The #1 Hypertrophy Mistake Powerlifters Make
Hypertrophy training is for powerlifters, too! Read on to avoid the #1 mistake powerlifters make, and to learn how to approach hypertrophy for powerlifting.
Is There an App to Get You Off of That Bench?
As more people spend more time on their phones in the gym, reclaim your training time and take control of your workout environment.
Strength, Power, Muscle, and AI
Use AI to supplement your strength, power, and muscle quest. Eric Maroscher shares how to use this tool.
The Urgency of Meet Prep Training
Use your fleeting meet prep time wisely, as Azrael, the killer of training time, will be coming for you…
Observation is a Master Teacher
He seemed like he was from another planet, a planet where the gravity was turned all the way up, and all its inhabitants were strong, powerful, and muscular.
Beyond Mountains, There are Mountains
Is bodybuilding a lifestyle, a sport, or two mutually exclusive things? Learn how the greats used hypertrophy along their journey.
Build Your Deadlift Without Deficits
There is more to building the deadlift than variety, and there is also a point of diminishing returns to consider.
What is Wrong with Powerlifting?
Absolutely nothing. That may not be the best question to ask if we’re looking to improve this wonderful sport.
Enhance Your Training Through a Detox
I can’t see Arnold doing a set of squats with Ed Corney, as Ed scrolls through his social media or texts Franco Columbo. Can you?
Where You Sit When You Are Old Shows Where You Stood in Youth
What does Ed Coan, Robby Robinson, Mark Felix, and Dexter Jackson all have in common? You’ll find the answer in a Yoruba proverb.
Powerlifting Basics: Go Easy on the Croutons
You are only a new lifter once, and that is a gift to take seriously. Don’t squander it by dabbling in the post-elite aspects and methods of training.
Who Vince Gironda Was and Why You Need to Know
He taught the first Mr. Olympia, Larry Scott; seven-time Mr. Olympia, Arnold Schwarzenegger; three-time Mr. Olympia, Frank Zane; Lou Ferrigno; Rick Wayne; Don Howorth; and Freddy Ortiz. Learn more…
Why Hook Grip, If It Hurts So Bad? Could It Be Worth It?
Hook Grip is a complicated beast. On one hand, it HURTS. On the other hand, Eric Maroscher has a few reasons why it's a skill worth learning.
Ernie Frantz and the History of Frantz Multi-Ply Gear
What you are about to read is a truly loving portrait of a powerlifting legend, written by one of the few who knew him best (and a great powerlifting coach in his own right).
5 Things You Can Still Believe In
Aside from Santa’s elves personalizing your hand-made gifts. Oh, and Santa traveling from the North Pole to your residence to deliver your gifts with Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer.
Why the Teacher Is as Important as the Lesson
As athletes and lifters, many of us have been fortunate to have had a great coach in our lives—we are collectively thankful. Without someone like this in your life, would you tweak squat form to go from a 500-pound squat to a temporary 365-pound squat? What if that 365-pound squat evolved into a 700-pound squat?
If It Makes You Strong(er), It Makes You Strong(er)
The only way I know how to explain this concept is by retelling the familiar story of Priorities and a Jar. What are you filling your empty jar with?
Is Anyone Strong(er)?
Is it mathematically and scientifically probable that within the last twenty years, humans’ DNA changed so drastically that their total, collectively, is many hundreds of pounds greater?
Advice From the Past as Gyms Open in Present Day
This was the good advice my mentor and powerlifting legend Ernie Frantz gave to me some 20 years ago when I had come back from a quad tear.
How to Survive in the Warm-up Area
There are countless reasons for the disorganization in the warm-up room, and hopefully, some of this information will help those new or newer to the competition scene to survive in the warm-up area and benefit from it.
Who Are the Saviors of the Hardcore Gym?
