WATCH: Andrey Malanichev — Training Program and Top-Secret Russian Insights
It’s in discussions like these that I am reminded of what a nice guy Andrey is, and how willing he is to share his expertise to support the development of other powerlifters and young athletes.
The Obese Body and Exercise
What I try to offer here is information to both coaches and obese people about why and how to exercise — different reasons than the conventional assumption concerning weight loss — considering some of the difficulties inherent in the condition.
Competition Report: World's Strongest Man
At the end of June, I won the 220-pound weight class and overall middleweight division at the United States Strongman Nationals in New York, earning an invite to compete in the 105-kilogram World’s Strongest Man in Liperi, Finland. It was enthralling to be at the competition for the first time.
How Much Volume Can You Take?
Consider two powerlifters who are identical in strength and technique, but one is 20 centimeters taller than the other. This height difference changes everything about the lifter’s levers, and thus volume needs.
The Price is Right — Or is it?
Most people, when given the opportunity, like to run on about how busy they are and how they have no time to do anything they want to do or to get everything done that they need to get done in a day. Bodybuilders do it.
WATCH: Table Talk — Best Ways to Improve Technique Without a Coach
There are times when new lifters have the determination to improve, but they don’t have a coach in their corner to help them stay focused and make the necessary adjustments to their technique.
How Not to Suck as a Training Partner
Having the right crew or partner to rely on, and to train with, can make or break a lifter. It’s one of the most sought-after and difficult-to-find things for competitors and hobby lifters alike.
Try This On for Size
It all started about two weeks post-Arnold, when I secured my second win back-to-back. I did what I’d always done—push the limits, take drugs, and eat food.
How Clubber Lang Used Schwarzenegger's Rules of Success to Defeat R...
Listen to Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger (or if you are under 30, Hearts on Fire by John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band) while reading.
Returning to the Commercial Gym
Unfortunately, in our attempt to downsize into a smaller house, hard choices needed to be made, and the home gym that I had spent years putting together had to be left behind in storage. Although this is temporary, I’m not hating it.
WATCH: Andrey Malanichev — RPR, Powerlifting Culture, Injury Prevention
This interview gives you the chance to learn more about Andrey, his training techniques/philosophies that led him to great success, including his views on sport history/culture found in the US and Russia.
Samoan Rugby Union Returns to CARE Program
The program I am currently running features the CARE program in a new format that I feel better allows the player to get a workout in without going too deep in the RPE continuum, especially if he or she is coming from a unit or a team session.
3 Life Hacks to Manage the Daily Schedule
This is a weird time in my life waiting for a heart transplant while trying to maintain a normal functioning life. However, these three basic things have helped me tremendously in my everyday routine.
WATCH: Cut Your Training Time in Half
In one way or another, we’re all working against a clock. If you want to shave time off your training day, invest in these office supplies.
Movement Patterns Beyond One Plane
If you’re looking a little shifty, if you’re feeling aches and pains on your competition movements, if you want a longer shelf life, if you want to feel athletic instead of “locked in” all of the time, finish your sessions with this. I promise you’ll move and feel better.
WATCH: Equipment Feature with Marc Bartley — Zercher Straps
It’s tools like this that work to boost a lifter’s confidence and make the difference between completing a lift safely versus risking an injury.
WATCH: Learn to Train X — The Squat Checklist with Swede Burns
Don’t wish for the best as you get under the bar and attempt to squat. Instead, get under the bar with a plan.
Training to Build New Neural Pathways
All too often, I see people missing the importance of thinking about the muscle-brain connection when it comes to training. And that’s a bit of a shame because creating neural pathways that allow you to train and move correctly is a component of making gains.
A Question of Strength
Sixteen questions covering the basics (and often neglected) beginning with bench press templates to dimel deadlifts.
Be Afraid
You hear people in an attempt to salvage their fragile egos say they are afraid of nothing. But I have never understood why being afraid of something is a bad thing.
Gym Management — Lessons from Culture and Criminology
If you walked into a gym where plates and dumbbells were scattered everywhere, you likely wouldn’t think twice about leaving your weights on the bar, right?
Make Recovery Great Again
Your ability to recover is arguably one of the most misunderstood and undervalued aspects of strength and conditioning. As a goal oriented and driven lifter (possibly Type A too), avoid these common pitfalls.
The SAID Principle — Training Optimally for Sport
We as strength coaches have a way of screwing training up even with this ancient, written-in-stone principle.
Determining the Needs of an Athlete
If an athlete is training on heavy squats but is unable to get into a good technique, he is risking injury, plus he is not getting the most of his training because he is in bad positions. First things first, let’s start with an assessment.
Minimizing Pain for the Active Meathead
Still want to play softball, play basketball, practice martial arts, hike, bike, and swim? Although these things are extremely fun and I highly recommend them for mostly everyone, they can certainly take their toll on your body, especially when combined with hard training.
Start Here Before You Clean
A lot of individuals take what’s arguably the most highly coordinated regimen you can perform in the weight room and start individuals doing it day 1. At the collegiate level, these are the movements I make sure that my athletes can do before they are allowed to perform a proper clean motion.
How to Teach a Team to Lead Itself
If the majority of leadership has to come from coaches, that’s usually a sign of a rough season ahead. In my experience, I’ve found this to be 100% true.
Championship Nature Series: General George S. Patton and James J. Braddock
Most historical figures aren’t single-faceted, and if your athletes truly connect with them, you can bring other aspects of them to light to aid them in their journeys. General George S. Patton leads by example and James J. Braddock overcomes opponents using visualization.
The Yoke: A Reflection of A Person’s Intangibles
These training samples, along with hard work, allowed me to get a 20” neck, sizeable traps, and a sizeable upper back—all done with minimal equipment, mostly at home, and with extremely high rep counts.
