Dave Coaching squat

The Age of Adaptation

— Dave Tate
  “Age doesn’t matter — until it does.” Observation: Those who say age doesn’t matter become the same ones to promote “training over 40” when they find out otherwise. Expansion:...
Tom Training Bench

Your Guide to the Strength Mastery

The Strength Mastery Event is a two-day, hands-on coaching experience designed to help participants master the squat, deadlift, bench, and overhead press while learning foundational mechanics such as breathing, bracing, and foot rooting. Attendees work in a small-group setting to receive practical feedback and clear cues, ensuring they leave with improved positions and a training plan they can use immediately.

 

Rooting

Stop Pushing, Start Pulling: 4 Secrets to Unlocking Your True Strength and Stability

Rooting, or grounding, stabilizes the body from the hip or pelvis down to the floor, whereas bracing stabilizes the structure from the pelvis up to the shoulder. Since they are interdependent, performing both rooting and bracing correctly is essential for creating a whole, rigid structure and achieving maximum strength and stability.

 

Jim Otto

What If Jim Otto Had Today’s Training Methods?

— Dave Tate

Jim Otto wasn’t tough because he got hurt—he was tough because he kept showing up anyway. What if that same mindset had today’s training, recovery, and medical support behind it—would the legend be any less, or just harder to break?

 

Zercher Squat

Zerchers: Simple Evaluations of Complex Movements

— Dave Tate

Discover how Zercher movements, including the Squat and Deadlift, can be seamlessly integrated into your training program to boost muscle growth and strength. This article evaluates the biomechanics, benefits, and proper execution of these variants to help you train safely and effectively.

Brad

How a Firefighter-Powerlifter Conquered a World Championship and a Promotional Exam in the Same Sleep-Deprived Week

"If you work shift work, if you're a first responder, if you're a nurse, if you're a new parent, there are things that you can be doing to improve the amount of sleep you're getting, to improve the quality of that sleep, to reduce that overall cortisol. You don't just have to suffer through it. It's not the cost of doing business, like I chose to do this job, and I made the choice to suffer for as long as I did before I found somebody who could help me write the ship."

 

Lat Pulldown

Stop Wasting Your Reps: The Biomechanics Secrets to a Bigger Back

So first off remember just because you're doing what is a lat exercise doesn't mean it's necessarily hitting your lats very well. And then also you have the ability to take a certain exercise and bias it towards whatever your goal is very very easily by just adjusting the grip width how you put pressure on your hands and ultimately change that upper arm angle relative to your body.

 

Dave Tate and Dan Green

Legends Are Never Forgotten

— Dave Tate

Time has a way of humbling lifters. You stop worrying about who’s right and start recognizing who lasted. The legends weren’t always popular — they were just consistent long enough for everyone else to catch up. When you’ve been around this long, you realize that respect always arrives late, but it’s the only thing that sticks.

Shaun Koplin

From a Prison Cell to a Barbell Club: The Story of Shaun Kopplin

— Dave Tate

Shaun Kopplin's life pivoted around 2014 when powerlifting became a crucial path, helping him focus and deal with the grief following his brother's death after he had struggled with criminal activity and drug addiction. After time in solitary confinement, he focused on lifting weights to maintain a trajectory that kept him out of prison, eventually founding Wolfpack Barbell and Cream City Clothing.

 

Tom and Doc Lee

4 Muscle-Building 'Rules' That Are Secretly Making You Fatter

— Dave Tate

 Eating hundreds or thousands of extra calories is often "absurd" because the body can typically only generate three to five pounds of new muscle per year, making massive surpluses unnecessary. Rather than traditional bulking, a "maingaining" approach focuses on keeping body fat levels neutral while progressively increasing strength on key lifts over several months.


LOADED STRETCHING

7 Surprising Ways ‘Loaded Stretching’ Unlocks More Muscle, Strength, and Mobility

The longer we're spending in that stretch position actively lengthening and relaxing those target muscles we are going to be spending more and more time in a lengthened position but also getting further into that stretch position which is going to leave us more mobile than when we started. Now these are going to be more effective for mobility than traditional static stretches as well because we have the external load helping us.


Dave Tate

Volume Swings

— Dave Tate

Lifters chase novelty because the body adapts, and the mind gets bored. High-volume builds a base, while low-volume refines it. The pendulum keeps swinging because both work — for a while. What matters is not the method but the phase of life you’re in.

