Wilmington Strength

Wilmington Strength Gym in Wilmington North Carolina. We help people live stronger, healthier, happier lives💪🏻

06/13/2026

“My power sn**ch is more than my full sn**ch. What do I do?”

This is one of the most common problems I see with beginner lifters and athletes.

The bad news: there’s no magic fix.

The good news: Here’s a fix:
1. Finish your sn**ch complexes with an overhead squat.
2. Do tall sn**ches every warm up.
3. Pause where you catch the bar and ride it all the way down into the squat.
4. Get a ton of reps from the high hang and power position with lighter weights.
The goal is simple: get comfortable pulling yourself under the bar.
It takes time, but if you consistently put yourself in good positions, your full sn**ch will eventually pass your power sn**ch.
Questions about Olympic lifting? Drop them below.

**ch **ch

06/11/2026

A really quick, simple, and easy sn**ch warm up.

The fewer tools you need and the simpler the warm up, the more likely you are to actually do it consistently. And consistency is where the results come from.

1. Ankle stretch, or you can do RDLs. I’ve found that usually people with tight ankles have more mobile hamstrings, and people with more mobile ankles tend to be tighter in the hamstrings. It comes down to being quad or hip dominant. You can pick one or the other or do both, but over time you typically need to focus on one.
2. Overhead rotations to open up the chest and lats
3. Muscle sn**ches for turnover and to warm up the shoulders
4. Overhead squats to get comfortable catching deep
5. Tall sn**ches to get better at pulling under the bar, the hardest part

Give it a try before your next session.

06/09/2026

New defensive end and outside linebacker group starts TODAY. Tuesdays at 3:30 on the Hoggard practice field, every single week all summer long.

If you want to get more explosive, sharpen that first step off the ball, tighten your bend around the edge, clean up your hands, and build a real pass rush arsenal, this is your group. We are training the position specific technique that shows up on Friday nights.

How to get in:
DM me, or tap the free week trial link in my bio. Your free week covers this group plus a speed session or a session in the gym.

Grab your cleats and come work.

06/09/2026

The overhead squat is not as hard as people make it. The problem is almost always your setup at the top.

Stop holding the bar overhead with your elbows pointing at the ceiling. That overexaggerated externally rotated position fights you the whole way down.

Instead, let your shoulders internally rotate slightly, drive the bar back over your upper back, and squeeze your shoulder blades together. Keep your torso angle the same as you descend.

Then earn your range of motion. Move slow, own every inch, and build comfort at depth before you load it heavy.

Set up right and the movement takes care of itself.

06/07/2026

Hot take: The sn**ch is easier to teach than the clean.

Once an athlete is comfortable with a sn**ch grip and a stable overhead position, the lift is actually pretty simple. In many cases, it looks better than a clean does early on because you’re not fighting front rack mobility.

We teach both. Both are valuable. Coaches just need to stop being afraid of the sn**ch.

06/05/2026

The full sn**ch from the floor, broken down step by step.

Most lifters rush the setup and then wonder why the bar drifts away. Here is what it should actually look like, from grip to standing up out of the bottom.

1. Grip width. Go as wide as you need so the bar sits right in your hips when you stand tall with relaxed arms.
2. Bar placement. Bar over the base of your toes. Hips roughly even with your knees depending on your limb length. Flat back.
3. First pull. Keep the same back angle and stay flat all the way to the knee. Beginners, skip the dynamic start. Too much can go wrong. Build a stable back first.
4. At the knee. Shoulders stay in front of the bar. Now sweep it back into your hips and keep it glued to your legs.
5. Power position. Knees scooped under the bar, bar at the hips, shoulders over the bar, feet flat.
6. Finish. Explode straight up, it is normal to lean back a little, then pull yourself under and catch as low as you can. Take your time finding stability in the bottom, then stand it up. Never rush out of the bottom.

Save this for your next sn**ch session.

**ch

06/02/2026

Loran hit a 2.14 in the 505 drill. That’s faster than over 85% of the athletes we train. He’s 46.

It’s not too late to keep training like an athlete. It’s imperative.

Here’s why. The quality you build sprinting and changing direction, fast-twitch power, is the first thing the body loses with age, and it’s more strongly tied to longevity and staying functional than max strength is. Power predicts how well you’ll move, and even how long you’ll live, better than strength alone.

When you keep training like an athlete:

You keep your tendons and ligaments healthy and able to handle elastic, fast loading instead of getting stiff and brittle.

You protect your fast-twitch fibers, the exact tissue most people let waste away after 50. Use it or lose it is literal here.

Your bones get stronger too. Bone responds to how fast a load comes on, not just how heavy it is, which is why sprinting and jumping build bone better than slow, grinding lifts. If you’re worried about bone density, this may actually be your answer. Scaled appropriately, of course.

You get a real hormonal response from sprint-type work that you don’t get from slow, steady training.

You expose your body to high force safely. A sprint stride can put 5 or more times bodyweight through the system, and your body adapts by getting stronger and more resilient.

You keep moving through full range of motion in all three planes, the athletic movement you do not want to lose as you age.

46 and faster than most teenagers. That’s the goal. Keep training like an athlete.

06/01/2026

Super proud of this kid. Khalil’s worked really hard over the past year. In season, off season, doesn’t matter, he’s always in here training. He had a great month of training this last month and PR’d just about every KPI we measure.

Sprint and acceleration:
• 18 mph top speed
• 1.325 on the 5-10 fly

Max strength (right before summer football workouts kick off):
• 235 lb back squat (2nd all-time, 14 and under)
• 165 lb bench (2nd all-time, 14 and under)
• 150 lb jerk (1st all-time, 14 and under)
• 350 lb deadlift (1st all-time, 14 and under)
• 180 lb clean (1st all-time, 14 and under)
• 130 lb sn**ch (1st all-time, 14 and under)

Keep working hard, Khalil. Keep striving to get a little better every day. Excited to see what you do in your high school career, you’re going to go far.

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5424 Oleander Drive #6
Wilmington, NC
28403

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+19104449537

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