It has never been easier to win!
Here is Coach Shepard spotting a heavy squat when he was a strength coach at BYU. note: Although this article week developing their bench press by The BFS on the(Editor’s origins of Coach Shepard’s training doing many exercises and sets because Difference It has never been easier to win! BY DR. GREG SHEPARD, BFS FOUNDER methods was written 20 years ago, the ideas are still relevant today.) any coaches are confused by all the different choices among workout programs and training philosophies. Some coaches ignore all ideas besides their own and believe they are doing just fine. To all coaches, we invite a thorough examination of what we call “The BFS Difference.”
Many athletes spend hours every Mthey “gotta have a big bench!” Yet they will neglect agility, flexibility, jumping, sprinting, sport skills and so on. I always say the objective in competitive sports should not be to have a big bench but to WIN! At BFS what do we use as our guiding light? BFS is based on the training used by throwers in track. To us, it is normal for a 270-pound guy to run a 4.4 forty and to jump vertically 36 inches without a step. We view things MAY/JUNE 2013 from a wider perspective. I found one comment from a successful football coach in Virginia to be quite amusing: “We win our league most of the time, so why change?”
Coaches like him seem to forget there are many reasons that a football team can win a game, many of which have nothing to do with their strength program. Indeed, many teams win in spite of their program, not because of it. speed and power; they don’t sprint, jump, score goals, come into physical contact with their opponents or do agility drills. If a thrower were to use split routines by doing the upper body one day and the lower body the next within a six-days-a-week program, the thrower would find out in a hurry that it was totally wrong.
Some major college strength programs are now using a four-day split routine for exercises using the same sets and reps for each exercise, such as 3 sets of 10 reps, are way off-base. No thrower could come anywhere near their potential this way. When all is said and done, if you can’t parallel squat and power clean big, you can’t throw big. It doesn’t matter what you bench or what you curl, or what you can do on a pec-dec. It’s vital to vary your sets and reps.
BFS is based on the training used by throwers in track. It’s true that shot put and discus are vastly different from football. They are totally objective, as measured by the distance thrown. Throwers test their prowess frequently throughout the year, whereas football teams only compete for a few months. Even if they win, football players may never really know how they did it. Throwers, on the other hand, have been able to eliminate incorrect training principles with great effectiveness. Incidentally, they have always been, in most areas, light years ahead of research. That’s why at BFS athletes have a standard of excellence built on the proven training of throwers.
A football lineman who graduates from college weighing 275 and only runs a 4.8 with a 28-inch vertical jump can hardly be said to have reached his potential – that’s why we stress the importance of BFS early in an athlete’s training. At BFS our objective is to win, and we use strength training to give our athletes a big edge. As for bodybuilding, over 50 percent of football, basketball and baseball players do it, thinking they are training for their sport. Bodybuilding isn’t bad, but it is different from what athletes in mainstream sports must do to win. Bodybuilders don’t stretch for auxiliaries; this is more tolerable, but even so, a thrower wouldn’t do it.
You can’t make wins happen by doing bodybuilding routines. Bodybuilders spend much more time in the weightroom than throwers do. Their objective is to win a bodybuilding contest, not a football game. There is also nothing wrong with powerlifting, but powerlifters are concerned only about a huge squat, bench and deadlift. Sure, throwers strive for a big squat and bench, but they emphasize lifts such as the power clean snatch before a deadlift. If throwers were to train exactly like powerlifters, they would certainly fail.
Core Lifts and Beyond I introduced a core lift concept in a 1969 feature article in the old Strength and Health magazine. Now, over 20 years later [now 40], most strength coaches use core lifts. What does this mean? Coaches select several exercises that they believe are most important. These are usually multijoint exercises. Three of the most popular are the parallel squat, power clean and the bench press. Other core lifts include the incline bench press, front squat, hip sled, deadlift, hex bar deadlift and power snatch. Programs that use 10-15 different If you do 3 x 10, 5 x 5, or one set of 8-12 reps week after week, or month after month, you will never reach your potential.
No thrower could even imagine not varying his program regularly. Variation is especially important at the high school level. The BFS Program is different every workout for four straight weeks. There are 75 separate records tracked in the BFS system. Our athletes routinely break at least eight of these records every week all year long. Wow! Talk about motivation! You’ve got to focus every coaching and training minute on winning in your chosen sport. You must do a total and balanced conditioning program of strength, sprint, jump, flexibility, agility, stamina and sport skill training.
Concentrate especially on the parallel squat and a quick lift like the power clean, because these lifts develop primarily the hips and legs. Varying your sets and reps prevents plateaus and leads to much greater progress. That’s the BFS Dr. Greg Shepard, difference!
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$OWKRXJKLW·VJUHDWWRJHWWKHIXQG ing to build a new weight room as we say, “From Concept to Completion,” the reality is that many schools have limited budgets. The alternative is not to give up on your GUHDPEXWWRWDNHWKHSURFHVVRQH step at a time. 7KURXJKRXWWKLVSURFHVVRIORQJ term planning BFS can help by SURYLGLQJ\RXZLWKDVDIHW\HYDOXD tion and needs analysis. From there we will help you establish an annual budget and then show the process, VWHSE\VWHSZLWK'DQG' image rendering technology.
The 2D illustration is the first step of the Concept to Completion process. These illustrations are drawn to scale to show you exactly how your weight room can be laid out, thereby ensuring proper use of available space and the best design for safety and traffic flow.
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"&3 4OTAL 0ROGRAM 6IDEO $6$ 3ET X %XERCISE )NSTRUCTION $6$ X "IGGER &ASTER 3TRONGER "OOK Contains the complete BFS Program X 3ET 2EP ,OG "OOK AND 2ECORD #ARD The record keeping book for all athletes with instructions and complete charts to record sets, reps, records, times and more. X %)6SURYLGHVXQPDWFKHGRQJR ing support. With instructional clinics in safety and technique DVZHOODVFRDFKHV·FHUWLILFDWLRQ courses, BFS provides all the tools for raising your program to THE NEXT LEVEL!
9EAR -AGAZINE 3UBSCRIPTION A quality magazine unlike any other. Inspirational stories, technique articles, products, motivation and more! X "E AN -ANUAL Character education is a large part of the BFS philosophy. This manual can help your athletes TAKE CHARGE of their dreams and goals. 100% MONEY BACK GUARANTEE!! X DEDICATED TO HELPING ATHLETES SUCCEED SINCE 1976 ONLINE AT WWWBIGGERFASTERSTRONGERCOM s EMAIL US AT INFO BFSMAILCOM 7EST 3OUTH 3ALT ,AKE #ITY 54 s &AX
From BFS Magazine — May/June 2013. Part of the BFS Magazine Archive (1980–2014).
