A Very Different View of Training
A Very Different View of Training
I prepare an athlete to develop optimum control of his body as he moves, which is why I view core stability a failure as a basic model of athletic training.
Training the Female Athlete: Culture, Education, and Motivation
Training the Female Athlete: Culture, Education, and Motivation
The girl steps into the gym for the first time and is met with the smell of sweat and the sound of metal clanging violently.
Bench Got You Bitchin’?
Bench Got You Bitchin’?
It's a safe assumption that most of you aren't injury free.
Neck and Trap Training for the Strength Athlete
Neck and Trap Training for the Strength Athlete
Training the musculature of the neck and trapezius is often ignored by many lifters.
Facts Needed to Prevent Hamstring Strains
Facts Needed to Prevent Hamstring Strains

Once you’ve experienced a hamstring strain, you wish nothing more than for it to never have happened or at least for it to never happen again.

Our Salute
Our Salute

“The Nation today needs men who think in terms of service to their country and not in terms of their country’s debt to them.”
–General Omar Bradley

Three-Dimensional Hip Strength for Performance and Injury Prevention
Three-Dimensional Hip Strength for Performance and Injury Prevention

A stable and optimal hip can produce force in all three dimensions of movement—flexion/extension, abduction/adduction, and internal/external rotation.

Training Concepts, Recovery and Knee Rehab with Buddy Morris
Training Concepts, Recovery and Knee Rehab with Buddy Morris

These videos made me realize what I needed to do in order to preserve longevitiy in doing what I love…lifting!!

Injury Prevention Series: IT Band Syndrome
Injury Prevention Series: IT Band Syndrome

Few sayings are more sagacious than the adage “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Back in the Limelight
Back in the Limelight

Adding some new back exercises into your routine can help you break through plateaus, boost your strength, and give you a welcome change of pace in your training.

Understanding Forces
Understanding Forces

As we know, training can be very beneficial to anyone’s fitness or athletic goals, but understanding some of the ways in which these exercises negatively affect the body can aid in decision making in programming as well as make it easier for us as professionals to accommodate athletes and work around certain injuries.

Grip4orce Grippers for Total Body Muscle Building and Strength Gains
Grip4orce Grippers for Total Body Muscle Building and Strength Gains

Whether training for quality gains in lean muscle mass in preparation for bodybuilding competition or for elite level athletic performance, we could all benefit from additional strength and muscle size increases.

Rehab Fatigue
Rehab Fatigue

Like anyone who regularly reads elitefts.com™, I’ve struggled with injuries.

The Importance of Neck Training for Sports
The Importance of Neck Training for Sports

The title to this article isn’t meant to be misleading.

Smith’s Got Your Back: Warm-ups for Squat Injury Prevention
Smith’s Got Your Back: Warm-ups for Squat Injury Prevention

Squat injuries happen more frequently without a proper warm-up. Dr. Ryan Smith discusses a few simple movements he uses that can save you from painful complications.

 Correcting Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction, Part 1
Correcting Sacroiliac Joint Dysfunction, Part 1

The sacroiliac joints (SI) are a common source of lower back problems for a wide range of people including housewives, professional athletes, and elite lifters. The SI joints don’t discriminate.

The Hip Flexor Solution
The Hip Flexor Solution

Due to a recent influx of hip flexor questions, I decided to put together a few thoughts on the issue.

 Alleviating Ailing Ankles
Alleviating Ailing Ankles

Anyone who has worked with field and court sport athletes has undoubtedly dealt with his fair share of athletes with ankle injuries.

Injury Prevention Strategies for Female Basketball Players
Injury Prevention Strategies for Female Basketball Players

Injuries are a major setback for any competitive athlete. It can be physically taxing to recover and mentally stressful and draining to be sitting on the bench and going through rehabilitation.

 The Top Five Movements for Shoulder Health
The Top Five Movements for Shoulder Health

Recently, I received an email from an average, middle-aged man who, after years of training, was unable to pick up his three-year-old son over his head due to shoulder pain. His goal was very simple.

Pointing Out Gluteal Atrophy
Pointing Out Gluteal Atrophy

Whenever I’m approached by an avid exerciser or athlete who complains of knee or lower back pain, the first thing I do is check out his or her backside…literally. Not to sound like a sexual implication, but observing the glutes actually helps me understand a client’s description of knee and lower back pain.

