Nick Rizzotti shows how to get a heavy load airborne!

With some good lookin' sumo style shoes, a solid grip and some fans in the background, it won't be long til Nick spanks the 500 lbs level!

Knock-em dead Nick...

Tiffany Ikeda-Simao (120lb bw) decided it was time to make a move toward the top of the Bearpowered Hall of Fame with a huge jump up.

Only Colleen Barney (110 lbs bw, 280 lbs lift) and Sasha Blanchard (115 lb bw 303 lb lift) have lifted more poundage per bodyweight.

Tiffany has a great shot at passing Barney but Sasha is going to present her with a big challenge. Sasha's actual best was 405 lbs at 128 lbs bw.

Can Tiffany rise to the occasion?

After looking at video of her deadlift, I wouldn't be surprized!

Since his track team began practicing back in February, nine of his current track team members have qualified for the Hall of Fame.
 
"Our guys are always excited about the Hall of Fame," noted Zoom.  It's a realistic, tangible goal that they point toward.  Those nine guys represent a third of my entire team, and there will be more to come."
 
Zoom believes that the secret has been the combination of his Gravity Constant protocol along with the deadlift.
 
"The guys are always looking at my charts and noting their percentages of body weight as they start pulling heavier loads..  As they get closer to two times their body weight, they've learned to check the scale, because Gravity Constant  helps them to shed some pounds. Now they understand that reductions in body mass with increased strength is the best way to make the Hall of Fame standard..  The two protocols compliment each other."
 
Zoom also understands that many coaches would not be as excited about these lifts to the extent he is.
 
"I'm sure that there are coaches who think this is really no big deal, and if pulling big weights was the secret to speed,then all these monster deadlifters should be going after Usain Bolt's records.  But I'm working with many developmental guys who have no real background in the lift, but who find themselves being successful in a relatively short period of time, and this means a lot to them, because they are finding a link to times on the track.  Correlation does not equal causation. but that's not the issue. Kids are having fun and feeling good about themselves, and what the deadlift accomplishes for them is what Brooks Johnson always notes is important to sprinters: instant gratification.  That why FreeLap timing  is also an essential part of our training."

I recently received the following email from Rainer Groh of Germany:

I thought I would write you a quick note to tell you that buying your book has been an incredible investment and worth every penny! I was a national long jumper for Germany at U20 but my development stalled over the last three years. The major reason for this was a repetitive hamstring injury, which in retrospect I believe must have originated from high-rep, pyramid based weights training I was forced to do over the years. After re-scheduling my weights training in February I have added 40kg to my deadlift and jumped 7.80m on the weekend. That is a new PB of 40 cm and I now have a potential chance of qualifying for the London 2012 Olympics!

I can tell that my reaction times of the floor during sprinting and takeoff have improved drastically and I feel much "springier" as I like to call it.

I am very grateful for your help,

Regards,
Rainer Groh

Thanks for using our protocol Rainer and we will be rooting you on to 2012!

Bear

Ken Jakalski has thought a great deal about the mechanics of speed throughout his thirty-seven years coaching career, but it wasn’t until two paralympians, then World Sprint Champion Tony Volpentest and future World Sprint Champion Marlon Shirley competed on his high school track in Lisle, Illinois back in 1997 that his thinking really began in earnest. 

How could an athlete with no lower arms and no feet run a time faster than 97% of every able bodied high school athlete Jakalski ever coached? 

Conventional insights at the time would say that athletes push back against the ground in order to go forward horizontally.  But if this were indeed the case, how was it possible for a sprinter, limited to carbon graphite keel bars that bolted to lower leg prosthesis, to push back against the ground?

And what about all the insights on the swinging arms contributing to faster speeds?  Volpentest had to rest his stumps on padded paint cans just to start a race.  Why wasn’t his arms impacting on his speed if, as many believed, correct arm action was essential to successful sprinting?

It was his pursuit of answers to these questions that led Jakalski to the human locomotion labs at Harvard and Rice University.  And the answers he received have made all the difference in the way he has approached training over the past ten years.

Jakalski’s process of learning by questioning is at the heart of The Book of Zoom, a compilation of answers to key questions coaches have asked him over the past several years, coaches who, like him, wanted a scientific understanding of the means by which athletes can achieve faster speeds.

In the words of SMU’s Dr. Peter Weyand, “While many of his peers found comfort and assurance in slickly packaged training products, Olympic testimonials and the performance gurus of the day, Ken has never stopped asking hard questions or striving for more effective techniques.”

In more than 40 years of coaching, I've never met an individual more dedicated to learning his chosen task: Educating those who have a sincere desire to learn how to run fast; faster than they've ever run before!