Leading Through a Crisis
Leading Through a Crisis

At Varsity House Gym, there have been three major contributing factors in continuing to stay above water and keep our team engaged in daily progress.

The Impact of the Hip Flexors on Sprinting
The Impact of the Hip Flexors on Sprinting

Hip flexor quality can be the difference between a fast, efficient athlete and an athlete that will struggle greatly in competitive sport.

What To Do When You Don't Enjoy Training Anymore
What To Do When You Don't Enjoy Training Anymore

Remember, you’re human. It’s OK to feel this way about training and one day you inevitably will. With these six suggestions, plan and prepare for this ugly feeling and destroy ASAP to enjoy training again.

The Best Lift for Collegiate Athletes
The Best Lift for Collegiate Athletes

Although collegiate athletes are not powerlifters, powerlifting is the ultimate inspiration for their training. Hands down, the barbell Romanian deadlift should be a part of their exercise selection.

Juggling Powerlifting, Life, and Love
Juggling Powerlifting, Life, and Love

Meet two love birds, Aaron and Kelly Grosos, and learn how they make it work as competitive powerlifters.

Tier System for the Physical Preparation of the Swimmer
Tier System for the Physical Preparation of the Swimmer

How different can programming be for swimmers? Let’s take a deeper dive into how the Tier System fits perfectly into portions of the swim event and the number of days we train (no pun intended).

Bicep Barbell Finisher: Countdown Sets
Bicep Barbell Finisher: Countdown Sets

Many of my clients have a love/hate relationship with this finisher technique. Use it for other body parts, too! Here’s what to do…

5 Ways to Improve Your Programming
5 Ways to Improve Your Programming

Program these five key areas to improve your clients’ results and keep them injury-free while staying motivated to train.

How to Come Back From Multiple Injuries
How to Come Back From Multiple Injuries

A personal account of my two-year journey from a broken radius, broken ulna, and a torn ACL (all on the same day) to coming back stronger than ever. Tons of people have broken bones and torn muscles and ligaments before, in and out of competition, and this is just one of those stories.

Hanging Hamstring Raises to Improve Explosive Performance
Hanging Hamstring Raises to Improve Explosive Performance

Looks easy, but you’ll have an entirely different opinion once you or your athletes give it a try. Remember, an athlete is only as strong as the weakest link, especially related to relationships between sprinting and the posterior chain.

Ernie Frantz and the History of Frantz Multi-Ply Gear
Ernie Frantz and the History of Frantz Multi-Ply Gear

What you are about to read is a truly loving portrait of a powerlifting legend, written by one of the few who knew him best (and a great powerlifting coach in his own right).

Giant Sets for Size and Strength
Giant Sets for Size and Strength

Skimping out on accessory work because you don’t have enough time? Get a nasty pump with giant sets and kiss your time constraints goodbye.

Be Willing to Feel Pain
Be Willing to Feel Pain

This is certainly anti-quit training. Learning to be uncomfortable and not stop or run away is priceless in hard training.

Pre-Season Planning
Pre-Season Planning

This is the first-week break-in program that I will put in place. I will also keep some players on this three-day-a-week programming based on needs-based discussions with the playing group upon their return and what other work-ons they have from a physical and skills perspective.

Making Gains as a College Student
Making Gains as a College Student

When you’re not in class (or preparing for class), maximize your nutrition, lifting schedule, strength, and size. Life’s only going to get more complicated once you graduate so build your foundation now.

Technique Over Aggression
Technique Over Aggression

Here’s what I’ve learned to become an elite lifter at 220: accumulate faults and then fix them over the course of an off-season. You’ll be surprised how it all aligns if you just stop, reflect, work, and listen.

Never Let Go
Never Let Go

Grip sport events to help powerlifters quit dropping their deadlifts.

The Development of the Russian Conjugate Sequence System
The Development of the Russian Conjugate Sequence System

The conjugate approach accomplishes simultaneously training all necessary motor abilities with a constant renewal and reestablishing process.

Do Plyometrics Make Athletes Stronger?
Do Plyometrics Make Athletes Stronger?

It depends. Here’s what the studies are suggesting.

The Best of 2020
The Best of 2020

The best-of-the-best content from 2020 all in one spot. Read our top articles, programs, and coaching logs! Watch our most-viewed YouTube videos! Check out our most popular products!

The Dogg Shitt Method 2
The Dogg Shitt Method 2

Add these six weeks to the DSM 12-week template, and you have yourself an awesome 18 weeks of training!

