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A lot of the training process can really be summed up in a couple quick sound bites. The goal we are trying to achieve with training is to balance the length tension dynamics within the musculoskeletal system. When you get this blend correct or in other words optimize this balance what happens is that people move more freely and create more force with less effort. If you can't balance the scales then you close the joint spaces so tightly that what happens is restriction of

Since most training programs come from either athletics or a military background it becomes important to learn how to train with a sustainable philosophy for the general population non competitive sporting or military minded individual. Now this may seem simple but it's not without issues as well. If the general thesis for training the general population is to engage sustainably with training then you still have to make progress in the gym otherwise you are just doing a wei

If you are familiar with the work of Louie Simmons one of the most insightful parts of his programming at Westside Barbell was the implementation of training specifically based on energy systems. This was implemented for the purpose of creating the strongest powerlifters possible. For those of us not interested in pursuing that mountaintop what we can still take away from his teachings is that in order to display competency in specific physical domains you have to train spe

The challenges of training a dynamic system(the human body) that has self regulating protective mechanisms built into it are such that changes to the stressors must be made methodically and intelligently. The heaviest of lifts or the 1RM is commonly understood as 100% of capacity. The Soviets would have an interesting perspective on this as they would not define a 100% effort to a lift unless there was an injury in the process of executing the lift. In this understanding e

When we get right down to it strength and conditioning is a math game. How much tonnage of stress can you recover and benefit from? If you haven't ever done the math before this becomes an important process to consider. More stress at some point is just more stress and a lack of recovery options just creates an environment ripe for injury issues to show up. The big question is what is sustainable? If getting strongER for your lifetime is more important than getting stron

According to Bondarchuk the back squat was a non specific exercise for Olympic Lifting that caused some potential concerns for the low back. Since in Olympic Lifting there are no actual sporting positions that rely on back squatting the back squat exercises is technically assistance work. It may be a very similar movement when compared to the front squat but ultimately front squats are going to be more sport specific than back squats. He developed some concerns about the i

When we see someone sprint incredibly fast, jump very high or lift heavy weights what you don't often see is the detail behind the performance. Often what gets missed is the firing pattern, the rate coding and the overall precision by which the performance occurs. Which, in the moment, it's easy to just be completely overwhelmed by the visual spectacle that is unfolding before your eyes. However, when learning how to emulate such feats it pays to be intentional about learn

I know there are a lot of people who have looked under every rock and bush as far as why CF got derailed/failed or otherwise became another fad fitness approach. There are many, many complicated answers here but I want to explore what I feel was the most critical flaw. This is not to say that CF failed completely. Did they make some big mistakes.....yup. However, they nearly single handedly brought barbell lifting culturally back from the dead in the United States and man

About 10 years ago I had the exceptionally rare opportunity to learn from a living legend in strength sports. Boris Sheiko has potentially created more elite level lifters than any other coach in history. So when he was going to travel the West Coast giving Seminars it was an opportunity of a lifetime for anyone who coaches any kind of strength training or strength sport. Here are some of the takeaways from that seminar. Sheiko has a training system that is high volume comp

One of the challenges with training to remove osteoporosis risks and osteopenia risks from the general population is that the individuals who need the most amount of help aren't readily given good solutions. Often what happens is that ladies are given poor options and poor guidance when it comes to strength training and conditioning. So imagine my surprise when I learned about the LIFTMOR study. The study consisted of many different barbell lifting exercises which to my su

This post is going to get more personal than most and the reality is that if you haven't been through one of these journeys with soft tissue intervention and adaptation then you may not understand it. This is ok, just take my personal experience for what it is worth. What I want to do is provide context for undergoing the highly beneficial process of soft tissue restoration. The goal is not to advocate for engaging with the most blunt force trauma that you can survive ever

Every movement we do as human beings on planet earth is created against a gravitational constraint. The rate of gravity is 9.8mps(aka roughly 22mph) which is why when you see people run very fast, lift heavy weights or jump very high or for long distances it's impressive to watch. It's not just the free body out in space creating force. It's a body that is under constraint of 22mph expending incredible energy in order to go break free from that constraint. When you were a

In a world full of online coaches, athletes, clients and influencers what we currently have in the training landscape is the reality that there are a lot of people looking to help as well as people looking for help. It's really easy to put a program out there with little in the way of consideration and immediately people will be looking into it and training with it. The wild part is that it could be the dumbest program in the world and people will try to run it for months a

When learning to do deadlifts, good mornings, kettlebell swings and many other hip dominant movements what becomes important to learn first are the best positions to train with. Ideally, the vertical shin is the critical component to learn. It doesn't matter if you are swinging, doing good morning variations, deadlift variations or other hinge movements. The vertical shin or "L" position is the first component that is critical to the development of these patterns. If we c

When you are looking for people to learn from in a field rife with phonies it always is refreshing and invigorating to learn from those who have done way more than most. It was my privilege earlier in my career to be able to learn from and spend some time with many great powerlifters and powerlifting coaches. These included but were not limited to Matt Wenning, Donnie Thompson, Boris Sheiko, Mikhail Koklayaev, Andrey Malanichev and Richard Hawthorne. There are always inter

When we look at training programs of powerlifters, bodybuilders, strongmen/strongwomen and many other kinds of strength sport athletes what you see is a wildly diverse amount of training. Some people approach their training from a higher intensity, lower volume perspective. Others have a training program that revolves around greater volumes of work with less intensity baked in week after week. Ultimately what matters most is the reality that the training and recovery proce

Strength coaching as well as personal training in the United States are relatively young professions. If we can use Boyd Epley as the first example of what it looks like to have a codified program at the University of Nebraska in 1969 we start to understand that the profession as a whole is still relatively young. This is why it is not abnormal to run into a lot of training programs that very much have a wild west style. What happens on Monday has nothing to do with what h

The reality of living on earth is that the brain and the body adapt to the stress of gravitational constraint. Since gravitational force is a constant 9.8 mps what occurs pretty early on in childhood is that the development of the motor system encounters this stress and is influenced by it in significant ways. The challenges of this are that the adaptations are not always the most favorable. Since the body and brain are linked in function and dysfunction what we can not gu

For many people the landscape of training is highly nebulous. Are we training like bodybuilders, powerlifters, olympic lifters, swimmers, triathletes........and what does that even look like at year 5? 6? 10? It's hard to give people answers beyond the things that I have experienced as a coach. I literally don't know what it's like to compete in a triathlon so I don't know what that is going to feel like in year 5, 6, 7, 8. What I can advocate for though in any athletic

One of the biggest and most important jobs of the personal trainer/strength coach is to assist their clients in identifying muscle imbalances. Now in some cases the imbalances are so great that pain is normal for their gait and general movement outside of training. This is one of those indicators that the musculoskeletal system is severely imbalanced. The length tension dynamics are so at odds with each other that the body is sending the brain a signal that the system is i