This post is attributed to Travis Cummings, FAST Facility Manager, CSCS

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Travis Cummings has a degree in Kinesiology, and is a certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist (CSCS). He has years of experience in training athletes to help them achieve their performance goals, and is here to share the success story of one of his most driven clients, as well as provide tips on how you can use Brian’s story to improve your own training.

Brian M has been training with South Chandler FAST and Coach Chris Cummings during the off-season for over one and a half years. He first came to us at the end of his 8^th grade football season, hoping to improve performance in areas that most players about to enter high school want: speed, agility, and strength. Initially, he only wanted to have one to two training sessions with us per week, and Brian’s father, like most parents, believed this would be enough to achieve drastic results. However, I suggested that three to four sessions was ideal, and if he was willing to put in the effort I could guarantee results. Brian began training with us three times a week and started seeing great improvements, surpassing all expectations. That year, he was voted MVP by his freshman football teammates . Since then, he has started training four days a week and continues to surprise me with his performance gains.

In the eight years I’ve been training high school athletes, there have been only a handful who have worked as hard as Brian. Two of them have gone on to play sports at the collegiate level, and the others certainly could have, but chose to focus on academics rather than sports. Brian has the potential to achieve this success as well, and he comes into each training session ready to give it everything he’s got. While some days are obviously better than others, he is always dedicated to increasing his physical performance. He lifts at school two to three days a week, and occasionally has practice in the off-season. Sometimes his coach, Chris, has to adjust his program to take into account what Brian has already done in the day.

Brian’s program is designed to make him an explosively strong athlete, so we have cycles that focus on power, strength and hypertrophy (muscle growth). Since he plays football, it is important to focus on increasing strength while also increasing speed and power. The time of year (pre-season, in-season, or off-season) determines what we focus on so he is peaking at the proper times. We change his program monthly so his body is constantly challenged with new exercises, and he also has time to get better at particular movements.  As his training age has increased, we’ve been able to add some more advanced strategies to his program to make sure he doesn’t plateau. Some of these strategies are brutally hard and would make even the most seasoned lifters shed a few tears. It is of course natural for young people to become stronger as they grow older, but the rate at which Brian is getting stronger is impressive. His strength increases 15 to 20 pounds month after month, his vertical and long jumps have increased, his 10 and 40 yard times have decreased, and he has added muscle to his frame.

We are happy to have him training with us, and proud to announce him as our Athlete of the Month. I’m excited to see what his high school football career entails as he continues to develop as an athlete.

5 components of Brian’s training plan that you can use to make progress & reach your goals:

1. Strength train often – at least 3 times per week, ideally 4 times.
2. If training for sports, train for power and strength.
3. Cycle your training based on the season.
4. Track your workouts; sets, reps, resistance used, rest, and tempo.
5. Train hard, and sometimes brutally hard.