How do we glean all the benefits of cardio without compromising our strength and size? It really comes down to two things.
When should the athletes lift? Where is the total training volume based from? How is intensity individualized within a team setting?
You need a lot in a strongman program: basic barbell lifts, accessory work, practice with the events, conditioning, flexibility, mobility, and recovery work. Use these ideas to build your own training program.
There are three very important priorities for a strength athlete to keep in focus during a competitive year.
As simple and extremely important as this principle is, I continue to see so many lifters overlook or misunderstand it year after year.
I don’t know how many questions we’ve gotten about how to train certain weak points. Of course, almost every question is in regard to a weak muscle group or a certain portion of a lift.
While the squat is still the most technical lift we see in powerlifting, the gear whores and raw zealots have much more in common than we think.
Your off-season was a huge success. Your athletes gained strength, size, and speed. Here’s the challenge: maintain.
In this first article of the series we look at the underlying purpose of a strength athlete’s training and the importance of the mesocycle.
If you train smart and put in the work, your nagging pains will not stop you from hitting a PR.
You’re sick of spinning your wheels. Trust me, I get it. I’ve been there. Here’s how to stop being timid and weak.
You’ve been away from the gym, but now you’re back. With some intelligent programming you can resume training in such a way that you’ll be blowing through your old numbers without ever getting stuck.
A disc injury is not a death sentence. You now need to develop into a smarter lifter who is not only focused on PR’s but also on long term health.
Get bigger and stronger with these four cornerstones of McRobert’s training method.
Knowing how to implement proper periodization will set you free from being slave to rigid programs and pre-written training plans.
This 9-week program is designed to allow recovery, build muscle, improve conditioning, and prepare you mentally and physically for another heavy training cycle.
A multi-world record holder in the bench press, a successful gym owner, and a successful all-around lifter, Magruder has certainly made his mark.
Knowing now how to set up and execute the lift, there is one final process to perfect your bench press.
You will have the opportunity to learn about any topic in strength training you choose, from execution of the main lifts all the way down to minute details of accessory work.
Your body must undergo multiple stages of adaptation before you decide whether or not your training program is working for you. Patience, my friend. Patience.
There’s nothing wrong with trying the newest, flashy technique, but if you don’t know how it will help your team, stick to the basics.
Participating coaches include; Swede Burns, Clint Darden, Julia Ladewski, Brandon Smitley, Joe Schillero, Ken Skip Hill, Zach Gallmann, Matt Ladewski, Shane Church, David Allen, Casey Williams, Dani Overcash, David Kirschen, Sheri Whethem, Ken Whethem.
The most valuable information you will find from testing your athletes is not a measurement of height.
The style of your coaching and the content of your program say a lot about you as a coach. If someone questions your approach, do you have an answer?
If you follow the guidelines of your program without understanding the reasons for the methods, you’re missing two things that will make or break your progress: individuality and specificity.
A proper weight room strategy provides adequate attention to the development of strength and size — two qualities necessary for your team’s improvement.
Before making the assumption that all women have wide hips and should therefore squat wide and deadlift sumo, consider these other factors that will inform good technique.
Your athletes are not powerlifters. Programming them as if they are will not lead to stronger, faster competitive performance.
This program is built on the foundation of tried-and-true conjugate training methods and includes personal adjustments from a world-record philosophy.
The first thing that you need to do is decide on what your limiting factors are: time, equipment, physical abilities, skill, and audience.
We’ve utilized Mann’s method with great results as written and with a few tweaks — breaking up the fourth set is just what our basketball players needed to bust through their strength plateau.
These options can help you combine the best parts of Wendler’s program with your regular routine of max effort and dynamic effort training.
When new athletes come into your program you don’t know their abilities, training history, or technical proficiency. This is a crucial part of your program: preparing your athletes for their sport.
Trends dominate the personal training industry. Rely on self-education to determine the difference between what sounds good and what IS good.
Using this three-step approach, strengthen, motivate and challenge a team to excel in the sport of football.
Your yearly setup is complete. Now let’s look at individual days and how to program main, supplemental, and accessory exercises.
The bench press is typically the weakest lift for women. It’s no mystery why—they require a targeted approach.
With your qualifying meet out of the way, you now have an opportunity to return to building mode before starting a peaking cycle for your next meet.
These 6-week max effort and 4-week dynamic effort waves have taken Casey’s raw bench to 540 pounds. Watch as he explains his approach to chasing 600 and how you can use his methods yourself.
With the first two phases behind you, it’s time to move into higher gear for the first meet of the year. Are you ready to apply what you learned in weeks 1-13?
The path of continual progress includes some these important programming specialties: don’t add techniques you are ready for and don’t become stale.
These three velocity-based sessions build the trainable aspects of athletic speed development.
Following an early GPP phase, the yearly program moves toward variations of competition movements and learning which exercises you’ll need later on.
How can you effectively program for a sport with an unimaginable amount of variety? Integrating block periodization with event specific training is one way.
The emphasis is always on the athletes, but keep in mind, in order to be a productive leader, you must go through what you’re asking others to do.
Program writing can be difficult. Here are three solutions that I’ve used in my own training to help you with this process.
Are you still searching for the holy grail of programs? Here it is, in all its perfection.
This 52-week approach begins immediately after a meet and constructs a long-term plan for tying together all parts of a training program.
Julia, in conjunction with Alexander Cortes and Scott Paltos, discusses how training like a bodybuilder and adding in higher reps might help powerlifters with the big three lifts.
With a variety of unique, specialized equipment, you can program to address a multitude of player strengths and weaknesses.
Training a high number of athletes in a limited number of time poses unique problems for timing and extensive warm-ups. Use these quick and efficient protocols to streamline team workouts.
If you want legs that shake the ground and crumble the streets where you walk, you’re going to need some specialized training techniques. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
You inevitably need to change up what you’re doing after stalled progress. What do you change? How do you go about deciding what to keep and what to remove?
GPS tracking for sport’s performance may seem overwhelming at first, but I have found with the right data and tracking methods, proper technology will yield improved performance.
Deloads are extremely useful for making continual progress from harsh training. When the time comes for you to back off the weights, make sure you do it the right way.
The best program for muscle hypertrophy and aerobic capacity extends the training perspective to a year-long pursuit of improved fitness.
The Hook Grip & Straps by the Legend Steve Goggins. Plus a 900lb pull!
When I tore my rotator cuff, I transitioned to more concentrated stimuli and a higher frequency per muscle group to avoid being forced to reduce my training intensity.