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

HYROX did not reinvent strength and conditioning. It exposed what good coaching has always required: better stress management, smarter exercise selection, and training that transfers when fatigue is high. Ryan Gibney breaks down the lessons coaches and hybrid athletes can take from HYROX, from recovery planning to sled work, dynamic correspondence, and knowing what to leave out.

Valerie Smith’s path through powerlifting proves that the platform is only one part of the education. From bombing out at her first meet to becoming a lifter, coach, referee, and meet director, she learned that better lifting comes from better decisions, sharper standards, and a broader view of the sport.

By predicting a lift's perceived exertion and comparing it to the actual physical outcome, athletes develop crucial "neural encoding" that trains the central nervous system to consistently achieve true high performance.

A training method built on Paul Anderson's original overload principles that lets advanced lifters break through strength plateaus by systematically raising neurological force output.

From teenage lifter to burned-out founder, Mike Stratton’s story is a raw look at strength culture, hormone health, entrepreneurial sacrifice, and the wake-up call that reshaped his mission with Marek Health.

The max effort method is one of the most powerful tools in strength training. It's also one of the most misunderstood.

"It's just always constantly trying to improve your situation, you know, constant and never-ending improvement all the time; that's just what it's about to me".

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.