Chip Smith answers your questions!

You once said that your training is the combination of explosive running and lifting based on Russian training principles. What do you mean by that? Scott, Lubbock, TX

Well, I was fortunate enough to be a part of a small group of Americans in the 1980s that was invited to be part of an education exchange during the “Glasnost” period between the former Soviet Union and the United States. We did post-graduate work at the world-renowned Soviet Sports Institute, where the Russians were developing athletes a lot differently than anything I’d ever been exposed to in the West. It was basically the flash-point of the basic ideas for what has become the CES Proprietary Training System today, and the real secret to how we get the incredible results we get at CES.

Of course, it is now common knowledge that there was a lot of doping going on during that era…so I’m not referring to that aspect of what the Soviets were doing differently (chuckle). But I am referring to the basic differences in our approach to strength and speed training. In the west, we were putting all of our athletes through the same basic conditioning and strength training. We were creating better all-around athletes, but we never got specific as to the sports, position and movements we were asking each individual athlete to execute. The Soviets started with the opposite approach. They started with each movement, and developed each individual athlete around the exact movements, position and sport they were trying to dominate.

In equating that to football, we would take an entire team and ask them all to run three miles and put them all through the exact same weight lifting routine, regardless of what position they played. We were training defensive tackles the same way we trained wide receivers, despite the fact that those two positions require distinctly different athletic skills to be successful. The Soviets were training to get specific results on the playing field. When I saw their approach and began to apply it to western team sports like football, baseball and basketball, I really realized that the generalized approach we were taking in the West made no sense whatsoever. That was the birth of the CES proprietary training system. When we began applying those principles, we started seeing phenomenal results that were actually measurable on the field. We weren’t just making better athletes anymore, we were making better players! That influence and the overall direction of our program was a direct result of my experience in Russia.

Until next time, keep training hard!

Coach Smith