Very common to feel stuck with your strength on certain exercises. Here are my top 3 pieces of advice! There's a free give away at the end, enjoy! Very common to feel stuck with your strength on certain exercises. Here are my top 3 pieces of advice! There's a free give away at the end, enjoy! I spoke with an athlete recently that is stuck on his back squat, bench press and deadlift maxes. He's been training a few years and feels he's reached his ceiling. This brings me to my

If you're like me, I used to struggle with my bench press. My arms are long and it seemed like no matter what I tried my bench always lagged. Here's what fixed it for me! Unilateral Strength Training It is my belief, that if you're invested in training for strength on a barbell using 2 arms, it would also be advantageous to train each arm separately. There are MANY benefits which I'll describe to why you should add the Single Arm DB Bench Press to your training routine Impr

Many athletes take training very serious, until the season that is and then it seems to get put on the back burner. This might be the most detrimental thing you can do for your performance, below is the mindset and the application for optimizing in season training The Mindset Looking at the calendar year of an athlete, you can identify 4 distinct phases. Each phase has it's own goals and priorities. • Post Season • Off Season • Pre Season • In Season From a programming standp

Why I think low rep sets are best for hypertrophy We all learned hypertrophy is 8-12 reps per set. But I have grown to strongly oppose that mindset. Below is a detailed explanation. Type I Fibers For these concepts discussed in this email, it's important to notes these theories should be applied and considered using compound exercises (bench press, squat etc) not single joint exercises (bicep curls, lateral raises etc). Understanding some basics of fiber type is the first ste

The most common reaction I hear from using lifting straps is that "it's going to limit your grip strength". I'd like to push back on that common thought, here's why I use and suggest you use straps more often. I posted on X not long ago that I use lifting straps all the time and I don't believe that they affect your grip in a negative way. In the post I show myself maxing out a dynamometer. The post got a lot of interactions with a lot of people making great points on both si

Everyone wants big arms. Most people think of the biceps when talking about arm size, but I think the triceps should be shown more love. I also believe there's some low hanging fruit on triceps training to improve your strength on your pressing. Below are 5 exercises to add to your training. Triceps are the one exception for me personally in terms of single joint exercises that I will use low rep sets on for no real reason other than it just feels right. I prefer sets of 5-6

I was asked to give my thoughts on powerbuilding, what it is and how to do it. This is my warning, I probably have a much different view and some people may not agree with me. First of all, I don't like factions. I don't like labels, I think labels are limits. Labels are limits, that's a bar. I've always noticed that powerlifters feel the need to train like a "powerlifter". A bodybuilder needs to train like a "bodybuilder". I use the quotations because everyone has unique per

Many coaches and trainers work with large groups, this is the first part of a 6 part series that will help you optimize both your time and training with large groups. There is a FREE Speed and Agility download at the end, don't miss it! We've all been there, some in deeper than others, with limited space and too many athletes. I've had 40 kids training on 4 racks....I've have a team of 12 year old baseball players with nothing but batting cages and everything in between. From

A lot of people get very interested in implementing the low rep set concept when they hear the logic behind it. But with anything new, you may have a lot of questions. Below I will answer ALL the most common questions and provide some concrete takeaways for you to use. The concept of low rep sets is very simple. Most people are used to doing 3x10. That's 3 sets for 10 reps. Or 3x8, 3x12 or any other traditional rep schemes. The low rep set model is the exact opposite. 10x3 (1

Did you know there's a non invasive walking test to calculate your VO2 max? There's a lot about walking you may not know about, particularly how essential it can be for performance and longevity. I taught a walking class at the University level, here are some of the most valuable takeaways. Walking may be the most undervalued exercise there is for both health and performance. The history of walking for sports dates back to 1904 when it first became an all around olympic event

Programming, creating reps and sets, choosing exercise selections etc are truly my favorite part of training. I believe the most important aspect of training is mindset but the second is the reps and sets. Here's my breakdown of all the things reps and sets. Rep Schemes How many reps do I do? That’s probably the most asked question a coach gets from anyone he or she trains. One of the most important parts of training is understanding rep schemes to elicit adaptations and mi

Pull ups are one of the hardest exercises for people to improve, partly due to the fact that it's hard to use variable resistance. It's easy to add weight, but more difficult to take weight off for those who lack the ability to complete a rep. Below I'll give you concrete strategies to finally improve your pull ups! I've spent years in the sports performance world training younger athletes, many of which can't do a pull up. This forced me to find the best ways to put athletes

Maxing out as a warm up, yes you read that right. Over the years I've learned that if you hit a top set more frequently, it becomes much less taxing and actually is the best way to reach the highest state of potentiation which ultimately allowed me to figure out how to create a system and take advantage of this heighten state. Below is the breakdown of the system I use almost everyday I'm going to start by asking a dumb question. Let's say you goto the gym and you are bench p

Let's start by establishing standards. These standards aren't meant to easy, I think it's important to maintain high standards. I think the list should include feats of strengths in all planes of movement for both upper and lower body exercises. When I think about strength, I think about force expression. There are 2 types of force expression: Force expression without time constraints and force expression WITH time constraints. Force expression without time constraints includ

50% OFF new off season powerlifting program below! It's all about mindset. Everything you do consciously and subconsciously boils down to the way you think. What you think is proceeded by how you think. Growth often times is simply learning another perspective or understanding something simply by erasing preconceived ideas that you realize you never even made. Norms often go unchallenged. Some refer to this concept of unlearning as "flattening the snow" Self Test- 9 Dot Tes

Plyometric training is a vital component for any athlete's training program. With large groups, you may feel challenged to not only program but execute effective plyometrics for any and all situations. Below I will help you create your own system for you to use with your teams. This is part 2 of a 6 part series around training large groups and the logistics that will help you succeed in any and all team training situations. Plyometrics are the bridge to the weight room. You a

Many people would never consider a single arm row a primary exercise, but the potential that they yield in both size and strength makes it a fantastic exercise to spend more time and effort on, especially if you use all of the variations I discuss below I've seen so many bad takes around the single arm db row, it truly has become one of my pet peeves. Let's review the mindset I use for my rows and then we can jump into all the variations I suggest using to build your back and

This was new to me, that people actually believe back squats are bad for you. I learned there's a group of anti back squat strength coaches. Seems like an oxymoron to me, to be a strength coach that avoids maybe the best exercise out there to build strength. In this article I will arm you with some of the most indefensible reasons the back squat is a must, especially for athletes. I'm all about differences of opinions, and people seem to get pretty emotionally charged over st

FREE Squat and Deadlift workout for download at the bottom! Some people deadlift on back day, some people deadlift on "deadlift day". I like to deadlift on the same day and right after I squat. This can be one of the best strategies you may not be using, I'll explain the benefits below. Some of you may think this is a crazy idea, and some might already be doing this, but I like to provide the reasons and the logic behind doing both on the same day. It all started for me after

This statement angers so many people doesn't it? Speed is king right?? "Speed Kills" except it literally doesn't. Speed catches. Speed evades. STRENGTH KILLS. Imagine your house cat catches a lion, now what? Your house cat doesn't have the strength to do anything. You create speed from the strength you have. People have turned this debate into straw man arguments and IMO using bad faith arguments misrepresenting basic fundamentals. Here are the common arguments I heard in r