What is intriguing today with the backdrop of COVID-19 is observing the few remaining relics of an era gone by. The hardcore lifter-built gyms. These modern-day dinosaurs that refused to become extinct…
Emergency Home Gym 101
We are on a budget and in a hurry and we don’t have the space, we just need stuff to press, hoist, lift with and not break the bank.
Rising to the Challenge
A crisis does not make the person, a crisis exposes the type of person one actually is. What type of person are you in these unsettling and uncertain times?
Beware of the Clowns
Every gym has a few clowns, and they are always entertaining. Think about your gym: can you picture them in your mind’s eye? Yup, that is them.
A Bag of Bricks
What can a retired Navy SEAL teach us about managing stress and fear in our lives? Robert O’Neill says carrying stress is like carrying around an unnecessary bag of bricks.
The End of an Era?
Hardly. Those who think the world of weights has a definitive destination are unfortunately on the wrong path.
What If No One Was Watching?
One might act a certain way at a concert Saturday night but act entirely different at church Sunday morning… and of course, one might lift a certain way for the sake of Instafamousness and socialookatmedia versus how they should lift and train for the pending meet or competition.
Two Lifters, One Ultimate Holiday Shopping List
If you have gym friends with different focuses, no worries! The gifts on this shopping list are sure to please both of your powerlifting pals, regardless of their goals, focus, or social media presence.
Franco, Sartre, and The Gym
I read about the loss of bodybuilding legend, powerlifter, and two-time Mr. Olympia, Dr. Franco Columbu. I hardly need to go into the impact he had on bodybuilding. His life was a life well-lived, one with a deeply personal and meaningful purpose.
A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats
The legendary Frantz Gym was the place where the top powerlifters trained, where the collective whole was greater than the sum of its parts. “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts” can often be tossed around, but that was a large part of the magic that was Frantz Gym.
Putting Our Equipment to the Test at Monster Garage Gym
It’s one thing to read about elitefts equipment, but it’s something altogether different to see it being used in the hands of competitive powerlifters at Monster Garage Gym.
The Geology of Power
To this day, that month-long experience of a geology class at Yellowstone helped shape how I look at duration, time, patience, and longevity. That experience helped me apply the view of time to virtually all facets of life, including strength training.
The Villain Bar
If you’re a Marvel fan, you might know that Ant-Man and The Wasp produced an evil offspring, Red Queen. Likewise, elitefts’ heroic Rackable Cambered and SS Yoke bars came together and created the nefarious Spider Bar. What makes this bar so villainous? Read on if you dare…
You Might Be a Serious Powerlifter If...
This life we live is comprised of sheep, and it is also comprised of shepherds. Followers or leaders. The flock goes where it is directed. Shepherds set the course for the journey. Are you part of the flock? Or are you a shepherd? Are you a serious powerlifter or not?
When Honesty is the Only Policy
Not unlike with your spouse or significant other, the relationship between training partners depends on many things, but at the central core to this relationship is the quality of one’s honesty with their training partner.
When Did Everyone Become Allergic to the Eccentric?
Nobody wants to watch their favorite athletes practice what they do best. But if you want to be the Michael Jordan or Reggie Jackson of powerlifting, you’ve got to work on the eccentric.
The Time In-Between Sets Matters
You see lost lifters jumping from one diet to another or from one program to the next, thinking they bought a long-lost ingredient to the stew that is strength and power. But the actual missing ingredients are right in front of them: consistency and an understanding of the basics.
Powerlifting and Wrist Straps 101
There is a tool for every job, and as there are many jobs for the powerlifter, there are many tools at their disposal. The key is to apply the proper tool to the proper job at the proper time. Let’s focus on the tool known as the wrist strap.
Ed Corney: A Life Well Spent
Whenever one of the greats of bodybuilding or powerlifting passes away, it’s a good time to pause and reflect on the present and learn from the past. With the recent death of Ed Corney in mind, let’s take time to do just that.
Don't Be a Christmas Tree Powerlifter
As you add ornament after ornament, string of lights after string of lights, and trinket after trinket, don’t lose sight of the tree underneath.
