The X Factor
I’m giving more emphasis on “core” than I have ever before. After four weeks of adding in this X work, it’s amazing how much better our athletes feel and look while running, doing agilities, and lifting.
Training the Modern-Day Baseball Player
I’m talking about the athletes that play one sport and one sport only year-round. In short, build trust and DON’T be afraid to lift your athletes. Here’s what a yearly plan looks like.
A Coach's Guide to General Physical Preparedness
To reach peak performance, you must build a solid foundation dedicating time to GPP. Here’s how to widen the base with GPP, when to use it, and how to implement it. Download the GPP Giant Circuit to get started.
12 Tips for a Stronger, Safer, More Efficient Bench Press
Lifting, and the bench press for that matter, is not rocket science, but you do need to use your brain. Use these twelve tips to fix your damn technique and showcase all of your strength.
The Benefits of Sodium
If you’re not monitoring your sodium intake, you’re leaving a lot on the platform or stage. Here’s how.
The Misuse of Post-Activation Potentiation and Pre-Exhaust in Powerlifting
What does the literature tell us about using exercise before the main work we want to improve that day? It tells us A LOT.
Rebuild Your Gym Plan
Lifting your first PR wasn’t the end of training for you. It was hard but it motivated you to get stronger and stronger. The same concept will work for your business through these tumultuous times and I’m here to help share a plan with you today.
Integration of Great Ideas into a Manageable Training Program
Westside Barbell, 5/3/1, 5thSet, and Juggernaut Training Systems all play a role in the creation of this program. Let me know how you advance using it.
Suffer and Succeed in Silence
The shortest distance between two points is a straight line, as the ubiquitous aphorism goes. Averting the zigzag requires one to suffer and succeed in silence.
A Home Gym Made of Wood
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I was tired of floor presses off unstable pickle buckets and the inability to squat, so here’s my attempt at building a home gym.
The COVID-Proof Waverly Project in Phase II
Our revisited phase 2 will give you good ideas as to how to start your teams back up after an extended layoff. Waverly had one of their best years in school history following this.
Never Pull a Hamstring Again
The training we perform off the field (eccentrics and isometrics) can add to our hamstring robustness to keep us in the game longer.
Utilization and Progressions of the Hip Thrust in Baseball
Hip thrusts are my go-to exercise for minor league baseball players to improve strength and acceleration. Here’s a typical progression I use for my players. And no, we don’t load this movement at the start.
Become a Faster Competitor with This Program
In this program, you will use strength and conditioning, and all of the gears in between to be an energy-efficient player. Consider this an extension of my sumo deadlift article published in January of 2021.
Who Vince Gironda Was and Why You Need to Know
He taught the first Mr. Olympia, Larry Scott; seven-time Mr. Olympia, Arnold Schwarzenegger; three-time Mr. Olympia, Frank Zane; Lou Ferrigno; Rick Wayne; Don Howorth; and Freddy Ortiz. Learn more…
Hormone Panels 101
I instruct all of my clients to get a full hormone panel at least once a year. Here’s how to prepare for these labs and what a comprehensive hormone panel looks like.
What the Running Experts Forgot to Tell You
When the rubber hits the road, this will make you a smarter and faster runner (heavily applicable to race car drivers and military forces, too).
No One Makes It Alone
It’s a long way to the top so find the main players who’ll walk beside you to make you better along the way. It’s easy to find people that look impressive but are they really everything they say? Are they all fluff with no substance?
The Anti- Tin Man Romanian Deadlift
Implementation is the easiest part of this exercise because you are using only your available range and not approaching this with a “must have the mobility of a 12-year-old gymnast” mentality. Here’s your chance to access planes and ranges of motion that most of us forget even exist.
How to Make It Big as a Strength Coach: Sacrifice to Advance Your Career
Now, it’s time to expect the unexpected, ask questions, be proactive, continue your own education, take it to the edge, sacrifice, present yourself accordingly, hustle, and seven more to-dos (part three of three)!
How to Make It Big as a Strength Coach: The Application Process
Now, it’s time to get our hands dirty… Let’s start with the internship search. You have to ask yourself what you want. Assuming you want to be a strength and conditioning coach, ask yourself the following questions (part two of three).
How to Make It Big as a Strength Coach: The Foundational Basics
I was very lucky to come from a great undergrad program, which prepared me to handle the demands of big-time strength and conditioning programs. Here’s a reference for the college student aspiring to be a strength coach (part one of three).
It's Better to Wear Out Than to Rust Out
In my fifties, I started to experience knee pain during and after Olympic lifts, squats, and deadlifts. After a career full of lifting and contact sports, my options were anti-inflammatory medication and gels, surgery, braces, ABI, and PRP. Here’s what helped me.
Applications of ConjugateU for High School O-Linemen
My football players were being held back by strength deficits that are left underdeveloped in most high school programs—development of speed and maximal strength in the weight room. Here’s how I filled in the gaps.
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
This is certainly anti-quit training. Learning to be uncomfortable and not stop or run away is priceless in hard training.
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
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
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.
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.
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
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!
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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?
