#Practicewhatyoupreach

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Greetings, to all who follow The Strength Feed. This will be the first installment from the new facility we just opened September 9th. It has been a crazy whirlwind of a summer but I am happy to say that we are currently putting the last couple pieces together to provide the best gym in Raleigh for our clients. Our open house “pull party” was a huge success and we plan to make this an annual event. 
 
​For those of you that follow us on IG and Facebook, I spent five weeks this summer doing exactly what I prescribed for my clients. As most of you know for the continuous goal of building strength, packing on muscle and dropping body fat we coaches recommend to train at least four days a week. If your goal is to get leaner we recommend making changes to your diet and adding in additional cardio. This can be accomplished in our GPC classes (general physical conditioning). As well as our nutrition program ran by Karri Owens.
 
So this is where #practicewhatyoupreach came to play. I had just finished a powerlifting meet; I was without a program and a little beat up from training. I knew I had a lot on my plate leading up to the opening of a new gym and didn’t want to take on the additional stress of a serious powerlifting program.  The program on the board is made to be accommodating to everyone who walks in the door and joins our strength classes.  Hence the term customized group training. Click on the button below to read more about what I learned from the clients that learn so much from us. 

​The first thing about the program I learned is, it is tough. I don’t want to dwell into the science behind it but our pressing and pulling volume is very high. We also squat a great deal, so I was constantly sore. The goal was to complete the workout in an hour, the same amount of time I give the clients. This mean I had to cut the weight down a bit or cut the sets down to accommodate for the time allotment given. I alternated each day depending on how I felt; if I felt good I would load up the heavy weight and cut a set or two. If I was a little sore and the weight wasn’t moving smoothly I dropped weight, completed my sets and spent the extra time I had concentrating on my supplemental lifts.  
 
The second thing I learned is our client work capacity is through the roof. I was astounded how tough it was to get through some of the days. The main lift prescribed workload was similar to what I was used to (3x5, 4x7, 5x5 etc.) but with the addition of lots of mobility work and concentric training (sled pushing, pulling shuffles). It took a couple weeks for me to adjust.  You basically don’t rest.
 
Lastly, seeing what the clients see through my own eyes really helped me coach better. I am able now to change things on the fly much better to accommodate everyone in the classes.  Each person has different levels of soreness, problem or tight areas and vastly different levels of conditioning which showed itself when I was able to speak and talk things out with them. The information I received back from them was able to directly affect my changes to the program because I understood what they were saying.
 
The end result was very pleasant. I dropped two pounds in 5 weeks as well as getting in lots of mobility work and highlighting movement problems I have myself. I was able to find drills and exercises that work to fix those imbalances. I also was able to hit some rep PRs during the five weeks. Some of those included 405 for 5 low bar squat (I tend to squat high bar and am pretty accomplished at it) 365 for 16 reps on my sumo deadlifts, and 275 close grip for 10 reps on bench. These numbers aren’t terribly impressive but felt very good for I am not as accomplished at these movements as I am their counterparts (conventional deadlifts, high bar squats and normal bench). 
 
I value all my clients and the information they bring to me from their experiences here at The Strength Feed. As the days and months of training continue I encourage them to bring to me all the feedback as it will make me a better coach and help me build a better program for all to come.