Dutch Lowy

I posted a video a couple months ago showing one of my warm ups for any general movement you may be doing. In my opinion this can be used to get ready to run a marathon or snatch 100kg. Obviously for each task you will need a more specific warm up with some more skill based movements.
Below are a couple of the bar warm ups i use when getting ready to lift. Another great warm up is the Burgener warm up.

Stay tuned for some cool down/stretching stuff.

As i mentioned last week in my post about Whole 9 Life i have been working directly with Dallas and Melissa for the last couple months. Obviously I have a pretty high opinion of them and it is well deserved if you have ever spent time with them in any capacity.

Dallas and Melissa will be in the D/FW area on October 15 and 16th running two workshops. The first one is for everyone ( i already forced 3 people to sign up) and the second is for coaches and trainers to learn about implementing Nutrition with their clients and athletes. You can see the outline here.

As an additional treat to everyone attending, I will be presenting as well. My outline is also on their registration page so go there and check it out. My portion will be short (about 2 hours) and very interactive. As usual my outline is not set in stone and i like to have tons of group interaction and questions so please come prepared to contribute to a discussion.

Spend the first half of the day with Whole9, learning how to build good nutrition practices with your clients, gym community, friends and family members. Then, I will speak on goal setting, programming, scaling techniques and sustainability applicable to both a group and one-on-one setting, all designed to make you a better trainer, programmer and leader in your gym.

A full outline of Trainer’s Workshop materials (both from Whole9 and mine) is available on the registration page. Space is limited to only 20 people (and our Foundations workshop remains a pre-requisite), so register early and secure your seat for this special event.

Questions or Comments?? Post them here!

In case you haven’t heard of Dallas and Melissa, go check them out at Whole 9 Life. I have never met them personally but know of them through reputation and other people in the community that i really respect. Recently i reached out to them for some assistance with nutrition and essentially life since nutrition is life. They have been epic in their attention to detail and commitment to helping me solve some very personal problems. Not only have they been very knowledgeable and helpful as far as solving the problem but they have also been very attentive. It is comforting to get emails that start with “I was thinking about your situation…” When i see that line in an email i get all tingly cause i know there was some serious thought put into this message. When was the last time you received an email like that? Was it from a coach/mentor that you respect?
Anyway the point is the more i interact with these two the more i am impressed with their level of professionalism and knowledge. I always come away from a phone call or email with a very specific direction to take and more importantly a legitimate reason behind taking action. Its actually quite refreshing. Thank You.

Not to worry, you all have the opportunity to experience Dallas and Melissa. In case you didn’t know they travel the country, much like i used to, spreading the good word one day at a time. Here is a link to their workshops. If you are local (D/FW) don’t fuck this up. They are coming to CF Denton County October 15-16. There is even talk of doing a joint event on sunday so keep your ear to the ground for that one. Sign up for the nutrition workshop here and the trainer workshop here.

See ya there!!

Since i have not had much to say i wanted to let you into my training recently.  Hope you enjoy it.  THis is the good, bad and ugly.

Since i choked last time there was a local competition i want to make a point and let everyone know about this one. A good friend and sometimes guest poster here is putting on a weightlifting/conditioning competition. He is working with Ursula Papandrea and Chad Vaughn to create something they call OlyAthlete.com They are also programming for anyone interested in these types of competitions. I highly recommend what they are doing so check it out… NOW!!

Additionally i will be teaching a weightlifting clinic at Crossfit Denton County Aug 21st. So if you are in the area please come check it out! Sign up here.

Lastly, we have finally started TexasWeightlifting.com. For now this will be a resource where you can find upcoming meets as well as USAW clubs in your area. Eventually it will be a more comprehensive resource for olympic weightlifters all over Texas.

This is an important topic that has been overlooked until recently. As we each split off of general fitness and start to specialize in different things. For me it has been weightlifting so i will use that example when looking at appropriate conditioning for a weightlifter.

As a weightlifter my goal is to lift as much weight as possible over my head in two different styles of lifts but only for a single effort. So by deductive reasoning you can imagine that doing high volume light weights would be a little counter productive. This does not let me off the hook from staying in decent shape. The question now is what is appropriate in terms of conditioning?

Looking a little deeper, but not too deep, you will understand the essentials of weightlifting… Explosiveness! With this in mind we can develop appropriate conditioning. I’m not going to get too crazy with this since i like simple things.
Basically, i will start this with the most basic of prescriptions…Sprinting. This can be anywhere from 3 seconds to 20 seconds but anything past that and i personally have to slow down or i might die…

Once you have decided the mode of exercise, and let me caution you to keep it freaking simple!, you can put together a simple plan. For me, i like to vary things a bit so i will be doing sets of 8-10 sprints with full recovery and varying the distance and in effect the time spent working. For a quick example i may do 10x 40m sprints with full recovery.

I am not sure how to make this any simpler. You can take this same approach to just about any sport specific training. Good luck and if you have any questions about this, just post them here.

So here we are about a month after completing our first group program. I would say it was a huge success!
We had PRs on everyday of the final week of the program with some guys hitting PRs a couple times in a single day.

In my post program assessment we asked what people enjoyed the most about having a written program. The number 1 response was having a goal oriented program followed by a close second of not having to think about your program. Before the program started we had everyone state a couple specific goals (ex: snatch 80kg and take 45 sec off my mile time) and then tested them at the beginning and the end of the program. Luckily we had a very motivated group which had very similar goals. This made our job much easier but also proved that people know what they want they just need a little help deciding how to work on it.
With this program we focused on the lifts, getting stronger and complimenting that with appropriate conditioning.

Looking forward we are going to get another group kicked off in the next couple weeks so if you are interested send me an email to coaching@DutchLowy.com Tell me what your goals are and we will either fit you into a group or start a new program just for people with your specific goals.

One thing we fell short on was getting the whole group involved in competition style activities. I thought the guys would be fired up to see each others results daily and start talking some friendly shit. In response to this, the new programs will have built in weekly competitions where you will either be working with or against others in the program. It should be loads of fun!!!