all manner of excuses from the lads…like…’your arms are too far apart….where have I heard that before…oh yeah…that’s right…on the world wide interweb.

ROK is off representing her country in Basketball…not bad for someone who’d only done push ups on her knees when she started with me.

ROK…other wise known as She-Man…you have to admit she’s pretty scary looking!

By the way…I’ve read the comments that Ian, Kira and Joel added and when I get home from work tonight I will deal with them…some great points made and you should check them out if you haven’t…the first things that spring to mind are the following:

1. Obviously a good number of people reading the blog are smarter than me.
2. Why is it that everyone who comments here is far more articulate than me?
3. That I am such a poor writer everyone who comments on what I’ve written posts as if they are translating what I’ve written from another language…almost 50% of posts contain the phrase…’I think what Will meant was…’ or some variation on that theme.

Apparently I only train rugby players

The truth is the majority of work I do is with rugby players. This season though is actually the first season that is the case. I work with lots of athletes from lots of different sports…Rugby, Gaelic Football, Hurling, Basketball, Tennis, Athletics, Football, Martial Artists and Boxers. This is as well as the individuals I train who are just looking to get in shape or lose weight. The athletes I coach in all shapes a sizes.

While others are basically just little girls.

Basically I’ll coach anyone who walks through the door and the athletes tend to pick me rather than me picking them.

Slowly getting back on top of things

Warning…I am going to be rambling here…read a your own risk…don’t say you weren’t warned.

I spoke to soon the other day when I said that Damian had my computer sorted…he had it almost sorted…unfortunately I need a new router which has been ordered and am told is on way to finish the job…he did however clean up my laptop and it seems to have made a fantastic recovery which has enabled me to get back online and blogging and catching up on the 160 or so emails that were sitting in my inbox…so as per usual I’ll ignore work and blog instead.

When I started this blog I deliberately chose not to make it like a lot of others that I’d seen out there in the strength and conditioning field…I didn’t want to write article type posts. You know the ones…where I tell you all about ‘Functional Training’ or ‘5 Ways to a 1000lb Squat in 6 Weeks’. Instead I just wanted it to be a place where I could post some of the stuff we do training wise. Show you the programs and throw up some video and pictures of some of the stuff we do.

I have been asked a lot of good questions lately and have had a few interesting emails of also which have made me realise how much perspective I seem to have lost and how out of the loop I am…or how in my own little loop I am perhaps.

In no particular order some of the things spinning through my head are as follows…regarding push ups…there was a post recently and I mentioned the fact that Conor McPhillips did 117 push ups in testing…I didn’t think a big deal…anyone who was around when Conor was at the club didn’t bat an eyelid when he did it at the time and big John Ryan who Captained St Mary’s at that time I think did 109 or something like that…over the years I’ve seen a good few athletes get over 100…we are not even really at the beginning of pre season and we’ve guys getting in the 70’s in their first session back…maybe I’m missing something…maybe I’ve been working with athletes too long…60+ push ups in 60 seconds is pretty standard and ROK who is a 16 year old female basketballer with the disadvantage of particularly long levers got 52…but apparently 100+ and 117 are impossible…while you are sitting where ever you are reading this…put your watch on the table in front of you or look at a clock with a second hand…now put your arms out in front of you in a push up position…when you are ready move your arms back and forth as fast as you can and count how many times you can do that in 10 seconds…now that is how fast Conor was doing his push ups in the first 10 seconds of his 60 second test…it is also how fast he was going in the last 10 seconds of his test when I stopped him…he’s coming back to the club this year I hope so we’ll have to video his testing and see how he is going now that he’s an old man…we’ve which we’ve had a great laugh in the gym about the fact that someone mentioned in a forum that they managed to do 100 push ups in 4 min and 48 seconds and they made the comment that they ‘weren’t to shabby’ or ‘weren’t a slouch’ or something like that. I doubt that there is a single athlete male or female old or young in our facility that couldn’t beat that…now that isn’t a good or bad thing…it is just the way it is…anyway…I think I might do a blog post on push up training. Not that we train for push ups…we actually just use it as an indicator….more on that in another post.

