WATCH: Table Talk — The Best Foods for a Squat Bloat
If you’re looking for a serious answer to a question about building a bloat, you’ve come to the right place.
WATCH: Table Talk — Rotating Specialty Bars for the Bench Press
If you’re a beginner or intermediate lifter, this probably doesn’t apply to you. But for advanced lifters, knowing how to alter workload without changing volume might be a big help.
WATCH: Table Talk — Training Changes at 50 Years Old
Since retiring from powerlifting in 2005, Dave has tried a lot of different approaches to his training. There’s one clear winner.
WATCH: Table Talk — Using Specialty Bars for Dynamic Effort Work
Can you alternate specialty bars for different dynamic effort waves? What about for different weeks within the same wave?
WATCH: Table Talk — Training for Your First Powerlifting Meet in 2018
Dave has responded to this question many times but, like the sport of powerlifting, the answer evolves. Based on the sport today, here are guidelines for expectations, performance, and how to design a program.
WATCH: Table Talk — The Most Important Quality of a Great Coach
It isn’t the number of competitions they’ve won or what degrees they have that can tip you off to who’s good and who’s not. There are three types of coaches in this industry and you need to be able to tell them apart.
WATCH: Table Talk — How to Run a Three-Day Conjugate Training Split
Due to time constraints or an inability to recover optimally, many lifters seek an alternative to the traditional template. The question isn’t whether or not you can use a modified split, but whether or not your results will be optimal.
WATCH: Table Talk — How Dave Supported Himself as a Powerlifter Before e...
Before the original Q&A, before the equipment, before the team, what was Dave doing?
WATCH: Table Talk — Straight Line or Arched Bar Path in the Bench Press
No matter which style you use, there’s one rule with your wrists and elbows you always have to follow.
WATCH: Table Talk — Making Time to Train Around A Busy Work Schedule
A busy work schedule can make it hard to train at the times you’d like to, but there’s always a way to make it work.
WATCH: Table Talk — Too Much Science?
There are two types of people when it comes to using science in training. Don’t be the first kind.
WATCH: Table Talk — Method Muppets
There are people who have been in the gym for two years or less and now they have their own method. What’s the method? Tying their shoes and walking through the gym?
WATCH: Table Talk — Should You Train Assistance Movements to Failure?
For a powerlifter on a conjugate or Westside style program, you first need to make sure you know the role of each exercise you’re doing. This will give you direction on how close to failure to train.
WATCH: Table Talk — The 3 Most Impressive Things Dave Has Seen at the S4...
The mind-blowing lifts and accomplishments that have occurred in the S4 are too numerous to recount, but there are a few that stick out in Dave’s mind.
WATCH: Table Talk — The Three Best Conditioning Tools for Powerlifters
Conditioning doesn’t have to be complicated or require expensive equipment. These are the best options for a powerlifter.
WATCH: Table Talk — Tapering for a Meet Using Conjugate
The appeal of conjugate is the ability to build multiple performance traits at once, but this confuses a lot of lifters as they get closer to a meet. It doesn’t have to be so complicated.
WATCH: Table Talk — Feeder and Recovery Workouts
You can’t just throw in extra workouts or recovery protocols and expect to get the most out of them. Like everything else in training, they need to be programmed strategically and used at the right times.
WATCH: Table Talk — How Should a 15-Year-Old Begin Training for Powerlif...
What’s the difference between a teenager who is an absolute beginner and an older lifter coming back from a decade-long layoff?
WATCH: Table Talk — When to Add Gear During A Training Cycle
This doesn’t only apply to multi-ply lifters. How you add equipment in training should have a sequence to it, even if you compete raw.
WATCH: Table Talk — Run the Monolift or Walk Out?
This really shouldn’t be a debate. Mimic how you compete.
WATCH: Table Talk — Natural Potential and the Genetic Ceiling
The potential for what a lifter can accomplish without using performance enhancing substances is far greater than most people assume.
WATCH: Table Talk — Max Effort Work vs. Submaximal Doubles and Triples
There are different purposes, benefits, and risks of max effort work and submaximal doubles and triples. Which makes more sense for your programming?
WATCH: Table Talk — When to Rotate Supplemental and Accessory Exercises
How much time do you really need to spend with an exercise to know if it’s working or not?
WATCH: Table Talk — Why Are Some Lifters More Explosive Than Others?
Every lifter falls somewhere on this continuum. It will determine how your max attempts look and how you should train to increase them.
WATCH: Table Talk Series Compilation with Dan Green
Over the course of seven episodes, Dave and Dan discuss building a base as a new lifter, limiting factors for lifters of all levels, rehab mentality, adrenaline levels in training, and more. Watch now!
WATCH: Westside Misconceptions — High Standards
To be on the board at Westside, at the time, meant you had to break the all-time world record, because that was pretty much everybody that was on the board.
WATCH: Westside Misconceptions — Athlete Recruitment Process
You’ve probably heard it said that Westside became the strongest gym in the world by bringing in the best lifters from outside. This is a lie. What made Westside great wasn’t recruiting.
WATCH: Westside Misconceptions — Program Design with Gear
From 1990 to 2000, there wasn’t a single person who came to Westside and stayed who didn’t get significantly stronger. Everyone got stronger, wearing gear or not.
WATCH: Westside Misconceptions — Max Effort Workouts in Circa Max Phase
A circa max phase isn’t easy, and recovering from it isn’t either. Should you remove max effort training or keep pushing forward with it?
