Training Like a Champion!

Zach Epperly recently finished a 12-week program at Foley Health and Fitness Training. Zach’s program consisted of 3 personal training sessions per week with Brian Shortridge. Here are some of the results of Zach’s summer with us:

·       Bench press increased by 40lbs
·       Front squat increased by 40lbs
·       Trap bar deadlift increased by 120lbs
·       Bicep measurement increased by an inch
·       Max pull-ups increased from 22 to 31.

These numbers are pretty impressive considering that Zach is already a high level athlete who has won three consecutive state titles as a wrestler at Christiansburg High School.

Zach has an amazing work ethic, and made the most of his time with us. In fact, during our summer training, he continued wrestling and even competed in Fargo, North Dakota, which is one of the nation’s most competitive wrestling tournaments. He finished 4^th in the country in this tournament. His performance in this tournament now has him ranked 3^rd in the nation in his weight class.

Here is an inside look into Zach’s training while he was with us:

Zach started every workout with a sequence of tumbling and plyometrics. His tumbling routine consisted of forward and backward rolls, cartwheels, and walking on his hands. Plyometric sequences were also incorporated into his tumbling and included jumping in and out of squats and lunges. The main purpose for performance of this sequence was for Zach to maintain his athleticism. We find that our best athletes are usually also very good at tumbling.

After his tumbling and plyometric routine, Zach would move onto isometrics in which he was required to hold perfect positions in lunges and pushups. These were performed to increase his strength in these movements and increase his training volume without causing him to overtrain. Zach actually credits the isometrics as the training element that probably helped him the most. He added significant size to his legs, and he believes that the isometrics played a big part in making him quicker on the mat.

Zach’s weight training rotated through three different types of training. Zach had max effort lifts put into his program with the goal being to set new bests in the amount of weight he could lift. Examples of lifts that he used were front squats, backsquats, trap bar deadlifts, bench presses, and incline presses. Another method that Zach incorporated was the dynamic method. The goal of the dynamic method was to increase his speed. These lifts consisted of speed squats with chains, speed bench press with chains, Olympic lifting variations, and prowler sprints. The final method that Zach used was the repetition method. This method was used to increase his muscle mass and promote recovery. He used a variety of exercises such as pull-ups, dumbbell presses, farmer’s walks, sled drags, etc. He performed these exercises with higher reps in order to increase his training volume and allow him to gain muscle mass.

Throughout the training process, Zach was also wrestling. During his training, Brian made sure to adjust his programs for the week based upon Zach’s competition schedule. Because of this planning, Zach was able to make considerable progress while still wrestling at a very high level.