The main purpose of this is to get you some change-up in your program and get you thinking outside your usual movement selection. I have been doing this in the gym myself and it’s amazing how mentally refreshing it can be.

What I outline in this article is the third generation of this style of programming, taken through the furnace of professional rugby and modified accordingly to fit specific needs of the playing group I now work with.

At the end of the day, 99.9% of people who show up at a box do not want to increase their snatch or compete at the games. Here’s a better way to help them.

From the early stages of my time with the conjugate method, here are the biggest benefits I’ve found.

This program is used for athletes ranging in age from 10 to 14 years and is based on specific goals in the primer, strength, conditioning, prehabilitation, and regeneration phases.

Linear periodization has its place, and I’ve used it with varying levels of success, but overall there are simply too many drawbacks when used for group programming. Here’s what I use instead.

There are definitely a few programs I have used with success in my lifting career and some that I will still recommend to lifters today, but conjugate is my favorite. It is the one I try to progress all my lifters to.

No matter your strength, bodyweight, or training history, pull-ups may be a challenge for you. If this is the case, follow this simple progression and you’ll have your first unassisted pull-up in no time.

All of the athletes at this high-level volleyball academy are from overseas and come to the United States to get a better chance at receiving a collegiate scholarship. Working with head coach and founder Caitlyn Vann, this is what we did in our five short weeks.

Understanding this tool for manipulating training intensities is key for athlete programming at every part of pre-season, in-season, post-season and off-season phases.

If you’re looking for a way to keep your strength up without destroying your body day in and day out, this is the program for you.

There is a muscle protein synthesis threshold, and adding sets over and above this threshold will not help you gain additional muscle. A simple way to ensure you aren’t wasting your time and energy on junk volume is greater frequency.

Many coaches still believe it is heresy to say that athletes can build absolute strength and endurance simultaneously, but athletes all over the world are doing so and making great progress. Here are a few ways to do so even more successfully.

In the first article of this series we covered the basic principles of programming and periodization. Now let’s discuss strategies to manipulate volume and intensity, and start examining the training units used to structure training.

Four years ago I got a phone call about training a local kid who had just been cut by the Atlanta Falcons and wanted to make his move back to the NFL. Here are my four rules of training professional athletes and what I did with Roosevelt Nix.

I’m here to spread the true secret of strength, if you think you can handle it.

When the Gateway Lions Academy approached me a few months ago to train their soccer athletes, I was excited. Almost 100% of them are just pure raw talent, and their skillset and work ethic are unreal.

Many of us would like there to be a simple answer or a go-to method to reach our goals in the shortest possible time, but in reality we have to spend time under the bar, do our homework, educate ourselves, and learn what makes our unique profile tick.

The deadlift program I’m going to outline will prepare you for both a heavy event and a high rep event. This will be perfect for those in strongman that are not given events for a specific contest.

We can’t simply throw random exercises and set and rep schemes on a piece of paper haphazardly and then hope for the best. In this series I will teach you how to write programs, including a coach’s assignment for each article.

There’s a piece to the accommodating resistance puzzle that I don’t think anyone ever really discusses: using bands too often can ruin you for straight weight. There’s also an equally overlooked method of fatigue management.

Taking two of my lifters, let’s break down all the variables that come into play for individualizing their programming to keep them not only progressing but also healthy.

My main goal for this article is to make the vast bodies of work on conjugate more digestible and more easily applicable to what is popular now: raw powerlifting.

The principles of training are the same for everyone, but the details are different. If you want to learn how to tailor your training by fine-tuning these details, this is the article for you.

I want to introduce some new training ideas to accelerate you from good to great by revisiting the past and adding a twist to several favorites.

Whether it be to feel better, move more weight, or run a marathon, this system has something for everyone. It is the no-brainer preferred choice for group programming.

This program was designed for our players who spend half a day in traditional school and half a day training with us for AAA GTHL hockey, the premier youth hockey league in Canada.

Want continual progress over the long haul? Think of your training as lifting big rocks, pebbles, and sand. Here’s how.

Many lifters will be tempted to reduce their squat intensity to preserve energy for the deadlift, but that might not be the best idea.