Resurgence After the Rust
When the dust settles and I turn the lights off in that weight room for that final time, what legacy will I leave, how many lives did I touch?
The Freak Show Exodus
You will have your supporters and your naysayers as with everything in this world, but I am in complete support of this shift in the paradigm. Why?
The Founder Phase — How to Get out of It
This is the phase of #hustle and #grind, when the Founders’ wallets are empty but their energy is boundless. It’s as exciting as a roller coaster! But roller coasters aren’t exciting for long.
Valuable Accessories for Your Strength and Conditioning Program
Beyond a rack, bar, and plates, here are the smaller pieces of equipment I feel have added the most value to my strength and conditioning program.
WATCH: Rapid Fire Table Talk with Dr. John Rusin
Over half an hour of non-stop Q&A, responding directly to questions from elitefts readers.
Why the Smartphone is Your Greatest Advantage in Meet Training
For you, as a serious powerlifter who has aspirations of achieving greatness in this amazing sport, the advent of a single technological implement just might be the one thing that delivers on all of the aforementioned promises.
It's Time to Recover
Time is the multiplier that turns a tiny crack on a newly paved road into a pothole or a single tree into a forest. Here are a few tips to reduce stress on the body and to better prepare yourself to have more in the tank for your training.
Rules for Interviewing
For this month’s article, I want to write about something that I’ve been doing a lot of recently with some success: interviewing. Consider these eleven rules for your next job opportunity.
Who Defines You?
In this interview with Mark Dugdale, we discuss the mental side of training and competing, along with the various challenges that we meet when life, training, family, work, and all of the other areas of our lives intersect.
Good Training Gone Bad
In training, many choices must be made. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
A Semester with Conjugate U
After meeting Nate Harvey and reading his ebook, I decided to try out a conjugate-based system with two of my teams, men’s soccer and women’s volleyball, during the spring semester. Here's what we did, how it worked, and changes I'm making moving forward.
3 Scientific Theories Behind Blood Flow Restriction Training
More than a popular trend, these three theories from Dr. Leonneke receive support from studies showing increases in muscular strength, hypertrophy, and testosterone levels after BFR training.
Best Caliber Athletes
‘’Westside only gets the best caliber athletes to work with,” is something we've heard over the years. What does this mean?
5 Great Exercises for the Most Hated Machine in the Gym
Everything can hold a purpose in the gym, even the easily avoided Smith Machine. At Lightning Fitness, I recently made room for this piece of equipment and would like to share how my bodybuilders, powerlifters, and strongman competitors are using it.
15 Habits You'll Need as a Full-Time Strength and Conditioning Intern
High school did a terrible job of preparing you for the real world. The only way you will make it is by trial by fire and by implementing the following habits immediately.
Get in the Flow State for Peak Performance
Flow is where challenge and skill meet. These are points during your training year where you push the envelope and attempt things that might be slightly outside of your athlete’s capabilities.
Wrestling with Identity
I confess to feeling grossly inadequate while my girls seek to find their identities, and I contemplate where I may have messed up in their younger years.
WATCH: Table Talk with Dave Tate — How To Find Your Perfect Weight Class
You may be between weight classes or on the far end of the spectrum. Find out if your future should include Big Macs and candy bars or chicken and rice.
How to Cut Maximum Weight for Competitions with a 24-Hour Weigh-In
The key to stepping on the platform at maximum strength after cutting weight is to spend as little time as possible with your body weight at less than you intend to weigh when you lift — this process is difficult and requires a great deal of desire, discipline, and pain tolerance.
College Football Off-Season Max Effort Variations: Programming and Compa...
Inspired by Joe Kenn, this is how Pace programs the conjugate method (the use of variations) over an eight-week off-season for our athletes.
Becoming Elite and Beyond: A Journey from the Tiger to the Dragon
I think every sport benefits from incorporating the tiger and the dragon into their training or coaching in some way. For lifters and strength athletes on the path to progression (in strength and level of competition), this hits the nail on the head.
3 Reminders for a Healthy and Productive Training Camp
To an outsider, things may seem easy during camp as far as being a strength coach goes. You have them maybe a half hour to forty-five minutes a day if you’re lucky. Easy peasy, right? Wrong!
The Basics of a Diet Break
There are many types of diet break protocols, but for the simplicity of this article I am going to discuss four types and why I use them.
I Read a Book: Re-Implementing Conjugate Training with More Knowledge
When I practiced law, it was a standing joke at our bar that an expert was some son of a bitch from Charlotte who had read a book. Well, I read a book.
I Know Squat — Five Keys to Squatting Big Weight
I’ve squatted with some of the strongest squatters in the world at Westside Barbell. I’ve squatted with three-time World’s Strongest Man Bill Kazmaier and I was coached to a 700-pound raw squat by Josh Bryant when I was 22 years old. Here's what I know.
WATCH: Chainz for Gainz — Is Your Accommodating Resistance Doing Anything?
Using chains as accommodating resistance incorrectly can be detrimental to your athletes...and your street cred.
Three Tips for More Effective In-Season Training
You can vastly improve the effectiveness of your in-season programming by understanding submaximal maintenance training and programming flexibility, the use of concentric-only exercises, and high-rep work for recovery.
6-Week Lower Body Accessory Lane Progressions
The main purpose of this is to get you some change-up in your program and get you thinking outside your usual movement selection. I have been doing this in the gym myself and it’s amazing how mentally refreshing it can be.
Skip's Do-Overs from 1984: What I Wish I Knew 34 Years Ago
Of all of the things I wish I could go back and redo, these five things stand out as the most important or all-encompassing.