Getting Bigger, Faster and Stronger – Interview with Joe Lightfoot

Joe Lightfoot is a strength and conditioning coach, currently with England Lacrosse Under 19s, he is soon to be a doctor, Joe won the under 90kg category at the UK strongest athlete strongman comp last July AND he is the founder of Move. Eat. Treat, a proactive healthcare movement which aims to revolutionise the way we treat medical disorders….not bad for a 23 year old!

As you can see Joe is a smart guy who loves getting people strong and healthy so listen to what he’s saying in this vid:

http://youtu.be/OmnD7Dpgy-I

Check out the video first, then to recap here are the main points that Joe makes:

• If you want to get better as an athlete, go and LEARN. Find out what works best for you, use what has worked for other great athletes in your sport and you’ll progress much faster than just blindly following other peoples advice.

• Train your lower body! Start on goblet squats and progress to heavier and more difficult variations. Strong legs means a strong athlete!

• GOLDEN RULE #1 You gotta CARRY heavy stuff. Farmers walks, bear hug carries and other similar movements train the body to stabilise itself under heavy load whilst moving. You will beast up!

• GOLDEN RULE #2 You must train your MOVEMENT patterns. Train to improve your squat, hinge, push, pull and carrying strength. This is how you become a complete athlete.

• GOLDEN RULE #3 You must get STRONGER. Real simple tip but often overlooked. Lift HEAVY weights often and adhere to the first two golden rules and you’ll transform yourself and shock your coaches and friends!

• Young athletes must play lots of different sports to build a variety of skill sets. Lessons learned in one sport will carry over to other sports, catching, changing direction etc. This helps the athlete gain a lot of skills without burning out.

• 16 year olds and older must build upon the skills they’ve learned from playing a lot of sport but now the emphasis should be on getting STRONG.

• To build a load of muscle you gotta use BIG exercises (think bench press and squat), for a lot of time under tension (longer sets) and work close to muscular failure.

• To build muscle in the entire upper body Joe suggests a specific regimen of heavy farmers walks for 30m back to back with a heavy set of 3 in the bench for multiple sets.

• When you accelerate into a sprint….LEAN FORWARD!

So much awesome training info here! Again, just take ONE thing that you can start applying immediately to your training or coaching and get after it. If you’re a little overwhelmed by all of the advice and can’t pick something to start, just follow the golden rules in your next workout. Pick two movement patterns and a heavy carry and work hard!

Read more about Joe at his website here and you better back his proactive healthcare campaign Move. Eat. Treat!

As always, please feel free to drop any comments below!

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