Strength Is For Everyone!

Strength training can be one of the most amazing gifts you can give someone. While some might view strength as a negative thing, we view strength as an amazing thing that will always improve your life, whether physically or mentally.

At Showtime Strength & Performance, we have made it a strong emphasis to make sure everyone improves their strength to improve on their goals. We will look into a few different examples of how stronger clients have succeeded in their goals mainly because of their increase in strength. Strength is not just for “meat heads” and it doesn't mean that you will lose mobility and become slower if you get stronger. In fact, it should enhance all other aspects! Strength has more carryover than anything else to athletic performance and general health. A stronger athlete will be faster, more explosive, and less likely to get injured. A stronger person will maintain mobility throughout joints and will be less likely to develop chronic aches and pains as they age. Here we will look at three groups of people that we work with our facility. The three groups:

1- Athletes

2- Adults

3- Competitive Lifters

Let’s take a closer look at how strength has helped all of these people and some of the accomplishments we've had within our gym.

Athletes - Most of our clients are youth and college athletes. We also will work with a handful of professional athletes during their off season. First, we will look at one of our college softball players. This girl began with us when she was 15 years old. She had dug herself into a complete rut and couldn't even throw a softball because of injury. She had lost a scholarship offer and missed an entire season of high school and travel softball. At the time, this athlete had to use 100lbs of band assistance to perform one chin up at a bodyweight of 125lbs and could only squat 70lbs without back and hip pain.

Pre-injury she was pitching 62 miles per hour. Fast forward 5 years laster and this same athlete is a Division 1 pitcher, bodyweight around 170lbs and can now do 10 chin ups with her own bodyweight, squatting 225lbs for two reps and pitching 72 miles per hour. That is a very dramatic increase in strength and performance on the field where it matters the most. In addition to this, the athlete hasn't missed any playing time since the injury she had in high school. For the athlete, she is now stronger and isn't missing time playing, which leads to more time to get quality reps in and therefore increase her technical skill. Many of our softball and baseball players have experienced back pain at some point in their career. This generally comes back to weak abs and weak hips. We make these areas of high concern and therefore eliminate the issue.

Adults - We have adults who train in our Met-Con groups and also one-on-one training depending on their schedule and their needs. We will look at one example of a great client and friend that has made strength a priority and used it to increase efficiency in his daily movement. Marty Altmaier is 75 years old and we have worked together for seven years. Marty was an attorney in downtown newark for more than 40 years until he retired two years ago.

When we began working together, it was simply to lose weight and feel better and help him improve in his golf game. Last year, Marty had both shoulders replaced due to arthritis build up. One year removed from surgery he came back to start building strength, mobility, and endurance. Some of the movements that we are sure to include weekly with him are squats, deadlift, rows, sled drags, and planks. All of these exercises are used with our athletes too, but the end goal is different. Strength has helped Marty reduce pain in his arms and maintain great mobility throughout his hips. Strength was the biggest asset to Marty’s training and has also helped delay the progress of his Parkinsons Disease.

Competitive Strength Athletes - We have a small group of competitive lifters in powerlifting, strongman, and Olympic weightlifting. We have used the same system to help these athletes in their sport with great success. Our 198 pound lifter, Matt Taylor, squatted 854 lbs and deadlifted 700 lbs. Before he trained with us, his best squat was 770 and best deadlift was 640. This progress was in 6 months of training. In August, Matt won the lightweight division of a Pro/Am meet and won $2,000. His 854 pound squat puts him at number 16 all-time in the division. Aaron Walser went from a 755 lb squat to 865 in 11 months. This put his squat at number 8 all-time in his division. With both lifters, we simply found their weak areas and made them a priority, just like we did with the softball player and Marty. My wife, Claire, competes in Olympic Weightlifting and in her last meet she increase her total on the two lifts by 24 lbs. This was done not with emphasis on the competitive Olympic movements, but rather by fixing her weak muscle groups and getting her stronger in positions where her form would break down.

As you can see, we have helped people in several different aspects of their life. They will mostly be based off the same training system, but the detail is in the applcation. We apply different movements, stimulus, volume, and intensity based on the client's current level of fitness, the demands of their daily activity/sport, and injury history. We have more athletes and lifters come to us because of something negative (injury, platues, losing) rather than positive (winning, continued progress). Because of this, we have learned to work backwards and figure out what the clients need and develop a plan that will lead them to success. In all of these cases, the common denominater was commitment on the client's part. All of the examples above trained 3-5 times every week, and didn't miss. Progress is impossiblele without commitment. All of these people understand that consistancy will help more than any supplement or new fad diet. If you have any questions about our training or how strength can benefit you, please email me at nick@showtimestrength.com.

Nick Showman

Showtime Strength & Performance

www.showtimestrength.com