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?
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
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
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
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
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?
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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)
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
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.
Training Considerations for the Over-the-Hill Athlete
Don’t create a mental tug-of-war between the person you were, the person you are now, and the person you think you should be. Instead, channel that angry energy toward intelligent programming.
Conjuphasic Progression for Max Effort and Accessories
How many sets and reps do you do with max effort work and accessories? Here’s what I prescribe for my conjuphasic clients. You’ll notice I love coming up with ways to self-regulate my athletes and clients through exercise prescription and programming.
10-Week Program Jumpstart—Old to Athlete
This program is for those of us who love to train but don’t compete, want to look better, maintain strength, and be able to show our kids who’s boss.
Choose One: Piss and Moan or Personal Growth
2020 started out pretty well. Then all shit broke loose. Were you on Camp Complain or Camp Let's Figure It Out? I quickly realized I had two options.
Can You Gain Muscle and Lose Fat at the Same Time?
The idea that you can maximize muscle growth while minimizing fat mass is an approach that most people dream of. Is it attainable? If so, for who?
Gym Programming Variation Across a Team
Here are several programs that were used during our last rugby season. Take special notice of the variety that you can achieve but also the range and breadth of programming in a team sport.
Transitioning from Raw to Gear and Back Again
After 10+ years and a lot of success in just knee wraps, one might ask, "Why even bother switching?" I have a few reasons and recommendations for transitioning from raw to gear and back to raw. It takes time, and it's hard, but it's worth it.
Tampa Bay Lightning are Stanley Cup Champs
Tampa Bay beat Dallas 2-0 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup last night—a victorious end to a tumultuous storm of a season.
12 Exercises to Build Massive Triceps for Your Bench Press
If you're looking to have massive arms, a respectable bench press, and just fill out that elitefts T-shirt, these should get you well on your way.
The Overall Structure of Conjuphasic
Many mistakes were made over the first one and a half years of this program. I tested and made tweaks using Julia and me as guinea pigs so that my clients (and now you) can benefit from combining conjugate with triphasic.
Dynamic Training: Should You Be Doing It?
It is no secret that I have always used dynamic training and that I have my clients do it as well. My standpoint is that everyone can get something out of dynamic training, but the dose of it may vary.
A Place of Our Own
We finished the place in under three weeks, the last 30 days of prep for USPA Nationals taking place there, christening the horse stall mats with personal bests.
Ditch the Dumbbells for Delt Training
I’m not going to say that dumbbell laterals don’t “work,” but at some point, you might want to consider spicing up your delt training with a little variety—ditch the dumbbells and opt for cables.
A Plan in Place
If you watch games, particularly college football games in the 80s, everyone looked strong. I know they had big pads and all, but so many players just looked the part. They definitely kept strength leakage to a minimum. How?
5 Exercises to Never Take Out of Your Program
The five exercises I have chosen will not cause overuse injuries as the heavy compound movements can. In fact, if you keep them in weekly, you'll prevent injuries.