Top Six Recovery Methods for Athletes
Top Six Recovery Methods for Athletes

I’ll start off by putting it simply—you must train hard and recover hard! Here are some healthy ways to recover your body and restore your muscles!

Active Release Techniques for Strength Athletes
Active Release Techniques for Strength Athletes

At some point or another, just about every bodybuilder and athlete on the planet is bound to get injured. Luckily, for most of us, these injuries are usually minor and don’t result in anything more than a slight inconvenience for a few days.

A Strength Coach’s Guide to Dealing with Pain: Part 2, Knee Pain
A Strength Coach’s Guide to Dealing with Pain: Part 2, Knee Pain

In part 1 of this series, I introduced some ways in which a strength and conditioning coach can deal with an athlete’s shoulder pain.

Defending the Bench Press
Defending the Bench Press

The bench press is a great lift. Whether your goal is to develop a powerful overall physique or a barrel chest or just get brutally strong, the bench press can help you get there.

The Truth about Impingement: Part 2
The Truth about Impingement: Part 2

In Part 1 of this series, I went into some detail on why I really didn’t like the catch all term “impingement.” In Part 2, I’m going to talk about the different kinds of impingement—external and internal.

The Truth about Impingement, Part 1
The Truth about Impingement, Part 1

Roughly 10–15 times per week, I get emails from folks who claim that they have shoulder “impingement.” Honestly, I roll my eyes the second that I read these emails.

Does Your Serratus Feel Neglected?
Does Your Serratus Feel Neglected?

The serratus (anterior and posterior) is one of the most overlooked and undertrained areas of an athlete’s body, especially in powerlifters. These muscles aid in the lockout of the bench press and stabilize the shoulder blade and shoulder girdle. By neglecting this area, you can suffer during the last half to one inch of your bench lockout.

How I Tore My Pec
How I Tore My Pec

The following is a recollection of an incident that I suffered close to 12 years ago. It changed my approach to personal exercise and ultimately helped me carve my career in the fitness field.

A Strength Coaches Guide to Dealing with Pain, Part 1: Shoulder Pain
A Strength Coaches Guide to Dealing with Pain, Part 1: Shoulder Pain

As a strength coach, I work with many athletes who suffer from chronic joint pain. When I hear them complain about shoulder and knee pain, my first reaction is to blow them off and tell them to go stretch. However, after suffering from the same types of nagging pains myself, I know that their pain is very real.

Oblique Strains and Rotational Power
Oblique Strains and Rotational Power

Earlier this season, Josh Hamilton put on an amazing show with 28 homeruns in the first round of the major league baseball (MLB) Homerun Derby.

Are Your Lateral Rotators Strong?
Are Your Lateral Rotators Strong?

The rotator cuff muscles of the shoulder play a very important role in the prevention of shoulder injury and in the execution of overhead throwing and hitting actions.

An Interview with Rob MacIntyre
An Interview with Rob MacIntyre

Rob “Spray” MacIntyre is a strength coach for some top level athletes. Rob, tell me a little bit about your background.

 Preventing Hamstring Injuries: Part I
Preventing Hamstring Injuries: Part I

Last summer, I worked with a college running back who was contemplating quitting football because of chronic hamstring injuries.

Solving Anterior Knee Pain
Solving Anterior Knee Pain

Pain in the front of the knee is becoming an epidemic among serious lifters and fitness enthusiasts alike.

The Validity of Massage, Hydrotherapy, and Hyperbaric Oxygenation as Recovery Accelerants
The Validity of Massage, Hydrotherapy, and Hyperbaric Oxygenation as Rec...

Popular sporting literature such as health and fitness magazines, internet training, and sport sites as well as articles written by athletes, coaches, and physical therapists have endorsed the use of techniques such as massage, hydrotherapy, and hyperbaric oxygenation as ways of speeding up the recovery process and thus improving athletic performance.

Are You Setting Yourself Up for Injury?
Are You Setting Yourself Up for Injury?

Lifting weights is easy, but preventing injuries when lifting weights is not always as simple. Because of this, it is not uncommon to find many injuries in weight training. To help prevent injuries and make your workouts more productive, here are seven key factors that you should take into account when weight training.

Shoulder Injury Prevention: Causes and Solutions
Shoulder Injury Prevention: Causes and Solutions

Chronic shoulder pain is nothing new to lifters or overhead athletes. It can range from something you just live with and work around to debilitating and career ending.