Random Thoughts
A few things that I think are worth thinking about…and the first is related to another thing that was brought to my attention a couple of times this week…frequency…a few people have mentioned that they’ve noticed in some of my program that people are training the same muscle groups on consecutive days…well sometimes I have athletes train the same muscle groups not just on consecutive days but every day…different volumes and intensities but the same muscle group. I’ve had a lot of people ask me why I do it and I say to them…because it works…once again more on this later.

I had another coach mention to me something similar regarding an athlete of theirs who seems to respond better to higher frequency of training…too right they do…some athletes tend to respond better to intensity, some to volume and some to frequency…this is what being a coach is all about….which brings me to my next point.

I made a blog post (scroll down…it is that post on periodisation and peaking) which was actually a response to someone I was having a discussion with on a forum a good while back. They were talking about periodisation and peaking for team sports…that blog post was copied and pasted elsewhere and a whole lot of people got their panties in a twist…firstly…a lot of these people completely missed the point of the post…some of them are just morons…some just wilfully ignorant…and a few just total idiots whose total sum of experience comes from what they have read and stolen from peoples books or on the internet and what has worked with their entire data pool of athletes with whom they have experience…i.e…1…themselves.

Anyway…the post was a response to someone else…it was part of a conversation…of which unless you read the other part of it…you would have no idea about…this is the first bit that people have missed.

Secondly…the reason that the 100m was brought into it was because the person that I was responding to brought it up…not me…I just used his example…I googled the results from the last Olympic 100m and copied and pasted them into my post. They were the results…I’ve had emails and seen posts where people have told me that my facts were wrong…THEY WERE THE RESULTS…I didn’t make them up…I copied and pasted them into the post…if they are wrong blame the IOC website where I got them.

Thirdly…IT WAS NOT AN ARTICLE…I think people on the internet are so used to other people trying or pretending to show each other how smart they are or how much better they are than everyone else or they spend so much time doing this themselves that they lose perspective. I didn’t sit at my computer like so many guru’s do…combing PubMed or posting journal requests…it was a forum post written on the fly as a part of an ongoing conversation that was taking part online on a forum and amongst a small number of people on messenger….and if I remember correctly (and I propbably don’t) I was pretty drunk at the time. I didn’t fact check it…I didn’t submit it for peer review or pass it along to an editor…it was a blog post…not a piece of journalism.

Fourthly…it was not about the 100m or sprint training or the Olympics or any of the other stuff that has been discussed in various venues on the interweb…IT WAS ABOUT PEAKING AND PERIODISATION FOR FIELD BASED TEAM SPORTS which is the only thing I have not seen mentioned or discussed anywhere…honest…I’ve not seen one mention of it.

The whole point of that post was about the fact that every time I hear a coach talk about ‘peaking’ a team I laugh…the reason that I went with whole 100m thing after it was brought up is because the 100m is easy for anyone to understand and that these athletes have their coaches, trainers, doctors, physiotherapists, massage therapists, pharmacologists, sports psychologists etc etc etc…the results I posted came for the IOC website…I didn’t make them up…they listed the times, season and personal bests…I merely laid it all out…different people have told me how wrong I am…if those times and seasons and personal bests are wrong…then feel free to post me the correct times and show me which ones I got wrong…other than that…you might ‘disagree’ with me…but that it is a long way from me being ‘wrong’. Someone took my blog post and copied it onto some other coaches forum…I didn’t really care and would have been happy to have a conversation about the post…after all…it was written to take the piss…another point that just about everyone has missed…and to get a discussion going…I wrote it to be provocative…not unlike my university paper on the ‘Benefits of Smoking’ (maybe I’ll make that a blog post and someone can post it on some national anti smoking or cancer site)I’m a coach I spend all my time working with athletes and preparing them for competition and these idiots seriously think that I don’t ‘try’ to have these athletes at their best when it matters most…seriously? Anyway the point was that all these specialist with all their experience struggle to get one athlete to peak…how’s a single coach supposed to ‘peak’ 15 or 20 athletes for a championship game…the answer is…they won’t. My view was and still is to get their athletes…these field based team athletes…remember the ones the actual post was about…you know the ones that not a single person mentioned…to an acceptable level and keep them within 10% of that.

Now you know the reason that I don’t articles…I write like I speak and anyone that has had the misfortune of hearing me speak realises that my mouth has a hard time keeping up with my brain. I also really struggle to get across the concepts and approaches to training I have…but I actually respond better to questions than I do in making statements so if you have questions…or like everyone else you just want to tell me I’m wrong then fire away. I also to reserve the right as usual to edit this post as I go to try and clear things up because sometimes my writing is so bad that I even confuse myself.