These athletes undergo rapid physical development, increased workloads, new mental health challenges, and hormonal changes. As they hit peak height velocity, it’s vital to properly manage their training.

In theory, it’s good to force your athletes to take a deload every fourth week. In reality, it rarely works out for the best. Here’s an alternative option and a sample program that will keep things rolling in the right direction.

Years of pushing his body to the limit has left Dave with two hip replacements, numerous shoulder surgeries, more injuries than he can recall, constant daily pain, and restricted movement. It’s time for a change.

The other day I was sitting in my office working on the 2006 marketing plan and in busts Jim with a huge grin on his face and a handful of reports.

Several incredible presentations from Paul Comfort, Mike McGuigan, and Bryan Mann led me me to make some key adjustments to the programming of my Metabolic Group.

Our goal is to help our clients become better versions of themselves in terms of fitness, longevity, and body composition, so well-rounded concurrent fitness is often the best course of action.

It’s story time. So travel with me, if you will, dear reader, back to turn of the century— in the winter of the year two thousand, and meet a very different Swede than the man writing this today.

Want to be lean, muscular, strong, and conditioned, with the ability to move without pain? There are many variables, but these guidelines apply to everyone.

Since retiring from powerlifting in 2005, Dave has tried a lot of different approaches to his training. There’s one clear winner.

This is the most important time in an athlete’s career for learning motor patterns, and it’s the age range that can set up athletes for long-term success in their sport.

This article is intended for strength coaches who are looking to take their athletes to the next level. There are some very simple things you can do to ensure your athletes reap the benefits of such a powerful system.

I designed this program for a few of our lifters who had no meet in mind and wanted to stay strong, shed some fat, and get in better shape. All of them had great results.

I have had more tweaks and muscle strains occur during the first week of getting back into training than any other time. If I’d known how to use an intro week, this never would’ve happened.

Programming for this age must be based on the understanding that most speed and strength gains in young athletes are due to motor learning, improved motor coordination, and nervous system development/adaptation.

This model sequences weight training and skills, with the weight training acting as a neural primer before moving to skill work and then bringing the players back to the weight room to complete the lower body session.

It is the signature strongman event and can make you a champion or break you in half. Unfortunately, it’s often the most poorly trained event — but it doesn’t have to be.

If you’ve mastered and are continuing to follow the eight rules from part one of this series, I want to show you exactly how you can create an even better program that will pack mass on any true hard gainer out there.

Our team is pretty strong in the weight room and it has transferred to the field, but we’re not a big team. The head coach and I have come to an agreement on changes we’re going to make, with a phase that starts January 16.

Designing a program that builds agility, speed, strength, and conditioning, while also training the strongman movements, can seem a daunting task. Here’s how I approach it.

To improve the CTP protocol, I’ve made a few tweaks so that you introduce a unique pain technique through one round and then switch it each time.

With the holidays and all of the celebratory foods coming, why not make those extra calories work for a change? This plan is designed to get you bigger and stronger using a 4-day split (and a 3-day split if you’re pressed for time).

After an ACL injury, the athlete is first rehabbed exclusively in the training room. Once they’re released to me, we start this phase of the recovery process.

With intelligent programming, you can use the sled to target each energy system without interfering with your current training program, and in the process enhance recovery, improve conditioning, and lose body fat.

I’m going to outline a 12-week program for an event that is max reps — a weight that is currently out of your reach.

This compilation of training sessions is drawn from the minds of many great coaches, and includes initial and periodic testing to ensure intensity and distance per session challenge the metabolic systems of the athletes.

Trying to build superior performance without diversity in your training is like trying to build a house with nothing but a hammer and a box of nails: the final product isn’t going to impress anyone.

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.

After publication of the Swing Block Method, emails came non-stop from coaches asking how to implement the program in their schools. Here is the answer. The program within will give your team the greatest strength results it has ever seen.

My thirteen-year-old daughter recently started a single weekly session, supplemented with interval running and sports specific training exercises. This is how she’s training for lacrosse.

I have collated a few of my most result-producing programs for you to try, from both a sports performance perspective and also general training for size and strength for the non-sports person.