I have often touted the Speed Chains as versatile and beneficial for athletes in a wide variety of sports. I have spoken about the Speed Chains helping athletes in baseball, football, golf, tennis, and basketball. However, over the last few months I have had the opportunity to speak with an athlete using the Speed Chains to help train for a sport I hardly knew anything about.

Daniel McCormick is considered one of the top young heavyweights in the nation in the sport of Judo. He won the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials after beating the #1 ranked player in the nation three times. McCormick went on to place ninth in the Beijing Olympics. In 2009 he won the gold in the USA Judo Senior National Championships at the +100kg weight class and won silver at the Championship in the open division.

Now for those of you who aren’t very familiar with Judo, it is best known for it’s spectacular throwing techniques but also involves considerable grappling on the ground utilizing specialized pins, control holds, arm locks, and Judo choking techniques. Needless to say, Judo requires an athlete to be in tremendous shape and exhibit incredible strength. Much of this strength must come from the core as you are often required to throw your opponent to the mat, or maneuver on the ground so that you do not get pinned.
Daniel decided to try out the Torso Burner Speed Chain to train with this spring. He thought it could help his general conditioning but especially his rotational and core strength. After using the Torso Burner for the first few times, Daniel told me he felt “awkward” with them. He said he had trouble keeping the rhythm and momentum with the Chains. I told him this was natural as his body was being required to perform a new task, probably unlike any he had ever done before.

Sure enough, after several more weeks with the Speed Chains he responded that he absolutely loved them. Daniel had this to say about the Speed Chains:

“The Speed Chains are the best addition to my workouts in a long time. I have been using the Speed Chains for a couple of months and have noticed a huge difference. To stay competitive in today’s sports, you have to train a little differently. While squats, bench-press, and deadlifts are great, they are not enough. Adding equipment like the Speed Chains to your workouts will help you get to the next level. The Speed Chains are one of the best athletic core workouts I have ever experienced. It delivers a very unique and realistic feeling that is hard to find. I would recommend this piece of equipment to anyone trying to become the best athlete they can be, or to anyone who just wants a good workout that is unlike anything they will find in a gym.”

Daniel’s enthusiastic endorsement of the Speed Chains is very exciting for Chain Training LLC. To have an accomplished Olympic athlete say such complimentary things about the product shows how unique and beneficial they can be. I think the fact that an athlete from a sport such as Judo, which is so different than the sports I’ve previously seen athletes training for with the Speed Chains, goes a long way to show the universal qualities of using the Chains. The unique design of the Speed Chains allows for an athlete to incorporate them into his workout often specifically targeting the movements he will use during competition.

I wish the best of luck to Daniel in his upcoming competitions and I hope you all give the Speed Chains a try, like Daniel did, as you will be very happy with the results.

“When I really want to get medieval, I pull out the SpeedChain – which really does look like something out of the Middle Ages. It’s a golf shaft with a 20 or 30-foot-long chain of heavy links attached to the bottom. You get on the grass and sling the chain back and forth as if you were cracking a whip. It’s a brutal exercise and five minutes of it once a week is enough to really develop strength and speed in your core muscles.”

Click Here to buy the book on Amazon.com

Here is a little excerpt from Calvin:

“Tennis Education Group is the brainchild of Spanish Federation Coach, Jofre Porta, whose mission is to help bring to light the best and most advanced methods, concepts and techniques involved in training and developing world-class tennis players. Jofre also founded his own tennis academy based in Palma de Mallorca together with Moya called Global Tennis Team…

And now, the SpeedChain is in the process of being integrated into the “Global System”, as the SpeedChain training device and training methodology fits seamlessly into one of the most fundamental training principles and goals of Porta’s vision of high-performance tennis: to maximize a player’s capacity to generate speed, acceleration and power in all facets of their physical game.

Jofre told me that the SpeedChain will enable him to break through many of the existing barriers and limitations of current training and conditioning methods and he sees the benefits of training of the SpeedChain extending well beyond increasing a player’s speed and power to helping train and develop, among other things, an athlete’s kinesthetic sense, proprioceptive capacity, balance, coordination, anaerobic fitness and other fundamental athletic skills and attributes.”

Click here to read the whole article

• University of Tennessee-Knoxville Men’s Tennis (SEC)
• University of Tennessee-Knoxville Women’s Tennis (SEC)
• Boise State University Men’s Tennis (WAC)
• University of Colorado Women’s Tennis (Big 12)
• Syracuse University Women’s Tennis (Big East)
• UCLA Men’s Tennis (Pacific 10)
• University of California-Riverside Women’s Tennis (Big West)

Willamette Striders is a track and field club in Portland, Oregon focusing specifically in the pole vault.  Director/Coach Rick Baggett has begun using SpeedChains to train the Willamette Striders club athletes.

About Rick Baggett Director/Coach of Willamette Striders
Rick is the USA T&F Northwest Director of Pole Vault Development. He has coached 14 state prep champions in a 22 year span in Washington/Oregon. As well as 12 of the last 16 Male Community College champions and all of the womens champions. His vaulters dominate the Northwest standings for both male and female. He has spoken at many clinics and seminars during the last 22 years. In 2001 he was named the National Womens C.C. coach of the year by USATF Development. And in 2003 was named Club Coach of the year by USATF-Oregon. 
Rick’s training methods are used by many of the top developmental coaches. He uses an athletic and holistic approach so the development is appropriate to the age and skill level of the individual athlete. 
Rick is without a doubt the single most influential coach in the Northwest today. His dynamic teaching methods have made the Willamette Striders Pole Vaulting facility the place to be if you are interested in becoming a successful pole vaulter.

Ryan Schmidt: New certified SpeedChain speed and quickness trainer. Ryan graduated from Cornell University and is a conference champion in his specific events. He is now training in the pole vault event at the open level.

This just in: SpeedChains is in use at the US Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista.

Mr. Kelvin Miyahira recently returned from a visit to the US Olympic Training Center where he met Vinny Comiskey, the Head Athletic Trainer and Kim Shipman, Strength and Conditioning Coordinator. They were excited to learn of the latest developments he had made in the area of speed training products.

He was able to introduce them to many of his devices and they understood how this would take their athletes and training to another level. We talked of how this made core training more specific and faster, enabled higher levels of muscle recruitment than doing medicine balls, increasing rate of force development, training deceleration phase for injury prevention, well as using it for rehabilitation of an athlete at high speed, high force levels instead of low speed, high mass levels.

They also liked the idea of using the jump chain to increase the speed and safety of exercise rather than trying to jump with 135 lbs. of dead weight on one’s back. Thus many athletes will be using the SpeedChains for a variety of sports they have there

With great appreciation, I would like to personally thank Kay and Mel Bicoy for their awesome presentations at the Hawaii AHPERD conference and the convention in Arizona, Az AHPERD State Convention, 76th Annual Celebration “Creating Stars In Our Programs & Professionals”. Kay and Mel were presenting the Speed Chains at both conventions and had great reviews and responses.