Underground Strength Interview
with Coach Ethan Reeve
Part I

1) Coach Reeve, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk to us. You have been a highly successful wrestler, wrestling coach and a ground breaking strength coach. With what you see regarding the physical strengths / weaknesses of your incoming college freshman, how would you train a high school athlete (focusing more on wrestlers & football players) to better prepare them for D 1 sports?

Coach Reeve: Yes, I wrestled at the University of Tennessee from 1973-77. Although I was not an NCAA Champion I was a 4-time Southeastern Conference Champion and a 2-time NCAA All-American. Fortunately, I was privileged to have been an assistant wrestling coach under some great coaches at the University of Tennessee (Gray Simons), Oklahoma State University (Tommy Chesbro), Ohio University (Harry Houska) and Clemson University (Eddie Griffin).

Eventually I landed the Head Wrestling coach position at the University of Tennessee @ Chattanooga where I coached from 1984-1990. We had five Southern Conference Championship teams in six years. I loved coaching wrestling and still miss it. However, I really enjoy training all sorts of sport athletes.

The main thing I enjoyed about coaching wrestling was the training in the wrestling room. That is why it was such an easy transition to strength coaching because I just love training athletes and helping them become champions. Hard, smart work is the answer to success!

Basically, we are at the mercy of the athletes that are given to us by our sport coaches in recruiting. Our job, as strength coaches, is to "maximize" the athletic potential of each and every athlete we work with. We trust our sport coaches to identify the athletes they feel can help our university have success in that particular sport.

Sport coaches, like NFL scouts, will look at film and visit the players and see how they perform at practice and in competition. An athlete can have great results in the "combine" but not perform well in competition. If the athletes do not succeed in their sport under competitive situations then they will be overlooked in the recruiting process no matter how well they test in the strength room or combine.

What coaches need are athletes that perform well in competition. We do not emphasize numbers in testing in the strength room or speed and agility tests. We look for adequate strength, power, speed and athleticism. If the athletes given to us do not meet our standards then it is our job to get them to those minimum standards. It is the athlete's choice to go beyond those standards and succeed at a higher level on the field of competition.

How we break the body and its movements down is like this:
Total Body Power
1. Power Clean-301 lbs.
2. Power Clean-n-Jerk-242 lbs.

Total Body Strength
1. Deadlift-401 lbs.
2. Power Shrug (Pulls)

Hip and Knee Extension
1. Front Squat-308 lbs./Back Squat-352 lbs. Both squats are well below parallel!
2. Lunge -242 lbs. for 2+2RM

Hip Extension Power
1. Hang Clean-308 lbs.
2. Hang Snatch

Hip Extension Strength
1. Romanian Dead Lifts (Rdls)
2. Good Mornings

Upper Body Pressing
1. Standing Press-198 lbs.
2. Bench-300 lbs.-325 lbs-350 lbs. (depending on position)

One-Arm Upper Body Pressing
1. DB Bench-(125 lbs. for 5+5RM)
2. KB Standing Press

Upper Body Pulling
1. Chins
2. Bent Rows

We feel it is very important for athletes to be athletic while they are getting stronger and more powerful. What is athletic? Great athletes do something that marginal athletes don't do. The great athletes make the skill of their sport look easy. How does this happen? Thousands upon thousands of repetitions of the skill of their sport at the speed needed in competition!

We believe in making our athletes athletic by doing athletic lifts instead of isolation lifts during our team workouts. An athletic skill, like an athletic lift, is the incorporation of all your joints, muscles, tendons and ligaments together in a natural and many times explosive fashion.

Therefore the best way to train athletes is in the standing position. What are the athletic lifts? Cleans, squats, snatches, presses, pushups, sled pushes, sled pulls, tire flips, farmer walks, etc. are athletic lifts. What are the implements used by our athletes? Olympic barbells, bumper plates, kettlebells, dumbbells, sand bags, 300 lbs. wooden sleds, chin bars, dip bars, benches, and power bars.

Our recommendation to incoming freshmen is to do athletic movements and athletic lifts. Don't be so concerned about the amount of weight right away. Work on technique through a full range of motion and the speed of bar movement. Learn how to tumble (forward rolls, diving rolls, backward rolls, back rolls to handstands, bear crawls, crab crawls, seat rolls, etc.). Tumbling is one of the best ways to develop kinesthetic and spatial awareness for all sports.

Learn how to do agility drills. What is agility? Agility has three main components:

1. change of speed
2. change of direction and
3. change of levels all within the same drill.

Athletes must know what good position is for an athlete. The athletic position for most standup power sports is with your hips bent (down), feet shoulder width apart, on the balls of the feet, natural curve in lower back and with knees bent.

One of the worst positions for an athlete (other than a jiu jitsuu grappler) is on their back. What we did with our wrestlers every day in practice is spend at least 5 minutes drilling a Bad to Good Position Drill.

This drill entails, on the coaches' whistle, having your athletes go from different bad positions up to their feet in the athletic position while moving their hands and feet when they get there.

Some bad positions are: 1) back, 2) belly, 3) side, 4) butt, 5) hands and knees and 6) knees. The object is to go from the poor position and get to the athletic stance, with motion, as quickly as possible. The slower, less athletic athletes will get there slower.

If you want more from Coach Reeve, check out The Underground Strength System for a uncut audio interrogation where Coach Reeve reveals some of the most powerful strength & conditioning information you will ever hear. Check it out HERE.