Stop Retracting Your Shoulders To Bench Press elitefts video thumbnail

Stop Retracting Your Shoulders to Bench Press

Hard shoulder-blade retraction can wreck your bench setup. Learn how to use your lats, serratus, and upper back for a stronger, safer bench press.
Manuals stacked up with bedroom nutrition blood flow hormones and recovery

Bedroom Nutrition: The Blood Flow + Hormone Playbook for Better Performance By Scott Hayes

Better performance starts with the same fundamentals that build a stronger, healthier body. Scott Hayes breaks down how nutrition, blood flow, hormones, hydration, sleep, stress, and recovery can influence sexual health, energy, and performance both in and out of the bedroom.

Dave coaching

What Is Real, And What Is Not?

Most training advice you see online is one player on the field, described as if it were the whole game.

Program variation

Program Variation Based on Recovery Status: Reviving, Surviving, and Thriving

A practical guide for coaches on using recovery status, INOL, and flexible programming to adjust training loads so athletes can revive, survive, or thrive at the right time.

Dave Tate with Anthony Oliveira and Roman Mustaccio in the Table Talk #447 thumbnail, with the words Stop Optimizing

F*ck Your Micronutrients: Get Your Training Priorities Straight

Dave Tate, Anthony Oliveira, and Roman Mustaccio explain training priorities, useful loading, and the habits that help powerlifters prepare for meet day.
Gym Pic

Scars Aren't Wisdom

The same lifter who dismissed beat-up guys in his twenties is now selling his own injuries as credentials in his fifties, and both takes are wrong.

Evan Barr

Why Olympic Lifting Still Belongs in Football I Table talk #445

University of Toledo Director of Football Strength & Conditioning Evan Barr joins Dave Tate to discuss Olympic lifting for football, movement development, programming, deloading, competition, and what it takes to build stronger athletes and a better strength staff.

Training the Youth Rugby Player: For Now and for the Future by Ashley Jones

Training the Youth Rugby Player: For Now and for the Future by Ashley Jones

Training a young rugby player is about more than getting them stronger for next season. Ashley Jones lays out a long-term approach to youth development, from maturation and movement skills to strength training, recovery, testing, and building the habits that can support a player for years to come.

Guillermo Blanco on Dave Tate's Table Talk discussing adaptable training and periodization.

You Don't Need a Periodized Program to Build Strong Athletes

Guillermo Blanco explains why adaptable GPP, posterior-chain strength, and minimal effective strain beat rigid periodization for real-world athletes today.
Conjugate Off-Season Training for Rugby

Conjugate Off-Season Training for Rugby

The rugby off-season is the time to build the strength, power, size, conditioning, and durability needed to perform at the start of the season. Ashley Jones explains how the Conjugate Method can be adapted for rugby players using mechanical, neural, metabolic, and CARE-based training to build athletes who are stronger in contact, faster under fatigue, and more resilient week after week.

Anthony Olivea demonstrating an elevated-heel squat finisher to teach glute and erector engagement

Why Your Quads Steal All Your Squat Progress

Stop letting your quads take over every squat. Learn the 5-minute elevated-heel finisher that teaches glutes, erectors, and position control under fatigue.
Dave Tate and an elitefts lifter in a thumbnail for a video about adjusting workload when progress stalls

How to Adjust Workload When Progress Stalls

When progress stalls, more work is not always the answer. Learn how to adjust workload, accessories, psychology, and execution based on the lifter in front of you.
Lifter using the elitefts Squat Box with a safety squat bar in the elitefts gym

The Squat Box: What It Fixes, How to Use It, and Why It Belongs in Your Gym

A practical elitefts guide to the Squat Box: posterior chain training, explosive power, depth control, teaching beginners, proper setup, and real use cases.
Dave 1990 squat

Strength Is What You Build. Strong Is What You Become

Strength is something you can measure. A meet total. A one-rep max. A rep PR at a bodyweight you didn't have last year. It sits on paper. It shows up on a record board. You can prove it.

Evan Barr Table Talk video thumbnail for why Olympic lifting still belongs in football

Why Olympic Lifting Still Belongs in Football | Evan Barr #445

Evan Barr explains why Olympic lifting still belongs in football when the lifts are coached as tools for force production, coordination, load absorption, and intent instead of treated like a separate sport.

Tom Sheppard explaining how long to rest between sets for strength and muscle gains on the elitefts YouTube channel

The Rest Period Mistake Ruining Your Strength and Muscle Gains

Rest periods are one of the most overlooked training variables. This article breaks down how long to rest between sets based on goal, intensity, exercise selection, conditioning, psychology, and the rest-period equation from the elitefts video.
Conditioning Games for Rugby: Building Fitness Through Competition

Conditioning Games for Rugby: Building Fitness Through Competition

Conditioning games give rugby coaches a smarter way to build fitness without separating training from the demands of the game. These competitive formats develop aerobic and anaerobic capacity, acceleration, support play, defensive organization, tactical awareness, and decision-making under fatigue.

Matt Mills

The Best Educated Guess

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.

Master the Fundamentals

Master the Fundamentals

Technology, training tools, and programming methods will continue to evolve, but the fundamentals of athletic development remain the same. Drawing on more than three decades of coaching professional rugby, Ashley Jones explains why mastering basic movement patterns, building strength and power, managing recovery, and holding athletes to high standards will always matter more than chasing the latest trend.

band deads

Every Way You Should Be Using Resistance Bands in Your Training

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.

Avoiding Accommodation: Stay on the Gain Train

Avoiding Accommodation: Stay on the Gain Train

Progress stalls when the stimulus gets stale. Ashley Jones explains how to avoid accommodation through planned variation, three-week training blocks, exercise rotation, and smarter loading strategies that help athletes stay on the gain train.

Are You Training Better Rugby Players or Better Test Takers?

Are You Training Better Rugby Players or Better Test Takers?

Modern rugby programs are filled with GPS data, velocity trackers, testing batteries, and performance dashboards. Ashley Jones challenges coaches to look beyond the numbers and ask the question that matters most: Is the program actually helping players perform better when the game is on the line?

The Holy Grail

The Holy Grail

Individualizing training inside a team environment is one of the hardest jobs in strength and conditioning. Ashley Jones explains how his four-stage Quadrant Management System shifts decision-making from coach to player without sacrificing structure, readiness, or care.

Why 500lb Benchers Struggle with Bodyweight: 4 Movement Drills for Elite Performance

Why 500lb Benchers Struggle with Bodyweight: 4 Movement Drills for Elite Performance

A lifter who can bench 500 pounds will shake like a leaf on an unloaded shoulder drill, and that gap is costing you strength.