Take a Short Survey—Get 5 Free eBooks!
Take a Short Survey—Get 5 Free eBooks!

We’ll be using your feedback to better guide our content efforts for 2021. Get 5 free eBooks ($120+ value) after answering only 12 questions! Thank you!

Do the Minimum for Meet Day Success
Do the Minimum for Meet Day Success

Don’t be the lifter with headphones on all day in the warm-up room, super-hyped to the gills. Save your energy for the platform.

Sumo Deadlift to Move Faster
Sumo Deadlift to Move Faster

An exercise that has you work more from the hips, abs, and glutes will undoubtedly help you move faster. Here’s how to perform and program sumo deadlifts.

25 Years of Leadership
25 Years of Leadership

In 2021, we as coaches need to find out what makes our athletes tick and then continue to throw logs on that fire. Some guys need a little, and some need a lot. Over the past 25 years in this business regarding leadership, this is the difference between winning and mediocrity.

It Wasn't What I Thought It Would Be
It Wasn't What I Thought It Would Be

Sums up 2020…but rewinding the clock, I thought the top guys trained hard every day when I started powerlifting. I thought it was just a matter of getting strong enough and in good enough shape to go hard and heavy 24/7, 12 months a year.

Aging and Keeping Pace
Aging and Keeping Pace

Why is another article in the realm of injury prevention and performance improvement while aging relevant? For two reasons: the audience is growing, and every author has a different writing style. If you remember at least one of my points, remember, “Get the drugs!”

20 Tips to Improve Your Training
20 Tips to Improve Your Training

Twenty tips aka twenty ways to control and advance your training, especially if you’ve reached a sticking point. If all else fails, you have a long list of great online programming services to help your clientele reach their goals.

5 Things You Can Still Believe In
5 Things You Can Still Believe In

Aside from Santa’s elves personalizing your hand-made gifts. Oh, and Santa traveling from the North Pole to your residence to deliver your gifts with Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.

Specialty Bars and Sports Programming
Specialty Bars and Sports Programming

Why do strength coaches persist in using the traditional bar now that there are many excellent alternative bars available?

What I Learned From Training a 90-Year-Old
What I Learned From Training a 90-Year-Old

Our goals aren’t to build up any capacities or take him from point A to point B, but rather to maintain the capacities he already has and give him the greatest potential to live with the highest quality of life possible.

Two Weird Shoulder Exercises to Try This Offseason
Two Weird Shoulder Exercises to Try This Offseason

You’re a big dog now and the good ol’ days of TWO heavy pressing days per week won’t work anymore. So, what’s the answer? My answer is to train shoulders specifically in a predetermined offseason with these weird exercises. They work!

Compliance is the Science
Compliance is the Science

What’s the point of putting all that work into thinking and planning an in-season program if 90 percent of the people aren’t going to do it?

Exorcising the Demons
Exorcising the Demons

After doing contest prep for thousands of clients over the last twenty years (real years, not rounding up ten years like a lot of online prep guys), here are some of the more common demons that competitors face to get insanely shredded.

Get Your Powerlifting FastPass
Get Your Powerlifting FastPass

Unlike amusement parks, this FastPass isn’t something you buy with your credit card. This transaction takes effort and time, but when you make the choice, it’ll greatly improve your lifts and ranking,

Why Your Diet Isn’t Working
Why Your Diet Isn’t Working

Are you tracking calories? If so, are you tracking correctly? What kind of cardio are you doing? Are you expecting to lose the fat fast? Super stressed? When’s the last time you had your hormones checked?

How to Relieve Lower Back Pain
How to Relieve Lower Back Pain

I had my fair share of lower back issues to the point I needed to be fed by my wife. There are only so many times you can go through this before it clicks what the problem is and how to fix it. Here’s what I’ve figured out.

The Effects of COVID-19 Eliminated My Job
The Effects of COVID-19 Eliminated My Job

I recall heading into this year like a proverbial bull in a china shop. I was prepared for a fantastic and productive 2020. It was a sound plan until it was not. So, now what?

Does Mobility or Stability Come First?
Does Mobility or Stability Come First?

For those involved in the healthcare, fitness, and strength industries, this is a question that has been long debated and has much enthusiasm behind it, creating the ultimate chicken vs. the egg debate in the human body. So which is the answer? How do we know once and for all?

8 Tips to Become a Better Performance Coach
8 Tips to Become a Better Performance Coach

Here’s what to do and what not do as an intern, graduate assistant, and assistant as you try to climb the ranks. I didn’t find these tips by reading a manual, but through the first-hand experience as an intern at Florida International University and an assistant for the Division I HBCU North Carolina Central University.