Girls…be careful of your ovaries when you do push ups.

I’ve been laughing all morning…one of my athletes is just back from a training camp…one of her team mates warned her not to do push ups like the boys do because she’d damage her ovaries. That is one of the best ones I’ve heard in a good while.

James love square dancing…so I thought I’d get him jakt for it.

I’m thinking of inventing a tennis based martial art…James will be my Bruce Lee.

ROK tested today…poor dainty little 16 year old girl that she is…I wasn’t expecting much out of her…because as we all know…weight training for girls is bad…and I was scared for the whole session that her ovaries would fall out…luckily she made it through OK and by OK I mean pulled over 1.5 times body weight on the deadlift (almost time to call Chad Waterbury and see if I can get her in the UFC), benched 45 kgs up from 37.5kg, did 52 push ups…that’s sternum to hand and elbows locked out…thankfully I think her reproductive organs made it through the test in one piece…this was up from 34 reps last time, 13 inverted rows…up from 0 last time…I think those progressions I blogged about might just work…who’d of thunk it…but still no pull ups…but it was her closest 0 yet.

100kg…I accidentally wrecked the vid of her lifting 110kg…don’t tell her because she’ll kick my arse.

Not bad since it seems most of her other coaches I think would rather her be at home playing with dolls so she doesn’t hurt herself….either that or running miles and miles…to ‘get fit’. Sometimes I just don’t know what to say.

As an aside I keep getting told on the internet and in emails (I’m thinking of starting another mirror blog just to post my hate mail on…it is way funnier than anything I could actually come up with) that I don’t know what I’m doing and that I’m full of it and that none of my athletes are real and that none of them have actually done anything even if they were real…firstly…this will come as big surprise to a lot of athletes…secondly I just thought I better tell you guys in case you take me too seriously and actually try out for yourselves anything that has been blogged here and accidentally get fitter, stronger or leaner and then you’d be left terribly confused and disorientated about how the hell it happened…apparently the people you should really be listening to are faceless cowards who won’t even post under their own names that spend 8 hours a day on-line pontificating about training and generally telling and showing everyone how brilliant and witty they are and how crap everyone else is…I just thought it best to inform you…after all…that’s what this blog is all about.

I promise I will make it up to you

Been busy this week but I will do a big update tonight…it will have everything…amazing physical feats, tragic and painful accidents, poor coaching, physical deformities, questions will be answered and ridiculous statements will be made…you know…the usual.

I was asked about ankle mobility work…well here is James doing some this morning…this post still isn’t finished so I am going to throw it in here so people don’t miss the rest of the stuff.

Ankle Mobility Work

This blokes arm is totally jakt.

Med Ball Slams

Brophy and Sexton both throw like girls.

In fairness though we’ve got some pretty tough girls.

She-man putting the lads to shame…give it a go and see how fast you can do it? I know James will want to lift his game after he see this.

James did his first proper session today:
Bike – 5 mins
Med Ball Lunge/Trunk Rotation – 3 sets of 8 on each side with the 5kg med ball.
Overhead Med Ball Squats – 3 sets of 10 reps with the 5kg med ball.
Box Squats and Box Jumps – Sets of 3 reps on the squats and 3 reps on the box jumps.

James doing box squats for the very first time. He’s an elite athlete with novice skills which makes him particularly interesting to coach.

Does it make me a bad person just because I get so much joy out of my athletes hurting themselves?

Just to show that he can do it well and it wasn’t all pain and agony.

DB Floor Press and Lying Med Ball Chest Throw – 5 work sets of 3 reps of each.

DB Floor Press and Med Ball Throw.

Pull Ups and Med Ball Throw Downs – 5 work sets of 3 reps of each.
Then we did a lot of stretching…and when I say we I mean James just groaned a lot as I bent him into various pretzel like shapes.

When I do sometimes break them Fergus is always there to put them back together again.

I’m going to post all of Rammer’s work sets on his Trap Bar Deadlift. All the sets were done at 160kgs. Basically I use video a lot when coaching. I think it really helps athletes to be able to see what they are doing as well as seeing what other athletes like themselves are doing.

First Set.

Second Set.

Third Set.

Forth Set.

Fifth Set.