table talk Mike

Technique Is a Consequence, Not a Cause: What Mike Niklos Gets Right About Athlete Development

Dave Tate

Table Talk guest Mike Niklos breaks down why your first assessment question should never involve a barbell, what the conjugate method actually means, and why communication is the only coaching skill that will matter in 30 years.

Mastering the Squat Setup: Why Your Walkout Is Ruining Your Lift—and How to Fix It

Mastering the Squat Setup: Why Your Walkout Is Ruining Your Lift—and How to Fix It

If your squat falls apart before you hit depth, your walkout may be the problem. This guide breaks down how to build a tighter squat setup from the rack out: grip, upper back tension, stacking, bracing, foot pressure, and the common walkout mistakes that make heavy squats feel harder than they should.

Vertical jump photo

3 Jump Techniques For Instant Vertical Power.

Raw strength matters, but the fastest vertical jump gains often come from cleaning up the leak: foot pressure, descent speed, arm timing, and how violently you redirect force into the floor.

Leg extension leg curl machine

The Equipment Your Grandfather Trained On Is Back. It Never Should Have Left.

Dave Tate

Five plate-loaded, old-school machines every serious gym should have, and why serious lifters keep coming back to the basics

Stop Eating the Same Way for Every Workout

Stop Eating the Same Way for Every Workout

Casilyn Meadows

A max-effort day and a high-volume hypertrophy session do not require the same fuel. This guide breaks down how to adjust your peri-workout nutrition so your hydration, carbs, electrolytes, amino acids, and recovery strategy match the training session in front of you.

dave blood forehead

That Idiot Who Headbutted the Bar

Dave Tate

The headbutting ritual that got me under the bar for years was never about strength, and one line from a friend finally made me see it.

The Void

The Void: Mastering the Mind Under the Bar

Dave Tate

"The void" is described as a transformative mental state of freedom and peace where an athlete sheds their daily stressors to become a different, often more aggressive, version of themselves, pushing past physical limits into a space of absolute nothingness.

 

Dr Drew Donaldson

The Deflation Paradox: Hard-Won Lessons on Being ‘Every Type of Jacked’

"If you want to achieve your ultimate physical goals, you must become 'every type of jacked' by mastering autoregulation and truly understanding the biological systems that drive your performance and recovery."

 

floss bands

What Floss Bands Actually Do (And Why Every Serious Lifter Should Have Them)

Dave Tate

If your joints are beat up and you need something that actually works between now and your next training session, floss bands might be the most practical recovery tool you're not using.

SPOTTING

Why Your Gym Spotting is Actually Dangerous: 4 Lessons from the Pros

Dave Tate

"What you always want to do when you are spotting a squat from the back is you never want to be over the bar with your hands, you always want to be under the lifter".

 

Matt Mills

How to Get the Most Out of Working With Any Coach

Most lifters hire a coach and then immediately get in their own way. Here's the framework that will make every session count.

Drew one arm pulldown

Stop Choosing Sides: How to Build an Efficient Upper Body Workout That Actually Works

Drew Donaldson brings 20 years of coaching experience to the S5 and lays out a glycolytic upper body session that merges research with what's been working in gyms for decades.

Evolution of a System by Ashley Jones

Evolution of a System by Ashley Jones

Casilyn Meadows

Ashley Jones explores the evolution of his rugby strength and conditioning system from 2005 to 2025, detailing advancements in Conjugate training, CARE programming, and athlete-centered performance development.

Dave LLPO sweatshirt

The Generation That Figured It Out: How Growing Up Gen X Built the Way I Train

Dave Tate

Gen X didn't have YouTube, apps, or on-demand coaches. We had a bar, a rack, and the stubborn refusal to quit, and that built something most lifters today never find.

Dr Pat Davidson

The 8-Box Framework That Explains Why Some Exercises Build Muscle and Others Don't

Dr. Pat Davidson breaks down the three mechanical variables that determine whether an exercise builds muscle, inoculates against injury, or gets you hurt.

Tom OHP

The Perfect Press: A Narrative Journey of the Overhead Press

"The overhead press is probably the single best exercise for ingraining your ability to root into the floor and maintain a neutral posture compared to any other exercise."

 

Tom and Holly

She Trained Through a Brain Tumor. Here's What She Learned About Autoregulation, Resilience, and Showing Up Anyway

Dave Tate

elitefts Rebuild Series: Tom Sheppard sits down with powerlifter, gym owner, and brain tumor survivor Holly Torrez on autoregulation, sobriety, and what real resilience looks like.

driven

Did You Exchange a Walk-On Part in the War for a Lead Role in a Cage?

Dave Tate

A Pink Floyd lyric I used to open seminars in 2018 still stops people cold because most of us already know the answer

Dr Dwyane Jackson

Beyond the Mirror: Rethinking Strength for Functional Longevity

Dave Tate

By periodizing cardiorespiratory exercises with your strength workouts, you can build a "lactate sink" in your slow-twitch muscle fibers that enhances metabolic flexibility, sustains muscular power, and serves as the ultimate predictor of a long health span.

 

dave tate sports performance

The "Meathead" Manifesto: 6 Unconventional Lessons on Performance, Recovery, and the Edge of Sanity

"I wanted to know what it felt like to break a PR one more time."

 

Michael Brinson

The Lifter’s Lexicon: A Beginner’s Guide to Weight Room Cues and Commands

Dave Tate

"We will stay on this movement until the athletes are showing proficiency in the things that we are looking for with trunk control ankle mobility squat depth all those things."

 

bench press

What a Business Strategy Book Taught Me About Why Most Lifters Never Reach Their Potential

Dave Tate

I picked up a book about organizational strategy and ended up reading a chapter-by-chapter breakdown of every training mistake I made for the first decade of my career.

rugby

Time as a Factor in Determining Programs

Discover how to optimize your training success by aligning your program with your realistic time availability and recovery needs, featuring detailed workout schedules ranging from two to six days per week.

chalk

What the New ACSM Strength Guidelines Actually Mean for Competitive Powerlifters

Dave Tate

The ACSM just updated their resistance training guidelines for the first time in over 15 years, and what the headlines say and what the document actually says are two different things.