A whole thesis could be written on the benefits of hill sprints, feel free to research them on PubMed or corner a doctor at a cocktail party; for now, here is a cursory overview, not an exhaustive list, of the benefit of hill sprints. Safety: Because you are running up a hill, you never reach maximum limb speed. This serves as a built-in safety mechanism for your hamstrings! Remember, strength-to-bodyweight ratio is a key component in predicting sprint speed (many of you have a great one so be careful and use a hill).   Strength:Hill sprints, like weight training, make you stronger! Hill sprints bridge the gap between strength training and speed training; they are in the middle of the force-velocity continuum.  Body Angle:The angle of your body sprinting up a hill is very similar to the acceleration phase of sprinting, offering direct strength transference. Furthermore, hill sprints require your knees to pump high, increase your stride rate and teach aggressive shoulder action (essential for maximum acceleration).

Build Mental Toughness: All-out sprints repeatedly up a hill require testicular fortitude. You get in what you put in.  Half speed gets LESS than half results. Whether you’re chasing down a bully that stole your kid’s bike or just want to kick ass in the corporate picnic flag football game, you will be confident because you have sprinted hills.

Conditioning/Body Composition If you can sprint up hills, you will have no problem doing the same on flat ground.  Hill sprints greatly increase metabolic demand compared to traditional sprints; this greater requirement in output exponentially increases conditioning levels . Hill sprints have an amazing effect on body composition because they are essentially a hybrid between sprints and weightlifting.   Sprinters have some of the best physiques in the world.

Endorphin Rush/Psychological boost After performing hill sprints, I feel invincible and empowered. Functionality Pop those bosu balls!  At the end of the day, regardless of the bastardization of this term by pseudo-intellectual personal trainers, this simply means how well does a movement transfer to a desired activity.  Hill sprints transfer positively to almost any activity.

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School gives you instructions, deadlines and partial credit. Business makes you figure out the assignment. Customers don’t give a damn how hard you worked on the wrong answer. Today, question one thing you’re doing out of habit. Is it getting results—or just getting done?

Your attention is your most valuable currency. Stop spending it on things that pay no dividends toward the life you’re building.

Happy heavenly birthday, Fred. Fred Hatfield was the most passionate person I’ve ever met. He loved strength, loved teaching, and could talk training all night. I know because we did it plenty of times. So much of how I coach today came from Fred. Getting into the zone and putting everything you have into the task. Compensatory acceleration training: attacking the bar with the intent to move it as explosively as possible. Understanding why an explosive athlete and a grinder need different training approaches, even with identical maxes. Things like how different body parts recover at different rates. And don’t even get me started on inhibition training and PAPE. I’m still putting what Fred taught me to work nine years later. His holistic approach to bodybuilding taught me to look beyond doing more of the same. We talked about different rep ranges, different methods, and how to put them together. Fred could talk science all night and tell you how to use it in the gym the next morning. If you put something in a program, you’d better know why it was there. Watching him teach was an education in itself. Two people in a home gym in Saskatchewan or 600 people in a Ritz Carlton ballroom, you gave them everything you had. Those people made the effort to be there. You owed them your best. No mailing it in because the crowd was small. Long before we worked together, I was a high school kid working at a gym and reading his books relentlessly. I hated reading. But Fred’s books? I wore those things out. One day, the owner told me Fred had trained there that morning. Then he told me he sold him a day pass. You charged FRED HATFIELD a day pass? That’s like running a honky tonk and charging George Strait a cover. This owner could have run a hot dog stand or a car wash with the same enthusiasm. He couldn’t understand why I was so excited. I met Fred briefly there. Years later, somebody recommended me to help him work on the ISSA course. A lot had been changed since he originally wrote it, and he wasn’t happy with some of what had made its way in. We went in guns blazing. Every goofy wannabe functional training trend from that era seemed to have found its way into the material. We went through it on the warpath and cleaned it up. Fred liked working together enough that he said, “Why don’t we do a seminar together?” One seminar became six that year. Eventually, we did 25 around the world, including Japan. Just days before he died, we still had Denmark on the schedule. After seminars, Fred would answer questions, ask about people’s training, and help them work through things. But when he was done, he was done. He’d lean over and whisper, “Josh, get everybody out of here. Time for a cold beer.” One beer had an interesting way of turning into a night of power drinking. Usually we talked training, but one night we spent six hours discussing literal versus spiritual interpretations of the Bible. Think Thomas Troward versus John MacArthur and how it should be read. That’s where a beer with Fred could take you. Nine years since we lost him, I still wish I could call him up, ask him a question, and see where the conversation went. I was a kid who hated reading and couldn’t put his books down. I never imagined I’d end up traveling the world teaching beside him, then sitting up half the night talking over beers. Happy heavenly birthday, Fred. I miss you, brother. P.S. As Dr. Sal said when Fred passed nine years ago, “Knowing Fred, he's training the ‘hell outta’ all of St. Michael's Archangels and after an intense day with him, they’re all enjoying a beer together!” I bet he had that going on day one.

