The honest truth about training that most coaches won't admit: it all comes down to the best educated guess for the specific person, on the specific day.

Thirty years ago you settled it on the platform. Now you settle it with a burner account and advice from influencers who never competed.

After nearly 30 years of giving to the elitefts community, C.J. "Murph" Murphy and the Total Performance Sports crew need us to show up for them.

Most of the weight you carry is for bridges you haven't reached yet, and half of them you'll never cross.

Resistance bands are one of the most versatile and underused tools in strength training. Here's every way to use them, from accommodating resistance on the main lifts to rehab, speed work, and keeping a beat-up body in the game.

What made Westside Barbell the strongest gym in the world was not the methodology. It was the people in the room and what they demanded from each other.

The planning conversation never gets you stronger. Only the bar does.

Labor Day is the one holiday that actually understands what training is, because both come down to the same thing: work nobody applauds you for.

A reason is why you can't. An excuse is why you won't. Most lifters never learn the difference because the honest answer costs something.

The powerlifting you argue about online is being defined by less than 1% of the people actually in it.

A chance re-read of Ethan Hawke's Rules for a Knight uncovered a fable that maps directly to everything elitefts was built on, and everything the training process asks of you.

Strongman competitor and gym owner Josh Hendrickson sits down with Dave Tate to talk biceps rehab, training through injury, chasing a sub-20 5K, building 580 Barbell, promoting better strongman shows, and what it takes to stay in strength sports for the long haul.

Former Wisconsin strength coach Brian Bott joins Dave Tate to unpack the realities of collegiate strength and conditioning—from rebuilding broken movement patterns and maintaining power deep into the season to creating a weight room culture built on accountability, resilience, and long-term athlete development.

The fitness industry is obsessed with the next peptide, supplement, hormone, and recovery shortcut. But none of it matters if the foundation is weak. This article breaks down the training, nutrition, sleep, hydration, recovery, and cellular principles that drive real physical progress—and explains why exercise remains the most powerful performance tool available.

The lifters who last are not the ones who felt nothing; they are the ones who learned to read the difference between the pain that builds them and the pain that ends them.

The lifter who spends their career trying to look like someone else's highlight reel will never find out what they were actually built to do.

Dave revisits the article he wrote over 20 years ago and gives his honest assessment of what he got right, what he got wrong, and what he would have actually done differently if he could go back

"The human potential is limited by the human mind, and it takes a very, very, very strong, rare, special person to break the barrier."

A kindergartner who lost everything in a house fire looked around at his classmates and said, "I have all I need right here," and it changed how I think about training, business, and what actually matters.

 "I think that was a big thing, the reason why the doctor said, like you would have been dead, and several times, I probably should have died if my baseline wasn't so high going into it."

The strength industry I built my life in is unrecognizable, but the sport itself never moved.

Most people misunderstand imposter syndrome. Here's the real distinction, and why the only ones certain they belong are the ones you should worry about.

The hardest character test in powerlifting has nothing to do with the weight on the bar.

After tearing his pec and being told he would never bench 400 again, Dave Tate kept driving to the gym. Here is what happened.