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.

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.

Nate Harvey and Gabe Rangel provide a comprehensive tour of NFL player Lane Johnson's "Bro Barn" gym, detailing how specific elitefts equipment like the Tiger Belt Squat and Chest Supported Row is utilized to address offensive linemen's needs for mobility, work capacity, and injury prevention.

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.

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

"It was a Brotherhood yet not a friendship like you were there to get each other better one thing one thing only and if if the person didn't want to be a part of that get the fuck out".

"And this is a bit of a game changer when you do it and you get annoyed at yourself for not thinking of it sooner, so even within the regular split squat there's an almost infinite number of variations that we can kind of work with there but there's going to be a couple of key tenants that we want to see staying the same. What's up, guys? Today's video is all about single-leg training, and I know you hate it, I hate it, we all hate it, but unfortunately, it's crucial."

 "You could work on your T-spine mobility, and you probably add 25 lbs to your bench—you don't even have to add any muscle, you just have to add mobility."

"I didn't think I would ever get there, but I committed to it, and if you really go all in and you just commit to something and you really believe in yourself, you can absolutely do it."

"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."

 The Zercher squat is an accessible anterior-loaded variation that builds the quads and upper back without requiring the wrist and shoulder mobility often necessary for a traditional front rack position. By placing the barbell in the crook of the elbows just in front of the bicep tendon, lifters can enforce a more upright squatting pattern that strengthens the core and balances out posterior-chain dominant training.

In this article, Ashley Jones revisits Bill Starr’s 5×5 system and shows how loading waves, clusters, and variation can enhance strength and athletic development.

The SS Yoke Bar is not just a squat bar replacement. Here is how to get everything out of the most important specialty bar in any serious gym.

"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".

Three elite athletes sat down at the S5 Compound and broke down the American Gladiators reboot on Prime Video, including everything the cameras didn't show.

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

Paul Carter and I sat down for Table Talk #303 and spent two-plus hours cutting through the noise around hypertrophy training. Here's what you need to hear.

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.

Dr. Pat Davidson breaks down the billionaire myth of accidental muscle growth, the meathead bell curve, and how high-ground training choices change everything for hypertrophy.

Dr. John Rusin redefines functional training not as a specific exercise, but as a complete human movement system that ensures you maintain physical capacities for life. He argues that adopting a "movement mastery mindset"—prioritizing foundational skills like breathing and bracing—is essential to avoid orthopedic breakdown and break through performance plateaus.

Dr. Dwayne Jackson returns to Table Talk with six science-backed lessons on RPE calibration, auto-regulation, the gym as medicine, and what actually separates lifters who keep progressing from those who plateau and break down.

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.

The all-in mentality of elite powerlifting demands a high price, often including personal health, marriages, and the complete absorption of one’s identity. Looking back after decades in the sport, veterans must reconcile the brutal physical toll of multiple surgeries and prosthetics against the initial drive to prove others wrong for the sake of a plastic or sculpture trophy.

I've been competing in powerlifting long enough to know what the tricep actually does in this sport. It locks out the bench. It finishes the press. So when every strap on the market kept failing me at both ends of the pushdown, I stopped looking for a solution and started building one. This is the origin of the elitefts 3-Loop Tricep Strap, why I designed it the way I did, and why it has never left my cable machine.