I first started lifting when I was about 11-years-old. I started doing little things before this time, but I entered a weight room when I was about 11-years-old.
As an athlete, you’re taught many things—work hard, compete until the end, work together with your teammates, push yourself to the limit, and have fun.
By now, you should know what a kettlebell is, or at the very least, you should have heard of kettlebells. They are popping up everywhere, and you can even purchase them from your local sporting goods retailer. There are kettlebell fitness trainers, kettlebell boot camps, kettlebell gyms, and even kettlebell infomercials. Kettlebells certainly have broken into the mainstream. Some might say this is good while others might say this is bad.
I’ve been to a ton of seminars in the past year, and every single time I came away confused on the most effective way to design a strength and conditioning program for high school athletes. One of the most conflicting methods used when talking about speed training is overspeed.
Many bodybuilders and physique specialists have wanted to know more about how to gain muscle mass using basic, body weight exercises.
My career as a strength and conditioning coach essentially began at the University of Washington when I interned under a great coach named Bill Gillespie back in the late 1990s.
The other day I had to suffer the great indignity of paying for a day pass at a commercial gym. Lifting in a commercial place isn’t all that bad. It can actually be good from time to time to expose you to new equipment or just get a change of scenery.
This week’s EliteFTS Spotlight features University of Pennsylvania strength and conditioning coach Jim Steel. Coach Steel is a former college football player with an extensive powerlifting background.
College is a wonderful place. It’s the transitional phase between being nestled securely at home close to your mother’s teat and being thrust out into the real world, which I can assure you, is an awful place once you truly appreciate your time in college.
Succeed academically: It’s crucial for young athletes to start developing solid study habits as they get older.
Here are the top 11 movements for athletes. Add them to your rotation and work them hard.
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.
EliteFTS Spotlight is a new weekly feature here on EliteFTS.com where Q&A member The Angry Coach interviews athletes and strength and sport coaches from various disciplines in order to find out more about what they do, how they train and how they do business.
EliteFTS Spotlight is a weekly feature here on EliteFTS.com where Q&A member The Angry Coach interviews athletes and strength and sport coaches from various disciplines in order to find out more about what they do, how they train and how they do business.
This article applies to three different types of lifters. If you’ve never squatted in a monolift, don’t train consistently in a monolift, or do squat in a monolift but don’t feel solid taking weights out of the monolift, keep reading.
It might seem like I’ve been doing many interviews lately. There’s good reason for this. A few weeks ago, I did an interview for EliteFTS, and I was asked the question, “Who do you feel is getting it done in strength and conditioning?”
Wabush, Labrador, Canada. A small mining town nestled in the cold and desolate woodland of northern Canada. Seven months of the year this isolated town in the middle of nowhere is covered in a deep and cold blanket of snow.
It’s been a while since I’ve contributed an article to this site and so much has changed.
Anatomy can be pretty intense and sometimes more complex than necessary. Balanced training is an old idea, so why beat a dead horse? Because bodybuilding dogma continues to prevail and everyone seems to define balanced training differently. So really…what the hell is balanced training?
As many times I’ve been made fun of because of my past, I think it’s imperative to outline so some people can see why I am the way I am.
Yosef Johnson is the owner and president of Ultimate Athlete Concepts, a company he founded in Muskegon, Michigan in 2001 with the goal of bringing together the best scientists from a variety of fields and incorporating their knowledge into a comprehensive line of products which were previously unavailable to North American athletics coaches.
There are many great gyms in the United States. Ohio has the great Westside Barbell, California has Diablo Barbell, New York has Adirondack Barbell—home of the Metal Militia, and Nebraska has Big Iron.
It always bugs me when someone says that there is no relationship between size and strength.
This games didn’t really go as planned. In hindsight, I made some mistakes that really affected my throwing. On the plus side, I won the national caber championship.
Rob “Spray” MacIntyre is a strength coach for some top level athletes. Rob, tell me a little bit about your background.
We arrived at Metropolis (a night club) at 6:00 p.m. The fights were scheduled to begin at 8:00 p.m. The time had finally arrived—Ryan Farhat’s mixed martial arts (MMA) debut.
For more examples regarding loading protocols, I highly recommend reading Christian Thibaudeau’s, Black Book of Training Secrets–Enhanced Edition. Most of these graphs are taken from there. Another interesting book to consider is Joe Kenn’s, Coach’s Strength Training Playbook, which is another awesome read.
Concurrent training in the iron game was made popular by the Westside Barbell Club and Louie Simmons, who erroneously called it “conjugate.”
Last night, I was sitting in my office going through some of my training journals and notes that had accumulated over the years.
One week ago I was offered and accepted an incredible opportunity to co-author a book outlining the physical preparation training of 6-time UFC Champion Randy Couture.
A noted sports columnist in the San Diego area lamented the fact that one of the state universities was unable to field a championship women’s volleyball team (they already dropped the men’s program even though it was the only program to bring in an NCAA championship).
Did you ever take a good look at the shape of the Prowler? How about someone giving you the finger?
In the recent issue of the most popular powerlifting magazine on the market, one of the featured writers, who I will refer to as Mr. X, wrote an article decrying the “no snitching mentality” that is sweeping the country.
How I understand, practice, and implement strength and conditioning programs for myself and my clients has drastically changed over the past four years.
Many people refer to the stretch reflex as the key to explosive training. How it is applied, however, is frequently misunderstood. This article takes an in-depth look at this action and how you can better utilize it in any or all aspects of your training.
I won’t change much. I plan on running a 12-week cycle of higher volume once I’m cleared to go full speed. I want to gain about 40lbs for November. I’ll need the extra volume to gain some muscle and size.
On February 10th, 2007, I competed in my first Strongman contest, the Motor City Strongman at Ford Field in Detroit, Michigan. It’s been exactly one year since my introduction to the sport so I feel like it’s a good time to reflect on what I’ve learned.
Wrestling season is still going strong as of this writing. We have two athletes competing right now at the state tournament, and had several of our guys place at districts and regionals. The team really did well this year and is only losing a few seniors.
As we’ve already alluded to, there are three main components of cardiovascular health that we must improve in order to raise your specific level of cardiovascular fitness—structure, function, and regulation.
A slow athlete needs to develop speed-strength. Here is how.
Short, middle, and long-distance runners all need explosiveness.
I am busy as all heck, as always, and I am in the process of getting away from working so much and doing all of this full time.
Mark McLaughlin has spent several years reading and learning Eastern Bloc training methods as well as other alternative types of training, leaving no stone unturned in the preparation of his athletes.
When talking about champions, everyone has an opinion just like the BCS College Football Standings. Are champions built or are they born? Are they a product of their environment or are they loners hungry for a piece of the pie?
I guess that I should explain why the subject of hardcore means so much to me. This is a very strong word in the world of powerlifting. Most lifters want to be considered hardcore to the point that they will train like maniacs so that people think they are hardcore.
I’ve been training with weights for 25 years and have spent the last 25 competing in both bodybuilding shows and powerlifting meets. Although I’ve done fairly well in the sport, it seems my Internet persona has overtaken anything I’ve done lifting.