Healing the Hips
Healing the Hips

Ask any powerlifter what his most important joint is, and he’ll promptly answer “the hips.” The hips provide strength and stability in all three lifts. If you’re weak at the hips, you’re not going to do much on the platform. The same goes for all other athletes. The posterior chain is crucial for athletic success.

New Scars
New Scars

This the first week I’ve been to my gym since the meet. It hasn’t been the greatest month of my life—or year for that matter—but other people got it much worse so I ain’t bitchin’ too much.

Active Release Therapy
Active Release Therapy

Tired of banging your head against the wall trying to fix old injuries that have been preventing your total from going up? What should you do when the foam roller, specific sport stretching, equiblock, and massages are no longer helping? Well, guess what? Here’s your golden ticket to PRville…

Scott “Hoss” Cartwright: Get Injured and Get Stronger Interview
Scott “Hoss” Cartwright: Get Injured and Get Stronger Interview

He has elite totals at a body weight of 275 lbs and 308 lbs and totaled 2204 lbs in single ply gear. After that, Hoss tried to make a jump to double ply gear but only added 18 pounds to his total.

Defending the Deadlift: An Interview with Coach and Powerlifter, Eric Cressey
Defending the Deadlift: An Interview with Coach and Powerlifter, Eric Cr...

If you needed an expert on Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, you might contact Daniel Mahoney, a professor at Assumption College. For an expert on squatting, there’s Fred “Dr. Squat” Hatfield of the International Sports Sciences Association.

When Surgery Is Not an Option
When Surgery Is Not an Option

To all my fellow lower back pain sufferers who have subjected themselves to needless surgeries, cortisone shots, and therapies that flat out don’t work, here is my story.

The Female Knee, the Athletic Knee
The Female Knee, the Athletic Knee

“Girls are stronger. Boys are stinky”

And You Thought You had it Tough
And You Thought You had it Tough

“Well, I stand up next to a mountain I chop it down with the edge of my hand.” –Jimi

Young Throwing Athletes: The Specifics of Shoulder Care & Longevity
Young Throwing Athletes: The Specifics of Shoulder Care & Longevity

I feel it is the responsibility of any trainer or coach working with young throwing athletes to have a solid working knowledge of the shoulder.

Shoulder Rehab 101
Shoulder Rehab 101

I am going to attempt to provide the reader a generic blue print for individuals suffering from an acute shoulder problem to a chronic condition.

ACL Injuries & Young Female Athletes
ACL Injuries & Young Female Athletes

There has been an epidemic of sorts in the past few years regarding ACL injuries and young female athletes.

A Career Liability - ACL Injuries in Females
A Career Liability - ACL Injuries in Females

Female athletes are more prone to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries than males. Depending on the study, comparing male and female athletes, females are said to be anywhere from 4 to 6 times more likely to tear their ACL.

Strength Considerations for Throwers in Track and Field
Strength Considerations for Throwers in Track and Field

Most periodized training programs for athletes follow a Western or linear model.

The Unmaking of an Athlete
The Unmaking of an Athlete

I sometimes wonder if there are any prerequisites at all to getting a job as college strength and conditioning coach.

Strength and No Holds Barred Fighting
Strength and No Holds Barred Fighting

“Strength is an essential component of all human performance and its formal development can no longer be neglected in the preparation of any athlete”

Some Nerve
Some Nerve

The nervous system of athletes in speed and power sports can be enhanced by various means such as coordination exercises, structural work, and traditional power lifting methods.

Barbell Bullshit
Barbell Bullshit

Maybe it’s because I found out the hard way that you must vent information through a screen door in order to attain measurable improvements every training session in the real world. Maybe it’s because I have been doing research lately on American training strategies and I got a swift kick of deja vu.

Auto Regulatory Training Part 2
Auto Regulatory Training Part 2

The training process must include a critical and determined degree of fatigue, followed by an appropriate duration to which Reserve Strength may be elicited.

Auto Regulatory Training Part 1
Auto Regulatory Training Part 1

The individual control and systematic manipulation of volumetric management is largely dependant upon the proper integration of critical training variables. Specifically, these elements that must be monitored in training for sport can be generally classified into the broad category of measurement.

General Training Journal For High School Field Athletes
General Training Journal For High School Field Athletes

When discussing training, there are many things to consider, such as speed work, building absolute strength, improving form, raising work capacity, recuperation, and selecting exercises and rotating them them in proper sequence to avoid adaptation.

Westside and the Log Press
Westside and the Log Press

Get fast and slam a big log up overhead. As an added bonus your bench will go up too.

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