In the early part of my career, I worked as a Strength and Conditioning Coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks Minor League System. Every year, like clockwork, our pitching coach would come storming into my office a few weeks into the season in a panic.

He was always rattled that the pitchers weren’t going long enough in the game. They were getting pulled after four or five innings (starting pitchers are aiming to go at least seven innings).

Now, in my eyes, the pitchers just came out of a grueling six-week Spring Training and were still getting settled into the season. Many of them weren’t exactly high achievers during the offseason, so they were still getting into shape.

“These guys need to run harder and longer!” the pitching coach would say to me, “Back in my day we would run five miles after every start! That’s what these guys should be doing.”

I would nod my head and smile. I would play the game.

But I knew something he didn’t. I knew science.

I knew that the Aerobic System was in charge of two things in the body. It was in charge of producing long-sustaining energy and it was responsible for recharging your batteries (recovery). Both were CRITICAL to the endurance of the athlete.
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​I would turn to the pitching coach and snap back, “YOU’RE RIGHT! THESE GUYS ARE SOFT! WE NEED TO GRIND THEM TO A PULP! Tomorrow, when it’s time to work out, I’ll take ‘em behind the stadium and THEY WON’T KNOW WHAT HIT ‘EM!”

We would high five or do some sort of other ridiculous celebration and we would head our separate ways.

The next day, when it was time to crack some skulls, I would parade the pitchers past the pitching coach (with a mean scowl on my face), I’d walk the group right out of the centerfield wall, slam the door behind me, and then proceed to “crack those skulls.”

Only, I didn’t.

Running longer and harder wasn’t the answer. I needed to be smarter than that.

So, I would strap each pitcher up with a heart rate monitor and we would go for a brisk walk around the surrounding neighborhoods. We made sure that we kept their heart rates between 130-150 for the entire walk and then we headed back to the field.

Here’s what you gotta know about the Aerobic System. It’s the only system capable of producing energy for longer than sixty seconds. Just like you need a lot of energy to get through the day, professional pitchers need a lot of energy for seven innings of a professional baseball game.

But there’s also a little secret that you don’t know about the Aerobic System. It’s also the only system in your body in charge of your recovery.

Think of it like this, when you’re done using your phone for the day, what do you do?

You throw it on the charger and let it juice up!

Well, if you have a crappy charger, you could leave it on there for 8 hours and it will only get up to 50%

Well, if your aerobic system is a crappy charger, you could sleep for 8 hours and it will only get up to 50%.

I knew THIS was the secret sauce for my pitchers.

I needed to get them brand-new batteries and charge them up to full strength.

When you exercise at a consistent heart rate between 130 and 150 beats-per-minute for 30 to 90 minutes, your heart will begin to fill with blood. As it fills up, the heart will expand. Just like filling a balloon with water.

In the business, we call this Eccentric Ventricular Contraction. But that’s just a fancy way of saying your heart can now hold more blood.

When your heart can hold more blood, that means more energy, oxygen and resources can get pumped out to your muscles.

You know what this means, right? You’re going to have more energy.

With the same clockwork-style predictability of the pitching coach storming into my office, I could predict the sudden spike in innings pitched by pitchers.

It happened every year.

Without fail, a few days after beginning this routine, all the pitchers would start pitching 7+ innings.

These training sessions were a scientific approach to athletic performance.

This approach maximized their body’s ability to produce energy and recharge between pitches and between games.

Centuries ago, when the first humans were walking on the earth, getting food for dinner was a lot different.

Groups of hunters would go out searching for a worthy animal to take down.

When they identified a target, they would make a HUGE circle around it and very slowly converge on their prey.

They took advantage of their ability to outlast their target, and eventually the animal ran out of gas and the humans pounced.

Somewhere in the 1700’s, the Industrial Revolution increased the velocity of progress far past the speed of evolution leaving us with a highly technological society and a prehistoric body.

Evolution takes hundreds of thousands of years to set in.

This means we still have bodies that are designed for this kind of long-lasting energy production.

This is the aerobic system.

The healthiest humans don’t have six-packs.

The finest specimens aren’t deadlifting 700lbs.

The world’s fittest people are those whose aerobic system is operating at the highest possible level.

This workout is about getting you started down this path.
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How much blood can your heart hold? The more blood it can hold, the more fuel it can get to your muscles. We are now diving down to the cellular level to improve your body’s efficiency.

This workout is designed to increase the amount of blood your heart can hold. It’s called Eccentric Ventricular Hypertrophy.

The reason that your heart rate must be kept in this range is because anything under 130 and it won’t be hard enough to elicit an adaptation.

Training is all about forcing changes in your body. If it’s too easy, there is no reason for the brain to signal new muscles or to improve the efficiency of the pathways.

If it goes above 150, this means it’s crossing the anaerobic threshold. This is the moment where you switch from using your aerobic system for energy to using your anaerobic system.

This is so important because the anaerobic system can only produce energy for up to 60-seconds. If you start using this system, you’ll start running out of gas in a hurry, you’ll hit that wall and then your body starts to fall apart if you keep going.

We need to turn you into an aerobic powerhouse!

With breathing through your nose, you’ll absorb 18% more oxygen than breathing through your mouth.

Do I need to say anything else?

Breathing through your nose will help you with…

If you are not already breathing through your nose, the time to start is now!

When you breathe, you should get 360-degree expansion of your ribcage.

For many reasons, it is harder to expand your back during inhalation. This can lead to problems such as…

The All-4 Belly Lift is designed to get you to expand your back.

The #1 problem with the clients in my clinic is that they have weak hamstrings…and it’s not even close.

It’s like clockwork now!

Every single time we receive a new client, the tests reveal weak hamstrings and we have to spend the first eight weeks of their program blasting corrective tone back into these all-important muscles.

By starting your workout with some hammy activation, you’re giving yourself a much better chance to recruit them as you train.

The 90.90 Hip Lift is simple…

Up until this point, everything has been easy. It’s time to introduce tension.

This is where we cross the bridge from light warm-ups to higher intensity levels.

When you perform Half-Kneeling Tiny Lifts w. Arm Swing, you are getting your hamstrings to fire, feet to begin stabilizing, integrating your upper body and doing it in a “not easy” way.

On your front foot, you should feel three points on the ground.
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​I call this “The Tripod”

To do this, you will likely have to drive your knee over your toes to ensure that the weight is evenly distributed across all three of these points.

Once you’ve got even weight distribution across “The Tripod” lift your back knee off the ground by pressing into the “The Tripod” and activating the muscles of that top leg.

Hold briefly, creating tension. Then drop.

Repeat 5 times on each leg for two sets.

Now you’re ready to train.
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