Why the Patriots won the Superbowl

Dear Friend,

All I can say is what a game!

Everyone on both teams played their hearts out and it showed. Many of you may not know that Tom Brady was the quarterback here at Michigan for my first two seasons. You sure won't find a better guy to be around. It didn't matter if you were an All-American or a no-name backup; Tom always had a kind word and knew you by name. He was a solid player at UM but for whatever reason, many pro-football scouts counted him out.

Now he's going to be laughing all the way to the Hall of Fame.

Another guy they tried to count out was Corey Dillon. For the last seven years with Cincinnati, Corey did nothing but "fistfight" his way down the field every game. He sure didn't get much help either but that didn't stop him from kicking mucho tail. Now after all these years, Corey gets a ring too. Great job guys! While there are many reasons how the Patriots became the World Champs, one thing that they did better than any other team this year was how they mastered the basics of the game of football.

If a team can consistently just keep getting that next first down on Offense, keep tackling soundly on Defense and maintain ball security throughout, that team will be a championship team without a doubt. The Patriots did each of these game after game.

Sure, they got flashy at times but when it all came down to it, they did what they needed to do to win games.

Much like football, you can break your training program down into the basic elements too. In fact, you should do this because it is then that you can gain a much better understanding of what you are trying to accomplish with your training and the best ways of doing so.

Sometimes it can become easy to get caught up in the latest "miracle" workout program or some "exotic" exercise but if you don't incorporate the basic elements into your program, you are going to be going nowhere fast. I know that I have been guilty of that at times.

There is nothing wrong with doing "advanced" work, and at some point, you will probably have to,…but remember that you have to walk before you can run.

So, what exactly do I mean by the basics? Well for starters, I would say that these elements are critical if you ever hope to make any kind of meaningful progress in your training:

- hard work
- progression
- good form
- consistency
- a goal oriented program
- an understanding of human anatomy and physiology

I will keep driving home this point for as long as I can: You must master the basics…and honestly, no matter how long you have been training, you can always improve on the basics somehow.

In the next few newsletters, I will touch on a few of the goals that many of you sent in from a few weeks back. I will start out with what is probably the most popular topic: training to close heavy hand grippers.

What are the basics of hand gripper training? We are going to systematically break down exactly what it is going to take for you to close some heavy grippers and take your crushing strength into the "scary" level.

This is going to be some great stuff, some things that I have never let anyone in on before so you are in for a real treat...until then,

Train hard,

John Wood signature

John Wood

P.S. If you haven't had a chance to check out the Official FHS logo T-Shirt yet, you owe it to yourself.