Move Faster with Your Abdominal Wall
Functional running starts with solid breathing and bracing. Learn how to breathe and brace during exercise, and watch how much smoother movement feels.
How I Teach the Squat
Everybody learns differently. Using five easy steps, this is my way of teaching clients and seminar attendees how to execute a squat.
War Within a Breath: How it Works
This is a brief introduction to a topic that we’ll chase down the rabbit hole over the series of the next couple of months. To master the breath and breathing can be one of your best assets for improving your training.
Don't Ignore Systemic Interplay
If we want to help people, we have got to stop picking camps and start putting the client first. Here’s a prime example of how to do that with a focus on the respiratory system.
Death to the Belly Breath
Stop saying “breathe into your belly.” It’s physically impossible for us to breathe into our bellies! We need to rethink this cue and review breathing mechanics before we can go around fixing people’s breathing.
WATCH: Joe Sullivan Demonstrates Crocodile Breathing
The cue “push into your belt” has lifters focusing on the front of their bodies. But this operates under the assumption that the torso will expand in 360 degrees, not just out toward the front. In order to have the best brace, we need to rework our understanding of doing so in the first place.
How Stuff Works: The Belt
If you are reading this, either you train/enjoy strength training or you like/manufacture personal equipment. In either case, I want to help you. As always, I am committed to causing as much damage as I can to shallow thinking and shortcuts to critical-thinking. This is how the belt works.
Abdominal Pressure — What You're Missing in Every Lift
Are you making the most of your abdominal pressure during three big lifts: squats, bench press, and deadlift (or the clean and jerk if you compete in weightlifting or crossfit). Oh, the power of a breath.
Why Big Air Is the Key to a Bigger Total
Imagine that you are on a team at work in which each individual had his or her own unique duties and tasks. What happens if someone doesn’t show up to work?
WATCH: Breaking John Rusin — The Squat
Through this series, we’ll venture from power lift to power lift (beginning with the squat) and finalize the project with a program tune-up. Dr. John Rusin’s overall goal is to get stronger with the help of Dave Tate.
WATCH: Ed Coan and Dave Tate Coach the Squat
As Tate and Coan provide hands-on instruction and demonstrate proper squatting technique, the difference that their expertise makes in the athletes’ performance is clear and immediate.
It's Meet Day — Do You Shine or Crumble?
Why do so many people do so well in training but nosedive when it’s time to compete? Two words: Anxiety and self-doubt.
WATCH: Learn to Train X — The Power of Bench Press Cues with Vincent Diz...
An impressive self-coached athlete himself, Dizenzo has benched 600 or more raw in three different weight classes and has a 900-pound equipped bench to his credit. With the precision and detail required to properly execute a press, it is no wonder that thoughtful cues from a seasoned elitefts coach can make all the difference.
A Weekend at the Kabuki Strength Seminar
It was a 10-hour drive to Portland, but everything that went into the trip was well worth it for the training knowledge I gained and the experience I had with other lifters. Here are my highlights from the weekend.
A Weekend of JL Holdsworth — My Introduction to Reflexive Performance Reset
I had the opportunity to take one of the RPR courses this week when JL asked to hold a clinic at my university. Whether you love or hate the idea of Reflexive Performance Reset, it works!
Utility of the Overhead Press
Looking at lats, thoracic mobility, and the ribcage during an overhead exercise can tell you a lot about a person’s pattern, position, and movement quality.
IPA Mountain Madness — My First Single-Ply Meet
After three injuries in a half a year, I was pissed. I was depressed. I was dumbfounded. But I found my way back, hitting a PR total for my first single-ply meet.
Five Bench Pressing Basics You’re Overlooking
Don’t let the mass quantities of information fool you: the basics of the bench will never change. Follow them and you’ll get stronger.
Embracing the Bracing
Day 1: Constant, crippling pain. Day 10: Pain free. This is the new game plan for lower back nerve pain.
Troubleshooting Knee Pain While Squatting
Although it’s hard to generalize knee pain, here are several things I commonly see in a clinical setting. You can attack these issues in a number of ways.
Breath Control for Optimal Performance
Appease your moral conscious by taking the prophalctic approach to birth control. Oh sorry…you said breath control.
Dump Out Your Toolbox
If you don't know how to properly use what is at your disposal, then YOU are the tool.
The Flexible Periodization Method: What Does French Press Coffee Have to...
Hint… It is not the caffeine.