WATCH: Table Talk with Nate Harvey — Do You Need A Planned Deload?
Is deloading a necessary part of improving as a lifter or is it just a weak excuse to be lazy one week out of every month?
WATCH: Table Talk with Dan Green — Hip Position, Not Strength, to Fix Yo...
Want to know how to have a better deadlift lockout? Look at what Pete Rubish has done in recent years and you’ll see it.
WATCH: Table Talk with Dan Green — How to Choose Secondary and Accessory...
A good training program has three main parts: the main lifts for technique, the secondary movements for strength, and the accessory exercises for muscle-specific work.
WATCH: Table Talk with Dan Green — Powerlifting Longevity and Meet Strategy
A lot of strong lifters have come and gone through this sport, posting two or three big totals to then never to be heard from again. The best lifters are there, year after year, finding new ways to stay healthy enough and hit PRs. How?
WATCH: Table Talk with Dan Green — Adrenaline Levels in Training
How do you get your mind in the right place for a big lift in training? Should you treat it like meet day?
WATCH: Table Talk with Dan Green — Keeping the Endgame in Mind During th...
If you’re forced to take time away from the gym, where should your focus be? Maintaining strength? Maintaining size? Getting healthy?
WATCH: Table Talk with Dan Green — Building a Base as a New Lifter
If you don’t start on the right path, you might spend years training hard and making no progress.
WATCH: Table Talk with Nate Harvey — Why Do Football Players Run Long Sp...
The easy answer is that it builds mental toughness. The strength and conditioning answer, however, involves understanding the differences between lactic acid, glycolytic, and oxidative work.
WATCH: Table Talk with Mark Dugdale — How to Balance Training with a Phy...
You can control the physical demands placed on your body in the gym, but you can’t always control what happens outside of it. How can you ensure you’re recovered and in an optimal state once its time to train?
WATCH: Table Talk with Mark Dugdale — Should I Hire A Bodybuilding Coach?
It may be tempting to put your entire trust in someone with experience, but there are a few things to consider first.
WATCH: Table Talk with Mark Dugdale — What Makes You Beginner, Intermedi...
Number of competitions? Severity of injury? Conditioning and size? Powerlifting total?
WATCH: Table Talk with Mark Dugdale — Training Evolution and the Genetic...
Do genetic ceilings exist? How can you know if you’ve reached yours? Is it possible to break through?
WATCH: Table Talk with Mark Dugdale — Exercise Execution, Pre-Workout Fo...
Mark and Dave share their combined knowledge in both powerlifting and bodybuilding, gained from multiple decades honing their respective crafts.
WATCH: Rapid Fire Table Talk — Westside Before Bands, Programming By Gen...
Looking for an unconventional use for bands?
WATCH: Rapid Fire Table Talk — Military Press for Powerlifters, Grip, an...
Have you ever eaten an entire box of Pop-Tarts in one sitting?
WATCH: Rapid Fire Table Talk — The Blown-Out Bench Shirt, Box Depth, and...
Reading directly from Instagram with no preparation, Dave answers 14 more questions on training, nutrition, and improving performance.
WATCH: Rapid Fire Table Talk — Training at Night, 3x10 vs 10x3, and Illness
Dave’s back at The Table, and this time he’s answering your questions back-to-back with no preparation.
WATCH: How to Rehabilitate A Recurring Hamstring Injury
If you misidentify the cause of the injury, not only will you fail to solve the problem, but you may actually make it worse.
WATCH: Auto-Regulation vs Percentage-Based Programming for the Off-Season
You can be certain that every great lifter you admire has mastered auto-regulation. If you want to be great, you’ll need to do the same.
WATCH: Table Talk — Lessons from Training with John Meadows
What happens when an expert in powerlifting and an expert in bodybuilding train together for five years?
WATCH: What Are Your Halloween Questions for Dave?
Dave covers training and weight gain principles through Freddy Krueger, Jeffrey Dahmer, and Hershey’s Bars.
WATCH: Table Talk — Should Elite Totals Be Updated?
Does being an elite powerlifter mean something different today than it did 10, 15, or 20 years ago?
WATCH: Table Talk — Bench Press Bar Path
Should you press in a straight line or in an arc, finishing with the bar over your face?
WATCH: Table Talk — The Widowmaker Squat Challenge
A high-rep squat set is a MFer challenge, there’s no doubt about it.
WATCH: Table Talk — The Current State of the Fitness Industry
What do you think of the fitness community today and all the shitty gurus on social media?
WATCH: Table Talk — Can You Use Competition Lifts for Max Effort Work?
If you feel you need more work on the competition movements, can you use them as max effort work instead of doing specialty exercises?
WATCH: Table Talk — Flaws of Percentage-Based Programming and Training
In this video, Maliek and Dave discuss the problems with percentage-based training and share alternative methods for strength programming.
WATCH: Table Talk — Problems with Gear and the Qualities of Great Power...
Joining Dave for another video, Maliek discusses the challenges faced by lifters who attempt to compete both raw and in gear.
WATCH: Off Topic with Dave and Jim — Box Squatting
Box squats have been around for years but the debate still hasn’t been settled.
WATCH: Table Talk — Sticking Points and Longevity for Raw vs Gear
In this video, Dave and special guest Maliek Derstine discuss the topics of sticking points and longevity for raw lifters vs geared lifters.