Randy Winfrey - Strength Coach in Houston

I wanted to post this review as when I ran google searches for coaches in my area, nothing came up; it was only when I went through the SS website and search that I found what I needed.

I was looking for a SS Coach in Houston, Texas. The obvious choice would be Kingwood, but I live on the complete other side of Houston and so getting up to Kingwood would take me almost 2 hours. I found Randy Winfrey in Sugarland/Richmond area and decided that would be the best option.

Randy was responsive by email, we were able to set up an appointment and collate all the information needed within a day or so. Randy’s set up in his home gym was pretty impressive, various barbells, bumper plates, rack, kettlebells and a heavily matted floor for cleans. Despite it being almost 90 degree outside, the air conditioning and fan kept the place cool and tolerable for training. We went over my goals, what I was looking to get out of the session and what we would cover specifically. We decided to focus on the squat mechanics, took a lot at my bench and also get me pulling conventional. Realistically, had I gotten improved squat mechanics and got rid of my hip flexor pain, I’d have been more than happy.

Right away Randy spotted I was squatting high bar, even though I thought I was squatting low bar. In Mark’s video on bar position he says that he receives more questions about this than any other. As someone who’s never had any in person instruction on barbell training, this highlighted to me that feel is not real. The bar was not up on my neck, so I thought it must be low bar, right? Wrong. The actual low bar position Randy put me in felt way more secure. Secondly, he noted that I was squatting too deeply and as a byproduct, I was losing my spine angle and tension in the hole. Squatting higher, but still below parallel really helped me get my glutes and hamstrings involved, helped me keep solid in the hole and allowed me to squat for the first time in months without hip flexor pain. Finally!

We moved onto Bench Press next and here Randy gave me some good cues and fixed a few other problems I had. Nothing major here but the instruction was solid. The Deadlift was somewhat of a revelation as I had no idea the stance should be quite as narrow as it was. I’m an intelligent guy (I have the Academia to prove it), but sometimes reading these things in books just doesn’t carry over too well when you’re on the platform, I guess? Anyway, The narrow stance and a very simple set of set up cues had me pulling conventionally, comfortably and feeling like I can get much more mileage out of this lift with the weight. Finally, we went over the Press, which has always been an issue for me as I have herniated C spine discs. Solid set up cues and lifting cues made me feel very comfortable with the weight overhead and I’ll be making this a staple of my programming from now on.

I was scheduled for an hour and we ended up doing 2 as Randy is clearly passionate about barbell training and I share his enthusiasm, so we were able to talk about a lot of ancillary issues and topics as well as instructing the lifts. Despite the run over, there was no extra charge which Randy told me upfront and I appreciated. All in all, if you’re looking for a friendly, knowledgeable Strength Coach in the Houston or south Houston area, I couldn’t recommend Randy enough. Thanks for the help and I’m looking forward to progressing my lifts this year.