The One Armed Guillotine Training Split
Training through injury, the following splits pushed me through elbow surgery and a lat tear.
High-Performance Solutions to Common Injuries
Overuse injuries build up over time due to incomplete rest. Take a look at the cycle to prevent your next injury.
Set Your Mind Free
Getting over the mental hurdles post injury can be just as painful as the actual injury, but you can come out of it stronger if you choose to.
#77 - Injuries, Perceived Maxes, & Squid Game
Dave Tate and Sam Brown discuss how injuries can make you better, perceived maxes, and Squid Game? What’s going on?
Train and Rehab with Crossbody Extensions
Crossbody extensions address tissue tolerance and scapular awareness—something to use for direct upper body training AND physical therapy.
A Well-Rounded Approach to Injury Prevention
No exercise or series of exercises can guarantee injury prevention. It takes a holistic approach with a heaping amount of common sense.
Does Mobility or Stability Come First?
For those involved in the healthcare, fitness, and strength industries, this is a question that has been long debated and has much enthusiasm behind it, creating the ultimate chicken vs. the egg debate in the human body. So which is the answer? How do we know once and for all?
Choose One: Piss and Moan or Personal Growth
2020 started out pretty well. Then all shit broke loose. Were you on Camp Complain or Camp Let’s Figure It Out? I quickly realized I had two options.
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.
Serious Training Considerations for COVID-19
So here is the decision you need to consider: should you adapt your training in favor of less dangerous styles of exercise and workload, or continue as planned on your strength journey?
I Thought He Was Dead or Living in a Cave in the Desert!
Just because you’re getting older, doesn’t mean that you can’t reach your fitness goals. It simply means your goals need to shift to suit your current state.
Structuring a Rehabilitation Plan
Physical rehabilitation is as much about the mind as it is the body. The right attitude is the first step to putting a stable, consistent rehabilitation plan in motion.
Programming Through Injury: Good, Better, and Best Options
Programming through injury doesn’t need to be nearly as complicated as we make it. It’s not really all that different than programming a regular training block for a movement with a few differences.
The Cycle of Detraining and Retraining
This is a completely different type of article you’ll find within my column. It’s personal and it makes a case for increased injury burden as an athlete progresses in their career, gets older, trains more, competes more, the list goes on…
Paying the Price of the Platform
The wear and tear of the sport doesn’t end when the lifter stops competing. The price of the platform may be one that they will pay for throughout the rest of their lives.
How Research Can Help You Manage Detraining and Retraining
Both are scary to endure, but as an athlete, it’s part of the game. A little bit of knowledge can go a long way in managing this kind of stress.
The Injury Equation
Whether they know it or not, most therapists and trainers who are following the current injury paradigm are focusing solely on one part of the equation; they are exclusively focused on tissue tolerance, which is essentially a one-dimensional view.
Chad vs. The World: Redefining Dedication
Even the smartest, strongest, and best of us can learn and improve on what we do or how we do it. The journey for strength is all about education and learning, and this is how we continue to get stronger. All of this takes dedication.
How to Get Through a Near Career-Ending Injury
It’s said a person is only one injury away from ending your sports career. When dealing with that kind of injury, we often neglect how it affects our minds, which are almost just as easy to break as our bodies.
Understanding Groin Injuries: Complex Groin Injuries
When a doctor who knows how I train gave me his diagnosis, I had no idea what to do because I hadn’t met anyone that had this constellation of stuff. Neither had he. The best foundation we came up with was based on the same principles in the previous articles.
Why Your Bones Need Time to Recover
We’re starting to see more and more bone injuries. We’ve seen it in powerlifting, where all of a sudden, if someone, especially younger lifters — they don’t have enough time to lay down that bone properly — I’ve seen bones actually snap. That’s why recovery is so important.
The Ghost in the Machine
Your body is like a race car. Even the best race cars break and wear parts down. When one of those things breaks, it, in turn, puts added pressure on other parts, which are then at risk of breaking. Take your foot off the gas pedal every now again and recover.
Meet Report: Making a Comeback at APF Nationals After a Painful Injury
Two years ago, I injured myself at a meet. The pain was so bad I nearly pulled out of the meet. After talking with some experts, I decided to hop into the APF Nationals without a weight cut and with a quick prep. Let’s just say it’s good to be back.
Understanding Groin Injuries: A Primer
I’m not going to lie, I’ve had a number of injuries through my training, but Dave was right: groin injuries are a different beast, and the nature of the beast is going to depend more fully on what actual tissue was affected.
LISTEN: Table Talk Podcast #9 with Dr. Ken Kinakin
In this episode of Table Talk Podcast, Dave Tate and Dr. Ken Kinakin talk about a variety of lifting-related injuries, working around and preventing said injuries, the Society of Weight-Training Injury Specialists, and more.
Activate and Contract Lower Abdominals for a Healthy Pelvis Position
Do not settle on one fix and rely on it. Instead, rely on multiple exercises and this simple formula: more muscle used = more stability = more strength. Considering your lower abdominals, here are two exercises to try.
Troubleshooting Strength Injuries: Dealing with Injury
For those of you who are currently dealing with a significant injury, this article, the fifth and final part of the Troubleshooting Strength Injuries series, will help serve as a road map to recovery.
