NJ Seminar with Joe DeFranco & Zach Even-Esh Review (Part 3)

Woke up on day two and I was feeling pretty good, not too sore other than the usual low back tightness in the morning.  Went downstairs and shoveled as much food as I could into my gob because I knew that I was going to go through a tough workout. Zach was creating it and we all know that guy likes to go big and put on a show.  Driving to DeFranco’s that morning I realized that I did not have directions from the hotel to the gym so, being the buy that I am, decided to let intuition be my guide.  Of course I got lost again….but 100 u-turns later I got there.  Yeah I know what you are thinking “Doug why didn’t you just use your GPS?”  Well I did not have a GPS in the lousy rent-a-wreck.  In fact that car did not have two operating headlights or functional wiper blades.  It did have this ice scraper/brush combo tool that I was excited to use.  I know it would get old after day three or so, but us Cali people rarely ever do those sorts of things.

Zach got us going on the warm up which he mentioned “is a good time to assess the athlete’s movements, moods and energy levels.”  I made sure I did my lunges with a faux smile. 

Bodyweight Warm Up:

Ø      Squat                                         10r

Ø      Alt. Lunge                                  10r      

Ø      Toe-touch lunge                       10r

Ø      Mini-band pull aparts               25r

Zach likes to add some abdominal work to the warm up like leg raises on the dip bars but we did not do these do to the number of people we had and the limited amount of dip bars.

Off to the workout where we broke into three groups based on how much we thought we could lift that morning.  The workout consisted of:

A1) Zercher squats w/thick bar                   5r (submaximal effort)

Miniband pull aparts, push ups and abdominals were done in between for active recovery.  

B1) Single D. Bell cleanàpush press               3s x 5r

B2) Body weight pull ups                                3s x RM

C1) [Cheat] Hammer curls                               3s x 5r (use the body to bring them up and then control the eccentric)

C2) Tate press                                                 3s x 12-15r

After another filling lunch at the Goffle Grill (I kinda miss that place) we came back and Joe asked us if there were any exercises we wanted to talk about or have demonstrated.  Joe addressed the nuances of the his famous “Triceps of Death” routine where he uses the board press to help the athletes prepare for the 225lb bench test at the combine.

He also talked about the use of his version of D. bell cleans for shoulder rehabilitation and rotator cuff injury prevention.  He has his athletes initially doing them in the seated position and when the athlete gets better then they can perform the exercise on an incline bench.

Those were just come of the highlights from the DeFranco-Even-esh seminar and believe me there was so much more.  I must say I have never been to a seminar like that before.  The idea of traveling to the place where the coach performs most of his work, being placed in their environment and asked to perform the way they want their athletes to is an experience that you cannot get from a seminar in a classroom setting.  I felt like I learned a ton of information that was easy to understand and applicable to my business right now.  I cannot wait for another opportunity like this again; it makes all of those u-turns worth it. 

Thanks Joe and Zach.

*Next post I will put up my workout I did in preparation for the DeFranco Even-esh seminar.