WATCH: Steve Goggins Coaches Méana Franco Through A Mock Meet
To overcome the limitations of an exclusively online coach-to-client relationship, these elitefts team members traveled to the S4 Compound for a day of in-person coaching in preparation for CPU Nationals.
An Updated Deadlift Cycle for Average Joes
This 16-week cycle is for gym rats who have been lifting long enough to have good technique but aren’t interested in peaking for a meet.
Five Rules for Developing Your Career As A Strength Coach
Through a recent trip, I had the privilege of seeking guidance from two coaches I admire and whose knowledge can benefit any young strength coach looking to make their mark in this industry.
Finding Strength: NBS Fitness
This is a great training facility in Memphis, Tennessee owned by strength coach, athlete, and EliteFTS columnist, David Allen.
Training Heavy with Chronic Pain
No amount of strategic planning can account for your body’s unexpected responses to training and life. Be prepared to stop bowing down to your program and start listening to your body.
DOMS: What Do We Know About Muscle Soreness?
Using scientific study as its foundation, this article has two main goals: better explain the causes of delayed onset muscle soreness and disprove three common misconceptions.
Observations From My White Trash Vacation
Every year my wife and I take our kids on a vacation, and that usually means a cruise. If you’ve been on a cruise, you know what I mean when I say “white trash.”
WATCH: Table Talk — Can You Bench Alone Using a Bench Shirt?
Equipped powerlifting isn’t easy to do by yourself in a home gym. But if you’re going to do it, you need to know how to do it safely.
Life Lessons of the Iron
Train with me for one day and I will know more about you than I could learn from a year outside the gym. If you spend time with the weights, you’ll learn more about yourself, too.
An Experiment in Overreaching
In the weeks leading up to my vacation, I intentionally out-trained by ability to recover in attempts to spur super compensation. Here’s what I learned.
Lessons Learned From Bilateral Bone Breaks
This case study, derived from my extensive rehabilitation, details every aspect of the steps I took to overcome an unexpected and immediate halt to my training.
Popular Diet Pitfalls
Whether you’re following a more flexible diet approach, carb backloading, or even taking a short run at low carb, keep in mind that these programs are valuable if not abused.
My Hateful Eight
In honor of Tarantino’s most recent big-screen release, I’ve decided to release my own Hateful Eight: the eight exercises and training modalities that make me shudder with anxiety, angst, and downright hatred.
Reliving the Powerlifting Glory Days: My Best Meets of '05–'08
When I competed in the WPO in front of thousands of people with standing room only, I loved it. But I also took it for granted not thinking that it would one day end.
Big Is a Byproduct of Strong
A proper weight room strategy provides adequate attention to the development of strength and size — two qualities necessary for your team’s improvement.
WATCH: Darden Q&A From the Compound — Beginners, When to Compete, In...
Do you know the number one secret to being a great strength athlete?
Dominance in Movement: Finding the Dimmer Switch
How many of you feel “broken” or immobile when you’re not under a bar? How are you accommodating?
Finding Strength: Lightning Fitness
Connecticut has quite the strongman community. This week I made my way up to South Windsor to visit a real strength athlete’s playground.
Training Women: Deadlift Considerations
Before making the assumption that all women have wide hips and should therefore squat wide and deadlift sumo, consider these other factors that will inform good technique.
Dynamic Effort Day for Athletes
Your athletes are not powerlifters. Programming them as if they are will not lead to stronger, faster competitive performance.
Foundational Guiding Principles
Nobody who is serious about forward progress enters the gym without a plan, without a set of guiding principles. I’ll argue the same is true in life.
The Nines and Tens of Training and Nutrition
The things to which you devote your time fall into one of two categories: those that are building your future or those that are holding you back.
WATCH: Table Talk — Jim Wendler Travel Stories and 7 Quick Questions
The seminar era produced stories about cabs and airports and churches and bomb shelters. This is one of my favorites.
Fixing Your 'Fail at the Chest' Bench Press
For correcting weaknesses in a given portion of a lift, you need to use what I call Mechanically Similar Movements.
Brandon Smitley's 9-Week Conjugate Training Program
This program is built on the foundation of tried-and-true conjugate training methods and includes personal adjustments from a world-record philosophy.
The Sticking Point: How To Find Your Weakness and Fix It
A logical process of elimination begins by considering all possible causes of your sticking point. I don’t have the answer but I can help you find it.
Conditioning for the Gridiron Warrior
What good is that 500-pound squat if you’re taking a knee in the fourth quarter desperately gasping for air?