Going on the Record with ATWR Holder Heidi Howar
I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing and training with Heidi, and I can say with absolute certainty that she is the real deal, an ATWR-holding meathead who’s willing to do what it takes to become, and in her case, stay the best.
LISTEN: Table Talk Podcast Clip — The Worst Powerlifting Injury Dave Saw...
Dave answers this question barely even a second after hearing it aloud: “Marc Bartley.” This one isn’t for those with weak constitutions… or stomachs…
Returning From Injury After a Layoff
Coming back after a layoff can be a chance to address imbalances, but it also presents the opportunity for new imbalances to develop. Common sense suggests that testing strength after a layoff isn’t the best idea. But if you are going to do it, keep these things in mind.
Femoro-Acetabular Impingement and the Rehab Process: The Diagnosis
Femoro-Acetabular Impingement (FAI) can often be asymptomatic and will not affect some people’s daily lives — even who test positive to the diagnostic procedures. However, that does not mean that the management of FAI should be ignored, as it may be a factor in hip osteoarthritis in later life.
Troubleshooting Strength Injuries: Warning Signs of Injury
Understanding the warning signs and red flags of injury are paramount to successfully pushing your body to the brink without derailing due to injury. So what signs did our example athlete miss in the previous article?
WATCH: Table Talk — Mental Health with Dave Tate and Joe Sullivan
“Training is my therapy” should sideline a powerlifter from competitions. If training really is your therapy, you’re going to get hurt. If that’s the case, you need to see an actual therapist. Seriously.
The Most Valuable Aspect of Box Group Programming
While many coaches preach “do extra” before and after in order to perform arguably the most valuable aspect of group programming, your clients do not need to show up early for class or stay late to accomplish this.
WATCH: I am Joe Sullivan
Get to know elitefts athlete Joe Sullivan as he talks about how he got into powerlifting, his day-to-day routine, and his goals.
Troubleshooting Strength Injuries: Redefining Injury
Most strength athletes either take matters into their own hands or seek advice from other lifters to rehab and troubleshooting an injury. Read that again. If I’m describing you, this series is for you.
10 Secrets to Stimulating a Stalled Squat
As a former 150-pound marathon runner–turned–powerlifter, here’s how I increased my squat 1RM from 500 pounds to 600 pounds in a single year.
WATCH: Table Talk — Training Alone
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not the super-heavy lifts that cause most of the problems when training alone.
WATCH: Table Talk with Dan Green — Injuries and Trying to Stay at the To...
Has Dan Green’s peak in powerlifting come and gone?
The Second Phase of Injury: Changing the Plan
I needed to know I wasn’t going crazy for wanting to know where things were scarring down, and I needed to know what to expect based on the injury itself. So I broke the mold a bit.
How Student-Athletes Can Support Teammate Mental Health
More student-athletes are beginning to recognize mental health as simply another part of the training and self-care process, and not a sign of weakness or lack of mental toughness. Here are three ways to help.
Tissue Load vs. Tissue Capacity: A Key to Injury Recovery and Prevention
One of the most common causes of injury is accumulation of load on a tissue, tendon, or ligament that exceeds that tissue, tendon, or ligament’s capacity. For optimal rehabilitation and recovery, you need to understand and manage this relationship.
Top Training Tips For Advanced Lifters — Technique, Injury Scale, and Sh...
There’s no doubt that there are times when you have to push through because you’re just not “into it” but there are other times when you really need to shut it down. The trick is knowing the difference.
WATCH: Table Talk — Feeder and Recovery Workouts
You can’t just throw in extra workouts or recovery protocols and expect to get the most out of them. Like everything else in training, they need to be programmed strategically and used at the right times.
Secrets of Faster Injury Healing
There are several things to understand when putting together a rehabilitation protocol, but if you create the right plan and stick to it, you’ll be recovered in no time.
How Is Dave Tate Still Doing Dave Tate Things?
Every medical professional gauges how much slack on the leash they can give you without negative effects because everyone’s threshold is a little different. What’s Dave’s? And why?
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.
Assessing Your Dysfunction — Finding Why
Still searching for your quick fix? You won’t find it anytime soon.
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.
New Study Highlights Brain Changes After Concussions
Young football players who experience a concussion also show signs of reduced blood flow in the brain.
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.
WATCH: Table Talk — Curing Common Powerlifter Pain
Biceps and triceps tendonitis are among the most likely aches to plague competitive powerlifters. Here are several go-to ways to manage these and other common tendon and joint overuse injuries.
The Other Side of the Long and Winding Road
I’m sharing my difficult story not to elicit sympathy, but to point out facts of life. We all experience challenges, we all have our stories. It is how we deal with them that determines who we are.
The Great Race: Easing Back into Training After Injury or Layoff
Has an injury or your busy life schedule kept you away from the gym? Proceed with caution.
To Reach Your Goals, Be An Observer
Don’t become so caught up in your own head that you lose objective grounding in your assessment of the world. Here’s how to properly use detachment to reach your goals.
Correcting Asymmetries: Unilateral Work Versus Integration
What may today seem like a nagging injury you can muster through, may turn a would-be long-term powerlifting career into a short-lived experience on the platform.
How the Mighty Fall: The Road From Hell
I learned what it was like to feel old and weak, but my heartbeat was a war drum again. As long as I was breathing, I would be moving — I would be moving toward the conflict.