What is #GorillaSquad?

The #GorillaSquad is the team of people training in this world following the Gorilla Principles built by the Vanilla Gorilla himself, Blaine Sumner. An online group of teammates to share their training success stories, share PRs, support each other, and bounce training ideas off each other, and most importantly – get stronger and have fun doing it.

Be sure to use the hashtag #GorillaSquad in your training videos and follow our new Facebook and Instagram communities!

Check out #GorillaSquad on FaceBook

Follow the #GorillaSquad on Instagram

Apparel will be coming soon!

“Blaine Sumner is one of the best powerlifters in the world. That’s not why you should hire him as a coach. In fact, most top-level athletes are awful coaches as they can’t convey the reasons behind their own success, and can’t rightly “coach talent” into another lifter. I have hired many of the top lifters in the world to help with various aspects of competition prep. Blaine stands out. The reason he stands out is because of his systematic and personalized approach to maximizing my potential as a lifter. I’m a frank guy, and I’ll be straight with you: the biggest mistake Blaine is making is that he charges far too little for the amount of personalized help (and extra kilos!) he adds to your total. The only decision you’ll regret is that by the time you read this, he’ll likely already be at capacity, and so you’ll need to spend valuable months on his waiting-list.”

Lauren Cohen
Chaired PhD Professor
Harvard Business School

“I’ve been following Blaine’s training for quite some time now and although he is my favorite lifter and I love watching him lift I was even more impressed in how he could be training that heavy, with such high volume in almost every single training he posted.
In a short time I have tried some known (and unknown) training methods, and all with results I won’t lie about that but never found anything I truly loved. Since working with Blaine I have regained joy in training, and was able to push much harder than ever before. I found it funny that before I would bench once or maybe twice a week and feeling busted, now I bench multiple times a week, and been able to hit all time PR’s at the end of the week. Regarding personal records I can say that within the first cycle with Blaine I have beat pretty much every single PR not only in all power lifts but in their variations as well. Another amazing thing is even if you are a geared lifter you will work very hard on your raw strength. You will become much stronger and overall better lifter with Blaine. I can’t praise him enough for always being available and with key help everything I need!”

Nuno Couto, Portugal

“Blaine is one of the top lifters in the world raw or geared, and I have followed his progress for years. This was not the reason that I hired him as a coach. Blaine is the first person I have ever hired as a coach that actually “coached” me. He took my strengths and weaknesses and used them to make an incredible training program. Each week things would be tweaked and I would actually get real feedback on how this lift looked and how to change this up to better my performance. Blaine took my competition lifts and in 12 weeks my mock meet came around and I went up 80 lbs on my full meet total with a 25 lb squat PR and a 20 lb dead lift PR, with more in the tank on those two lifts. During the first cycle I could tell that Blaine was truly interested in getting me better and making me a better all around lifter. I would recommend Blaine to anyone that truly wants to put in the hard work and trust 100% in the coaching and programming and leave your ego behind.”

Trevor Vasser, USA

“I asked myself, ‘who is the biggest, baddest mother f***** in the IPF that could help improve my lifting’? The answer is the Vanilla Gorilla, Blaine Sumner. Blaine’s programming and online coaching has been superb. He’s taught me exercises I’ve never performed before, given me some invaluable tips/tweaks for the big 3 and helped improve my ability as both a lifter & coach. I’m currently 2 months into a 5 month training cycle for my national championships and am absolutely psyched to see what Blaine’s assistance will help me to achieve on the platform.”

Dave Napper, Australia

“I hired Blaine Sumner because I wanted a totally different training style that I am used to, a high volume high frequency program. I already had a good total and had done well in competition but I wanted to try something different. I did everything as Blaine advised and it paid off. Working with Blaine was great and easy, I can definitely suggest Blaine Sumner as a coach whether you are a rookie or already an experienced lifter.”

Antti Kriikkula, Finland