A delayed training stimulus beats an absent one. Missing a few days doesn’t mean you need to scrap those workouts and start fresh Monday. Pick up where you left off. If you train alone, leverage that flexibility. Your muscles don’t give a damn what day of the week it is.

A sandbag a week throws real-world weakness up Shit Creek!

From 2000–2005, I did a ton of heavy barbell shrugs training with George Brink. Tweaked my back during an offseason cycle and saw Joe DeFranco doing these around that time. Great way to overload the traps without aggravating my back. Kept right on trucking!

Pick up something heavy. Carry it. Load it with violent hip extension. Sandbag loading builds brute strength, explosive power, and the ability to move awkward objects. Strength that goes beyond the weight room.

Good job young champion!

Bad things happen to good people. You can’t change what happened. But you can quit giving it the microphone every day. Your past deserves a chapter. It doesn’t get to write the whole book.

When I was at Kennedale, some folks didn’t like me making box squats a main lift. They did like winning, though. Funny how that got everybody on board.

Waiting for life to improve before you feel grateful is like waiting to get strong before you lift. Be thankful for what you have. Get hungry for what you can build. Then put your boots on and do the damn work!

Excited to release THREE DAY DETAIL: 10 Weeks of Off-Season Powerlifting! More isn’t better. Better is better. Build strength and muscle in three days a week. Show up ready to work. marketplace.trainheroic.com/…

881 on the security camera looks 💪💪 Nice Derek!

Not everyone should ruck! 🔥Watch the video to see the minimal requirements before you throw on that weight.

Focus deliberately, rehearse what matters, then act.

🤜Review of the Seven Granddaddy Laws🤛 ✅The Law of Individual Differences This law states that not everyone can train in the same manner. It is relevant to periodization when you consider the fact that individual differences of the athlete will change with training. Each individual will become an entirely different individual after a year of proper training. Certainly, a beginner will not keep the same physical and psychological characteristics after training—that person will literally become a different individual in that he will be stronger, more explosive, recover more quickly and have a different perspective on training than when he began. ✅The Laws of Overcompensation and Overload This is the first principle most learn in exercise physiology. Simply put, training must progressively increase in intensity over a period of time. Using the same reps, sets, frequency, training loads, and methods of training, time after time, will not result in increases in performance. ✅The SAID Principle and the Law of Specificity The body will adapt in a highly specific manner to the stress it receives. Simply put, you have to train like you compete! However, the rigors of extreme strength competition are too extreme to jump right into. You won’t win the world’s strongest man by “sweating to the oldies.” Every time you see a program that advocates getting better at the deadlift by not deadlifting or using variations of the deadlift, realize a granddaddy law is being contradicted. To get better at strongman events, train strongman events; to become a better squatter, you have to squat. ✅The GAS Principle and the Law of Use/Disuse Periods of high intensity must be followed by periods of low or no intensity. If you complete only one hard workout, adaptation for larger muscles will take weeks. Too long not to train! Therefore, there must be frequent periods of low intensity between periods of high intensity. Learned straight from my mentor and one of my best friends I miss daily @drsquat

A yoke exercise a day keeps the tweakers at bay!