The Integration of Unilateral and Bilateral Movements to Assist in Strength Development
The Integration of Unilateral and Bilateral Movements to Assist in Stren...

The program within is called One Big, One Small—there is one major movement, and a secondary movement supports this major movement. It can be used by anyone irrespective of sport or training goal to improve performance or get bigger and stronger.

3 Conditioning Methods to Use With Conjugate
3 Conditioning Methods to Use With Conjugate

While there is a long list of methods that go far beyond what’s mentioned in this article, these three methods develop the aerobic system—which for many, is an area of weakness and thus low-hanging fruit.

Why the Teacher Is as Important as the Lesson
Why the Teacher Is as Important as the Lesson

As athletes and lifters, many of us have been fortunate to have had a great coach in our lives—we are collectively thankful. Without someone like this in your life, would you tweak squat form to go from a 500-pound squat to a temporary 365-pound squat? What if that 365-pound squat evolved into a 700-pound squat?

Pre-Workout Ritual Instructions
Pre-Workout Ritual Instructions

Music was a huge part of my ritual, as was breathing and meditation. You want something that is your style, but also not too complicated.

How I Teach the Squat
How I Teach the Squat

Everybody learns differently. Using five easy steps, this is my way of teaching clients and seminar attendees how to execute a squat.

To Master, With Love
To Master, With Love

The world was a wiser, kinder place with Master in it. Now his body is dead. I guess it’s up to me, then, to live up to his legacy.

How Private-Sector Gyms are Surviving
How Private-Sector Gyms are Surviving

The gym owners you are going to hear from are from places similar to where you train or have trained. None of these gyms are the big-box gyms that thrive off of selling thousands of memberships for $10.00 a month.

6 Weeks to a Bigger Squat
6 Weeks to a Bigger Squat
This 6-week cycle is for the beginner and intermediate lifter who has reached a plateau. You'll rely on core, plyometrics, and squats to achieve a new max.
8-Week Deadlift Program for the Sumo and Conventional Puller
8-Week Deadlift Program for the Sumo and Conventional Puller
Whatever side of the fence you're behind, you should train the deadlift sumo AND conventional. Why? They work synergistically to get you strong while minimizing weak points.
3 Plateau-Busting Accessory Exercises
3 Plateau-Busting Accessory Exercises
Sometimes it's just not enough to deadlift to make the deadlift stronger. More than likely, we have to add supplemental movements to build our deadlift, the bench press, and standing overhead press.
All Lined Up
All Lined Up
The last time I had the opportunity to train a Division II collegiate football team, I produced their first winning season in five years. The main tools I used were a measuring tape, masking tape, and string.
Finding the Right Online Coach
Finding the Right Online Coach
As with any purchase you make, your dollar is your vote. Before you hire an online coach, I ask you to do your research and discover what it is you're searching for.
My Left Glute is Not Activating
My Left Glute is Not Activating
Anyone who’s actually said this and FELT this lack of power knows how frustrating it can be: Despite the EBP nerds saying, "Well, the hip is extending, so the glute must be firing." If you have felt the empty feeling, you know that you’re not firing on all cylinders.
The Dangers of Confirmation Bias in Fitness
The Dangers of Confirmation Bias in Fitness
Did we create this madness?
5 Tricep Exercises for Size and Lockout Strength
5 Tricep Exercises for Size and Lockout Strength
The basics build strong and big triceps, BUT it all depends on how you execute them. I've got some tricks up my super tight sleeves.
Sticking Point Breakdown for a Bigger Bench Press
Sticking Point Breakdown for a Bigger Bench Press
There's no way to put up impressive numbers if you can't get the bar off your chest or you're stalling halfway. Let's get back to some bench press basics.
Birth Control and the Female Athlete
Birth Control and the Female Athlete
Women’s health is being ignored! Birth control is handed out like candy for trivial conditions such as acne. Although you may find some a symptom disappear short-term, remember you're not fixing anything—you're just putting a temporary Band-Aid on your health.
If It Makes You Strong(er), It Makes You Strong(er)
If It Makes You Strong(er), It Makes You Strong(er)
The only way I know how to explain this concept is by retelling the familiar story of Priorities and a Jar. What are you filling your empty jar with?
Get Jacked Arms Without Wrecking Your Joints
Get Jacked Arms Without Wrecking Your Joints
Big arms and achy joints don't go well together. With achy joints, you'll soon be struggling to grip a pencil, let alone a dumbbell. Say goodbye to ego hump sets.

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