Your motivation is sky-high because you either won your competition and want to reach the next rung on the ladder, or you bombed and want the sweet taste of redemption, so you want to jump back into it. Slow down, kid, or you’ll hurt yourself.

It is crucial to delineate these training and competition as separate but mutually impactful things. I’d wager that the majority of lifters who had a bad meet were doing a whole bunch of competition in training, leading up to the actual competition.

I learned a large portion of my knowledge of supplemental training from many mistakes I made in the gym. I am hoping to help all of you readers avoid at least a few of the mistakes I made and get more out of your supplemental training.

In this episode of Table Talk Podcast, Dave Tate opens up about being a father to a son with Asperger’s, and elitefts Managing Editor Sheena Leedham talks about training and educating Blaine and other young adults on the spectrum.

Conjugate. You keep using that word. We do not think it means what you think it means. Why is conjugate training so hard to understand? It’s not! In fact, because it’s so easy to understand, Jim Wendler can explain it in two minutes. Two minutes! It’s that simple.

Science has proven time and time again that having a football player running endless 100-yard sprints isn’t the best option. In fact, it shouldn’t even be thought of as an option. Instead, use current information about energy systems to improve training.

According to the Pareto Principle, 80% of results come from 20% of your time. Ocham’s Razor states the simplest solution tends to be the best one. Simplicity is the missing ingredient in most training programs. Hence why I return to the famous paradigm of the pull-push-squat.

With all the knowledge we have available to us, you would think that we have gotten past the idea that distance running will get an athlete in shape for any sport. So how should we program for athletes? Sport-specific? Sort of. In order to approach something that is actually sport-specific, we must take into account the actual demands of the sport.

This part of the 8×8 program is brought to you by the Chippendales, coming to a workout near you! Just kidding — we’re going to build those pecs and biceps and make you, yes, you, look better than the average Chippendale stripper. (Program results may vary.)

We get that training is a top priority for most of our readers, but we also understand that life is messy and complicated. School and/or work can get in the way of training. It’s not realistic for training to come first all the time, which is why this realistic program was made.

I’d been using the same blueprint that goes to 500 to get me to 585, and that’s where I went wrong. I had to analyze everything in order to customize a new plan to break that 600-pound barrier. This is how I did that.

A beautiful transformation occurs when you begin to accept that difficulties are as inherent to our lives as breathing. For strength coaches, there is nothing more substantive to our daily lives than questions and books. Do you diverge from the routine?

It’s a system, not a program. It can be tailored to suit whatever your goals are: powerlifting, athletics, CrossFit, marathon running… You name it, and this system can’t be beaten. This article is meant to show beginner powerlifters how to set up their own conjugate-based program.

I believe the most important role of a strength and conditioning coach is to create programs that minimize the risk of injury. Armed with knowledge from a study on rugby injuries, I wrote a program that focuses on strengthening injury-prone areas. Here’s what I came up with.

I’ve seen an influx of boxes close over this last year—more than prior years. This tells me that we need to change to survive. My suggestion? Pull away from the hardcore box audience and focus more on programming for the general population.

It’s never been about making these “New Year, new me” resolutions; it’s about dedicating yourself to the daily process, having a vision, and having a plan in every aspect of your life. Want to be a head strength coach? Have a plan and dedicate yourself daily to the process.

This month’s featured program is great for those who’ve recently finished training for a contest and are getting into the nitty-gritty of off-season training. It’ll keep your gains coming in at a steady pace, improve your base strength, and help you peak while training for your next contest.

Don’t be the newbie lifter who falls into the tiger pit traps during your training cycle. That’ll only hurt you in the long run — or at least in those first competitions. Don’t be afraid to start training too light and save your attempts for the platform. Not enough advice? I’ve got six other tips, so read on…

It’s important to note that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all training protocol, and these are just some general suggestions based on a few successes and countless failures over my career that I consider when writing a program.

There are quite a few things to take into account when it comes to accessory training. If you ask Dave Tate and Joe Sullivan, a few of these things include program design and competition distance (measured in time, not miles or kilometers), and more.

elitefts columnist Ashley Jones is Australian by birth, a New Zealander by choice and marriage, but first and foremost, he’s a strength and conditioning coach with 40 years of experience under his belt with plenty of passion and advice to spare to future coaches.

If speed is what we’re going after, then why do the weights on both our heavy and light days continue to climb, and bar speed continues to fall? As we get deeper into the competitive season and continue to put more tonnage on the athletes, we are burning the candle at both ends.

Enough of the excuses. I’m sick of hearing them. You have the energy to roll on the floor for 45 minutes before you train, take 34 selfies, and tag the gang before you leave the gym, but you can’t spend an extra 30 minutes on your back?