Craig Foster

The Powerlifter's Mind: Lessons in Grit from Craig Foster's 2298lb Total

— Dave Tate

Top powerlifter Craig Foster (2298 total) follows an unconventional training philosophy where he rarely lifts heavy weights in the gym, preferring to work up only to his opener in sessions. This approach relies heavily on high-volume work, such as five sets of 10 squats at 50-60% of his maximum, allowing his competitive maximum to exceed his training maximum far.

 

ELITEFTS GYM

Life and Lifting Lessons from 25 Years of Training to Bench 725 Lbs.

— Dave Tate

As middle-aged lifters, we carry a decade or more of experience to draw upon, giving us a competitive edge in training. However, we must protect our health and follow Cole’s advice when we feel the stakes are too high.

Band Hip Thrust

Your Squat Warm--Up Is Wrong. Here’s How to Fix It with 4 Simple Drills

This highly effective, two-band warm-up routine focuses on improving lumbopelvic stability, strengthening hip internal and external rotation, and addressing movement bottlenecks to enhance squat performance and reduce injury risk. Key exercises include the banded deadbug, the 90/90 banded hip internal rotation drill, and the single-leg banded hip thrust with a contralateral load.

 

Dave Tate

Strength Standards

— Dave Tate

The truth is, every generation believes they had it tougher. The older crew will tell you, “Back in our day, it was real lifting,” and the new generation will say, “We’re stronger, faster, and more scientific than you ever were.”

Roberts

The Unbreakable Strength of Rebecca Roberts

— Dave Tate

Rebecca Roberts, a three-time World's Strongest Woman, currently holds the titles of UK's Strongest Woman, Europe's Strongest Woman, and World's Strongest Woman concurrently. Winning her second World's Strongest Woman title was deeply meaningful, as it occurred the day before the first anniversary of Paul's passing, proving she could overcome the hardest time of her life and emerge as the strongest woman, both physically and mentally.

 

efs gym_23s

The 7 Deadly Sins of Training (And How They’re Killing Your Progress)

— Dave Tate

Most lifters don’t stall because their program sucks—they stall because their habits do. These are the 7 “deadly sins” of training that quietly wreck your progress and what to do about each one.

Crew 87sdr

A One-Time Chance to Join the Table Talk Crew for Life

— Dave Tate

The Lifetime Table Talk Crew Membership is open again — and likely for the last time,  giving lifters and coaches a one-time chance to lock in all-access membership for just $299. No renewals, no monthly fees, just lifelong access to exclusive content, community, and support that fuels the future of the Table Talk Podcast.



Eugene B Bench Press

The Education Echo

Everyone starts somewhere. Early on, it’s easy to look at newcomers and forget you were once guessing too. The difference between arrogance and experience is humility. If you’ve been in the game long enough, you realize the next wave isn’t your competition — they’re your continuation.

PRM Model Tom Sheppard

5 Counter-Intuitive Lessons on Strength from a Method Born in a Backyard Hole

— Dave Tate

This approach provides several key benefits, including the desensitization of GGI tendon organs, improved recruitment of high threshold motor units, and a significant boost in confidence when handling super maximal loads, leading to direct carryover to the full main lift

5 Counter-Intuitive Strength Lessons From a Coach Forged by Injury

5 Counter-Intuitive Strength Lessons From a Coach Forged by Injury

Locke’s Kodiak Barbell method is a blend of conjugate, block, and DUP principles, built around diagnosing an athlete's failure as either structural (postural) or muscular. Structural failures are addressed by systematically using variations, tempo, and pauses, while muscular failures involve programming targeted accessory movements to strengthen specific weak links.

 

Dave Tate

The Certification Cycle

— Dave Tate

Be careful what you criticize — you may do the same thing one day.

Sam Brown

You're Doing the McGill Big Three Wrong. Here's the Secret You're Missing.

— Dave Tate

The McGill Big Three exercises: the curl-up, side plank, and bird dog are designed to challenge your core from different directions, with the ultimate goal of creating stiffness in the spine and the surrounding musculature. For both strength enthusiasts and those with low back pain, prioritizing the proper intent, maintaining a neutral spine, and ensuring alignment of the rib cage and pelvis are absolutely paramount for stability and maximizing carryover.