This weekend I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar in Elmira, NY given by one of the best coaches in the industry, Donnie Thompson. Donnie played professional football for six years and began powerlifting shortly thereafter. As a powerlifter, Donnie was the first man to EVER total 3,000 pounds at an event. Aside from being one of the strongest men in the world, he now focuses his efforts passing on his knowledge of improving performance through a method he invented called: Body Tempering. Here’s some of my biggest take aways from the event.
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- Body Tempering is light years ahead of Foam Rolling – Before attending this seminar I was highly skeptical if body tempering could produce the same effect a foam roller could for reducing pain, soreness, and improving an athletes recovery. Boy was I wrong! Donnie personally rolled my back, shoulders, and hamstrings with a 100 plus pounds of steal. Afterwords, I felt AMAZING! I’m still a proponent of foam rolling for it’s practicality (it’s hard to get 100 plus pounds of welded steel), but if you can find tempering devices I don’t know why you would ever use a foam roller again.
2. Donnie’s Ankle, Shoulder and Hip Protocols –
3. Don’t volunteer at one of Donnie’s seminars! –
I’m not going to lie tempering hurts, but the after effects are worth a little pain 😉
4. Body Tempering is highly anaerobic – Over time, body tempering makes our bodies STRONGER, improving absolute strength.
5. Can tempering your shoulders, lats etc. be an effective recovery protocol for overhead throwing athletes (pitchers)? – YES. My shoulder felt fantastic when Donnie finished tempering me.
6. “People use the excuse “old-school” to be stupid and not learn.” – Donnie Thompson
It’s astounding how many people in the physical preparation industry are hesitant to try new methods that are clearly better for their athletes than their old teachings.
7. Can tempering hamstrings prevent future hamstring pulls? – If tempering is anaerobic and strengthens the tissues, then why wouldn’t tempering protocols targeted to the hamstrings prevent hamstring pulls? As we know, hamstring pulls are extremely common in baseball so this topic is very interesting to me. I’ll be experimenting on more baseball players in the coming weeks and will post my results.
8. Clemson won a national championship in football this year – They were also among the teams with the lowest rate of injury. Oh, and they’re one of the very few colleges that uses Donnie’s body tempering techniques DAILY. Hmmm
9. If you think Donnie did this seminar to sell his tempering tools, your wrong – The truth of the matter is from a liability stand point he can’t. He uses his body tempering technique to HELP people get out of pain, strengthen the body, and improve performance.
10. If you’re in Corning, NY go to Aniello’s for a slice of chicken, bacon and ranch pizza. Seriously though… That pizza was DAMN GOOD!!
All in all this was a fantastic seminar! I can’t thank Donnie Thompson enough for answering my questions, showing me his protocols and techniques, and giving me this new information to apply immediately with my athletes!
