Urban Strength Institute (USI) is now finally open. We’re still waiting on the Dynamic Functional Training System and the Poliquin Rack from Atlantis in Canada, which will be here sometime Tuesday afternoon. We’re still getting in some great training though.
Here’s a few vids.
Ryan Burns training with a fat bar for the floor press. Using a bigger diameter bar increases the demands of your grip, and also recruitments more motor units (the more motor units recruited, the greater potential strength gains). This exercise is very beneficial to the grappler because of specificity. Specificity may be described as an issue of transfer of training results. The highest transfer of training result occurs with the use of sport specific exercises. Triceps strength is extremely important for the grappler, and this exercise can yield a high ROI (Return On Investment). I’ll get into specificity in my next blog post.
Here’s a functional exercise based off of what the abs (and core) are really responsible for. As the band gets more tension the core has to contract harder. You’re stronger eccentrically than concentrically so you’re changing the tension at the top and then slowly controlling the eccentric (negative). In layman’s terms, putting your arms over your head at the top and lowering yourself adds more tension to the core. If you tried to do this while coming up (concentric), you might not have the strength because you’re weaker coming up as opposed to going down (eccentric).
Great exercise for strength endurance for shoulders, grip (if it’s not developed), and core again,both frontal and sigittal. One note about the core. A lot of people don’t realize certain exercises as core exercises (or for the abs) because they don’t look like traditional ab exercises such as sit ups or crunches. I had one athlete ask me why his abs are so sore after training. He didn’t realize that many exercises I had him do trained the core amongst other muscle groups. This is an example of functional integration.
God willing, there will be many great training vids and articles coming.
If you want to get some great training logs and get involved with great training discussions, join our USI Group on Facebook.
PS. I soon will be discontinuing posting to this blog and website. As anyone that reads this site knows, I have made some changes to it. I finally opened USI (Urban Strength Institute) and will be posting all the content at www.usichicago.com . The facility is 1600 sq. ft. with high ceilings, new equipment, and God willing, lots of grappling and jiu-jitsu athletes, mostly from the prestigious Gracie Barra Chicago. I plan on treating this facility like a science lab to produce the best training info out there on the training of grapplers and mixed martial arts training that in the trenches training can only provide.
Please do me a favor and log on to the new site www.usichicago.com, and book mark it. If you’re already signed up for the newsletter, I plan on pumping out some great content to you real soon.