It’s inevitable that a lifter will hit a plateau at some point or another. It’s frustrating, I know. Trust me, I’ve been there. But after 10 years of powerlifting and 14 years of strength training before that, I think I’ve unlocked some of the secrets to making gains. Here are five things that helped me increase my lifts.

Steve “Kono” Konopka and I cover our daily pre-practice warm-ups, bulletproof shoulder circuits, what we call the “f@#k the bottom, you belong at the top” conditioning circuit, and answer a couple of questions in the third part of our #BAMF Wrestler series.

I’m not going to waste your time today, so I’ll get right to the point. Here is my list of reasons why you should avoid linear programming for group box classes at your facility like the plague. Your clients will thank you — maybe not directly, but at least by continuing to show up for class.

Reading Al Miller’s “The System” made me think about my most successful program. I’ve dubbed this hodgepodge of six years in strength and conditioning “Performance Drive Response,” which is a culmination of a bunch of different systems I’ve used, seen, and been in or part of.

In an effort to accomplish the goals of both athlete preparedness and strength, power, and speed development, the Belt Squat Overcoming Isometric can be utilized effectively and specifically to an athlete’s sport.

This month’s featured program should help build confidence by benching with low rep sets with lower percentage weights and practicing higher percentage singles. Feel free to toss in some assistance work while you’re at it, too.

As Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu grows more popular, so does misinformation about training for the martial art. This article will provide both empirical and anecdotal information about strength and conditioning for this particular combat sport.

The people have spoken, and I have answered. After receiving plenty of emails and comments about my last article, I decided to create and share a complete program based on The Simplicity Programming Project.

Is Dave still following Dr. Rusin’s protocol? What are Dr. Rusin’s top-two training takeaways working with Dave? In this Q&A, Dave Tate and Dr. John Rusin share their overall experiences from video series “Fixing Dave Tate” and “Breaking John Rusin,” and more.

I’ve been really blessed to be around some great leaders who taught me these lessons. I wouldn’t be the man and coach I am today without them.

Once you learn how to activate muscles effectively, you’ll always see some progress in your training. Start here with the basics of axiomatic conditions.

Dear strength coaches: Stop treating female athletes like they’re fragile little babies. They’re not. From my experience, they’ll be some of the best athletes you’ll ever have the pleasure to work with.

Each of these men are great attributes not only to the field of strength and conditioning but also to the development of future generations of men. In this introductory interview, we discuss philosophy, programming, and summer training.

As a PT, I made the mistake of letting go of these good habits. By ignoring issues when they arose, I put my body in a compromising state.

As human beings, we live through the experiences life teaches us. We then learn from these moments, whether it’s positive or negative. And ultimately, we pass on.

Knowing what to tell the horse is a lot less important than making the horse understand why the information is important.

Don’t get sidetracked by paying attention to insignificant details and meaningless methods. Learn to distinguish between what matters and what doesn’t.

There may be a strength discrepancy between your anterior and posterior chain, but are you sure this isn’t because some muscles are stuck doing a job they weren’t originally intended to do, in a position that isn’t optimal?

A person’s relationship with strength training and strength sports is dynamic and changes through time. I’m going to share with you some of my adventures that culminated in 2017 and offer a few tools that may be useful to you.

Not all online trainers are bad. Many members of team elitefts have been in this line of work for decades, training people long before social media even existed. Here’s what to look for.

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.

You can have the holy grail of training programs, but if it doesn’t fit your job, it isn’t any good.

If you want to build total fitness, you need to know about something Jim Wendler calls The Push-Pull Concept — and it has nothing to do with benching or deadlifting.

The goal was to create a training model that would maximize hypertrophy in minimal time and that would be “low tech, high effect” in its design.

Chad shares how difficulties in a personal situation had him look to lifting for answers.

My viewpoint runs counter to much of the current climate, which is dominated by the short-term perspective of a “hypertrophy phase.”

JL, Swede, and Casey continue their question-and-answer session by addressing how lifters can increase recoverability and maintain strength during weight loss.

Before getting hung up on specific weaknesses and special exercises, try this simple approach first.

Through a lot of ups downs since 2002, I’ve learned things both the hard way and the easy way. In one quick read, here are 137 of the best things to remember about conjugate.

You took a step forward and now it’s summer. This time of year means nine weeks of strength and conditioning bliss and nine weeks of scheduling, programming and executing our own version of “the master plan.”

Was I able to do these things and reach the level that I did simply because I believed?

You can have an amazing battle plan but if you can’t support it with beans and bullets, it’s worthless.

This is the difference between running a system or following a program. It’s the difference between getting lost or arriving at your destination.