Top-5 Monolift Commandments
Monolift commandments for those new to the monolift, monolift commandments to heed today as a way to avoid tragedy in the future, and monolift commandments to help get the most out of this amazing piece of powerlifting equipment.
Top-5 Christmas Gifts for Powerlifters Trapped in a Corporate Gym
They’re here because they travel during the week and are training out of the hotel’s fitness center, or they work days and can train only late at night, which requires him to go to one of those 24/7 fitness places where there is “no yelling, no chalk or pretty much no anything you would require for serious training.”
Save It for the Barber Shop
There are two worlds in which we all reside. There is the “gym world”, a world where everything pertains to the gym and your training, where your goals and aspirations for the platform are created, pursued, and lived out. The other world is the outside world, comprised of everything else.
Beware of False Prophets
There is a huge list of things the sport of powerlifting has produced over these seven decades. Within this sizable list, the sport has consistently produced two specific items over and again, each and every single decade.
It Has Something to Do with the Struggle
What do I ask a man who built a physique back in 1965 and if he walked into any contemporary gym today in his Mr. America condition, every lifter in the place would stop to behold a build somehow created with nothing fancier than barbells, dumbbells, steak, eggs, and elbow grease?
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.
3 Critical Deadlift Lessons Most Lifters Never Learn
The game of powerlifting is and always will be a choice of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. These lessons challenge us in many ways, not least of which is the challenge to our ego. Will you follow them?
5 Things You Must Know as a Novice Powerlifter
Your future in this sport deserves to be worked on not only at the gym and with your physical strength and power, but outside of the weight room as well, with your mental focus and contemplation.
Dusting Off the Past to Answer Questions for the Present
There is often hope that the future is the timeframe where many problems and questions of humanity will be solved. But sometimes the questions have already been asked, pondered, explored, researched and answered.
The Silent Partner
The weights weigh what they weigh and I can either lift them or I can’t. They never try to convince me of anything. They are what they are and that is what they will always be.
The Fermi Paradox and Powerlifting
The period of time that a lifter is a the top of their game is a delicate balancing act between utilizing the tools that got them to an elite status and backing down from those tools at appropriate times so as not to tip the scales from continued success to prematurely landing at the expiration date.
The Strongest Man in the Gym
Although we have had a number of 1000-pound squatters and 800-pound benchers at the Monster Garage Gym, I can tell you—and so would the majority of the powerlifters at the gym—that Jerry is the strongest man in the gym.
When a Building Is More Than Its Four Walls
All that the S4 embodied—all the history, all the depth of meaning, all the blood, sweat, tears, sacrifice and giving—will live on as those traits come to life and are reborn with S5.
Put the Phone Down!
I have never witnessed a singular item more capable of disrupting a training session than the cell phone. There’s a better alternative that gives all the benefits of technology with none of the downside.
The Reincarnation of the Powerlifter
As powerlifters we are, in the sense described in ‘The Egg’, reincarnated. We live and die and are reborn several times over our lifting career.
When Strong Is All You Can Be
Within the environment of the serious gym, race, religion, political ideation, and gender identity fall a far second to the bond of power, strength, and living life to its fullest. This is the story of strongman and powerlifter Kristian Johnson.
The Gift of Perspective: Things to Know as a New Powerlifter, Lessons 14-19
Through articles two and three we have now shared the first fourteen, of many, perspectives for the beginner and intermediate powerlifter to consider. Let’s dig into the next five.
The Hybrid Deadlift Stance
In deadlifting, the Goldilocks Zone might not be pulling conventional, nor sumo, nor even Old English Style. For those lifters, what I call the hybrid sumo stance could perhaps be best.
The Gift of Perspective: Things to Know as a New Powerlifter, Lessons 11...
We’ve covered the first ten perspectives for new lifters. Now it’s time to get more specific about what it takes to break through the beginning stages of powerlifting.