Sums up 2020…but rewinding the clock, I thought the top guys trained hard every day when I started powerlifting. I thought it was just a matter of getting strong enough and in good enough shape to go hard and heavy 24/7, 12 months a year.
People tend to agree that it’s important to get a good night’s sleep, but most probably don’t actually get that sleep. Using what I’ve learned from something called sleep hygiene, you can finally get those 8 hours of shut-eye you’ve been whining about not getting.
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.
If it is not important to incorporate recovery modalities, why on earth am I doing an article on my top five ways to improve recovery? Because they don’t work, but these 5 simple things you can dial in and focus on will work.
“If you snooze, you lose,” as the old adage goes — though it never tells us what we lose from that snooze. But it turns out if we don’t snooze, we lose a lot of health benefits. Seven to eight hours of sleep is best for the average person, but the quality counts, too.
A calorie at 7:59 p.m. is the same as a calorie at 8:01 p.m. Whether you’re eating at 7:59 p.m., 8:01 p.m., or in the middle of the night, it really doesn’t matter. Instead, consider each of the 24 hours in a day to be equal in terms of importance… or simply the number of calories you eat in a
What is the last thing you quit to better yourself? Reflecting on this past year, 2018 has been a very interesting year for me all around, and I have grown a lot. In with new and out with the old, here’s what I’m changing for 2019.
In recent months, my fiancée noticed long pauses between breaths while I’m asleep, followed by gasping for air. Not good. If it’s like everything else in my life, this major CPAP milestone should make for a good story. Plus, my readers really seem to enjoy it when I suffer.
If we are not seeing progress in the right direction within an expected length of time, we must change things up. If we are not evaluating, then how do we even know if we are making progress at all?
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.
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.
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.
With my old ways of thinking, I kicked ass and got better. But I’ve figured out along the way that it’s like nitrous: it’s great for a quick burst, but powerlifting isn’t a quarter mile.
Resistance is resistance, no matter from which source it comes. When you do a push-up, your body doesn’t just go, “What, he’s doing a push-up? Nah, I ain’t growing.”
I’ve heard before that a program rarely fails due to assistance work, but I disagree. This is the work that carries over to our main and supplemental movements, builds muscle, creates balance, and promotes integrity throughout the entire body.
The principles of training are the same for everyone, but the details are different. If you want to learn how to tailor your training by fine-tuning these details, this is the article for you.
Not only was I there to defend my “title,” but I was also there to finally reach a milestone only achieved by a handful of lifters: a 2300-pound total.
What you will find in this article is an easy-to-implement solution that will have a quicker, more impactful, and longer-lasting effect on your health, your physique, and your progress than anything you’ve ever done before.
In part two of this series, the topic is the big three for recovery, which allows athletes to experience better performance, resistance to injury, and longevity in their sport.
Companies are collecting data on everything: your recent purchases, internet searches, prescriptions, travel habits, and even the TV shows you are watching. So what does this have to do with powerlifting?
Every athlete needs to develop an aerobic base somewhere within their training program in order to be in control of their nervous system and to promote better recovery. Here are the benefits of doing so.
The first month of this process has passed and I’ve made a lot of progress, but I’ve also discovered a few mental challenges I didn’t recognize at first.
It may be small, but this endocrine organ controls whether you can eat ice cream and be lean or eat a salad and be overweight. How can you know if yours is operating properly?
There will be times that your personal life overwhelms you. Getting through these rocky times will never be easy, but there are ways to ensure you make it out alive.
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.
When your progress slows and your body breaks down beyond repair, it’s time to reexamine your recovery and restoration protocol. Is it doing what it should?
You wake up after a restful night’s sleep to hit up the gym before the sun comes up, but why do you feel so weak and unmotivated to lift heavy and strong?