You can’t be a good strongman without being a good athlete, and that means building power, mobility, and technique. These movements can help build all three.

It must be noted that this article is specifically looking at intracellular signaling pathways leading to increased muscle size.

How does this system translate to someone that just wants a bigger set of guns? Incredibly well, actually, due to the fact you will spend the bulk of your training sessions performing hypertrophy work to bring up primary movers.

When looking at how to continue to train through overuse injuries, there are five main regressions and changes I have found able to lead to pain-free movement in the squat.

Should a training program be altered based on a lifter’s personality?

This program moves in a linear progression by alternating rep ranges with normal deload and sarcoplasmic hypertrophy phases to allow for supercompensation to take place.

Many programs say they individualize, but in reality very few do it well. This is why I borrowed the Quadrant Management System from business and redeveloped it to meet my requirements for programming in team sports.

These high-density training protocols are the holy grails of body composition training. Here are the best ones to get you started.

If you use this peaking plan and follow these tips, it’s not a question of whether or not you’ll PR at your next meet — it’s just a matter of by how much.

Simply winging it won’t cut it. It’s incredibly important for your clients’ health and success that you stop making these errors.

This final wave includes a small taper at the end for peaking purposes. There are both banded and band-free options.

This is the exact weight training program that I applied to the Panasonic Rugby team for the 2014-15 season.

Using my “steak and potatoes” model and the Athletic Improvement template, Tanner Houck and Chad Spanburger worked their asses off, earning the 24th overall pick and the 176th overall pick in the MLB draft.

Our powerlifting squad had six lifters compete in a meet that posed some specific challenges. Here’s how they did and a sample of the training that led to the meet.

Power is power and strength is strength. No matter what position you play, we have to develop both to the greatest potential. Here are the first two phases and the differences between positions.

I have developed a conjugate program template that efficiently covers the most important bases for training the general box programming population.

I have attempted to be as detailed as possible in presenting to you a comprehensive program based around the variability that makes up a complete year of rugby.

Improving in the sport of powerlifting is simple if you know how to approach it. I prefer using a series of three macrocyles: hypertrophy and volume, general strength, and competition preparation and peaking.

Why is it that calves are one of the hardest muscle groups to grow? Here are three points to consider to develop heart-shaped calves like a sprinter or running back.

If I could go back in time to when I first started in this industry, I’d force myself to follow these five rules of training. Those of you starting now should listen.

Want to get faster? Spending time on the field or track is important, but at some point you’re going to hit a speed barrier. That’s when you need to focus on building these three areas.

Let’s start with a couple of definitions to standardize our understanding of this concept of training economy. We will look at GPE, SPE, SE, SDE, and SFE.

It’s interesting — as strength coaches, we constantly talk about the need for good programming and consistency, but having flexibility is undoubtedly a key component.

Rugby is a high intensity intermittent collision sport, which requires a multi-factorial physical training approach to optimize performance.

Each time I use this method myself I feel like I could run through a wall come meet day. Now after six years of using this cycle, we have proof that it works for our athletes.

Let’s get into which strongman events will help improve the big three and how to program them.

I have some grown up advice for your training: start training like an adult and quit worrying about whether or not it’s fun. This program actually produces results, and in my book, results are a hell of a lot more fun than feel-good training.

The conjugate system is about max effort, dynamic effort, and the repetition method. You can do everything with just a rack, bar, bench, and some weights. Here are the next four weeks of the program.

It is time for you to blur the lines between volleyball practice and physical preparation and fuse them into one holistic entity of movement.

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?

I have been a huge believer in Intensity Number of Lifts (INOL) to develop programs that are achievable and that follow a sensible loading pattern over time, but I’ve recently made some important changes.

Strongman requires speed, endurance, strength, and explosiveness. What if you could build all of these qualities at the same time?

I’m going to share my strategy and reasoning behind it here, so hopefully, you can get some inspiration for whatever meet you’ve got coming up.

While raw powerlifting circles have been discrediting the merits of a concurrent approach to training, many have been using a program that is congruent with the very principles that conjugate is based on.

Using these two cycles together is a great template that I guarantee will make you a stronger bencher.

I left the biggest meet of my powerlifting career so far with a PR total, but more importantly, I learned eight valuable lessons for the future.

If you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, give one of these a try: Intensity-Based Hypertrophy Wave, Working Set Volume-Based Hypertrophy Wave, or Exercise Volume-Based Hypertrophy Wave.

This strategy is a synthesis of various methods and tactics I’ve learned over the years from John Meadows, Swede Burns, Charles Staley, and a few others.

Rather than explain, in great detail, when and how I think it would make sense for you to do this, I’m simply going to recount how I did it while coming back from a pec injury.

When thinking about conjugate training, we often look at all the specialty bars, bands, chains and other goodies that we use in training. But when you boil it down, conjugate training doesn’t need those things.

Let me introduce you to the Core 4: push, pull, press, and carry.

This training design has taken into account 24-hour shifts over a four-week schedule. As you can see, each week has varying work demands, so the training program must reflect this.

This 12-week program can be utilized by any individual wishing to prioritize the physical elements of speed and power.

Dave believes the most important and widely used purpose for boards is to increase/correct the mini-max or sticking point.

Once the competitive season commences, the athlete will need to be transitioned into a contrasting training paradox, otherwise known as the off-season.

How do you train a woman in her 30s or 40s with zero background in lifting? Isolate, then integrate.

We ran the first variation of this setup in preparation for our last powerlifting meet and it resulted in around 1,400 pounds of total PRs spread amongst nine different lifters.

The idea may seem simple and basic in theory, but these circuits are brutally effective at elevating heart rate for extended periods of time.

This is a vital component that builds stability, mobility, strength, muscle, body control, and even power. Don’t neglect it!

This is the first question you should ask yourself when training a team. To get this point across, I’ve attached my entire fall football training program.

For reverse dieting and training there are several components that play the biggest role in an athlete’s success.

My program design was technically sound and my lifting technique was good, but my back still wasn’t improving. This is when I turned to the study of anatomy and biomechanics.

For most people who step into a gym, your training isn’t a matter of life and death. For police officers, it is.

This presentation is directed towards the recreational athlete with the goal being to provide simple and effective tools to improve performance, reduce injury, and improve general levels of fitness.

Evaluating your training protocol is only the first step. The real differences are made by enacting them into the practicals of training.

If you’re training under a Conjugate System, variation is your key to success. Let’s talk about the two acute variables that you should use to your advantage: exercise variation and equipment selection.

For strongmen, the deadlift is many times just a a tool, not a factor itself. Your routine should reflect this.

You don’t need a unique piece of equipment for each muscle group or a 25-item list of accessory exercises. This program uses nothing but gym essentials to get you stronger without ever having to leave the squat rack.

I was warned of not taking it for granted and it burned me at the one competition I had my sights on for months.