Carbohydrates and Cortisol Control: Rediscovering Passion
Now that I’ve found solutions to many of my own problems, I’m faced with a new challenge: helping my IFBB coach out of a lengthy retirement.
Time Under Tension: It's Not Just For Bodybuilders
As a powerlifter, you have one goal: move the weight. The faster, the better. Or maybe not.
Meditation for the Coach: Starting the Recovery Process
If you spend all your time in high gear, you need to find a way to downshift. This technique is what works for me.
WATCH: Darden Q&A From the Compound — How Long Should Your Warm-Up Be?
What is the best way to prepare for your training session? Do you need a foam roller? Muscle activation techniques? A reverse hyper?
Finding Strength: The Origin Story
This is my journey: to help people find strength, like I found strength.
The Pharmaceutical Buffet
Feeling sick? Before pressing the pill cap down and turning to the right, try this swallow-free alternative.
Four Sure-fire Ways to Harvest Calf Meat
Building calf size takes time—a lot of it. This is the system I've used countless times to bring up my calves and the calves of my clients.
Finding A Personal Record Through Consistency
Powerlifting is one tool I use to measure my strength. Through relocation, job change, a virus, a motorcycle crash, and children (the list goes on), there's one thing I learned this past year: consistency.
WATCH: Table Talk — How to Keep Strength While Cutting Weight
Dropping bodyweight doesn't have to mean dropping pounds off your total. If you have reasonable expectations, there are ways to maintain your strength while cutting weight.
WATCH: Chris Duffin Interviews Ryan 'Bench Monster' Kennelly
The record-holder and 1075-pound bench presser openly discusses technique and his comeback from injury in this Kabuki Strength Lab video.
Third Time’s a Charm or Three Strikes You're Out?
After two heart surgeries, I was starting to recover. I was making progress. That's when my cardiologist called with more bad news.
The Warm-Up Clock and Controlled Chaos
When meet day arrives, you'll be faced with variables you don't see in the gym. At Monster Garage Gym, we've developed a way to control the most stressful of these variables: the clock.
WATCH: How to Coach Yourself
Your training partners and coaches aren't always going to be there. When they're not around, what will you do?
Strong(her) Deadlift Progressions for the Novice Female Lifter
The final powerlifting movement may seem simple, but it isn't. Use this teaching progression with the proper cues to help new lifters.
Group Training: Use Your Constraints for Program Construction
The first thing that you need to do is decide on what your limiting factors are: time, equipment, physical abilities, skill, and audience.
RMU Strength and Speed Conference Recap
Instead of telling you about the event, I'll do you a favor: here is an eight-hour video of every presentation.
elitefts Classic: RIP Dynamic Effort Bench?
The role and reputation of the DE bench press has received nothing but a bad rap. I have to admit that I am partly to blame.
On-Court Results with APRE Cluster Method
We've utilized Mann's method with great results as written and with a few tweaks — breaking up the fourth set is just what our basketball players needed to bust through their strength plateau.
elitefts Classic: Falling Forward in the Squat
Novice and advanced lifters make this mistake all the time, in the gym and at meets. To fix this, figure out if the problem is mental, physical, or technical.
Training Women: There Is A Difference
Men and women have different needs. Pay attention to these eleven factors when programming for your female clients.
Your Guide to a Mountain Dog Back
This five-principle compilation walks you through the ins and outs of Mountain Dog Back Training.
Are You Getting Enough O2? — Oxygen's Role in Muscle Growth
On the quest for hypertrophy? Take note of these facts before shunning cardio.
WATCH: Table Talk — The Three Biggest Mistakes Intermediate Lifters Make
If you ever want to reach an elite level in this sport, you have to get the rookie mistakes out of the way. These are the most common problems I see in intermediate lifters.
Implementing 5/3/1 Principles in a Conjugated Program
These options can help you combine the best parts of Wendler's program with your regular routine of max effort and dynamic effort training.
WATCH: Darden Q&A From the Compound — Weightlifting for Strongman, D...
Clint answers your questions: Olympic weightlifting for Strongman performance? Sumo or conventional deadlift stance?
Swede's Diet Strategies
There are simple rules to follow to keep your nutrition 90% perfect, without letting diet control your life. This is how I do it.
'Tis the Season: The Pros and Cons of Being Huge
It's not all glitz and glamour in the world of gluttony — but there are some perks.
Food Prep Hacks for the Busy Bodybuilder
A little creativity can go a long way when time and sanity are on the brink.
The Four Steps of Establishing Your Program
The success of your program depends on your ability to balance what your head coach wants to do, what you want to do, and what your team really needs.
