Burnout is a common complaint, whether it's from work, family, extracurricular activities, or all of the above. It happens in training too. Train long enough and you'll notice people in the community who were once avid lifters fall off the map. Some quit for good, or only sporadically train, others find different sports and activities to pursue, and those who remain tend to be lifers. Some people who quit barbell training cite burnout as the cause. For whatever reason, training no longer served their needs or fit into their life. Usually, burnout happens because there is a misalignment between ..read more

While there are many good reasons to lift barbells and get strong, many people are motivated at least initially by the prospect of looking better. Improving their body composition, which means building muscle mass and losing body fat. For the average person, getting strong requires a lot of hard work and dedication, more than most people expect. Achieving above average body composition requires even more work, and ultimately begs the question: are your goals compatible with your lifestyle?   Weights & Plates is now on YouTube! https://youtube.com/@weights_and_plates?si=ebAS8sRtzsPmFQf ..read more

In the gym coaching real people, the knowledge and experience gained from years of hard work under the barbell pays off -- a person who has put themself under the yoke and actively learned to troubleshoot problems and adjust training variables is well prepared to help other people do the same. On the internet, however, the biggest total (or the biggest bicesps) wins.    Dr. Robert Santana and Coach Trent Jones discuss the storm of comments around Dr. Santana's recent instagram post citing various problems with RPE, and note that all of the comments come from powerlifters, that i ..read more

Strength training demands a lot from a trainee, especially after the honeymoon wears off (i.e. the novice linear progression starts to get hard). It's hard work, short but intense, and involves facing fear on a regular basis. As you advance into intermediate territory, the time between PR's increases, and requires patience and persistance. The stronger you get, the more you have to pay attention to your recovery factors -- food, sleep, and stress -- to properly recover from workout to workout. Strength training is a weed out process, you might say, for those looking for the easy way out. There ..read more

There's seemingly no end to the "evidence based" coaches out there nowadays making all sorts of claims about you should train, backed up by scientific data. Have you actually read any of the papers they cite to back up their claims? It turns out, there are numerous problems with the field of scientific research, from the actual design of the experiments to the reporting of data, the publishing process and peer review, and, last but not least, skewed incentives for the people carrying out research at every level. Dr. Bradford, who earned a PhD in Pharmacology and Molecular Cancer Biology from D ..read more

To quote Mark Rippetoe, "women are not a special population, they are half the population." In other words, women fundamentally train for strength the same way that men do -- the same principles of progressive overload, using compound barbell lifts that target the whole body, and nutritional principles apply. There are a few exceptions, however, and that's what Dr. Santana and Coach Trent address in today's episode.   How Birth Control Can Inhibit Strength and Performance by Lea Genders: https://www.leagendersfitness.com/news/how-hormonal-birth-control-can-inhibit-strength-and-muscle-deve ..read more

Dr. Santana and Coach Trent wrap up their mini series on post-novice programming with an important discussion on understanding why you missed reps. The novice linear progression cannot last forevever (or else we'd all be squatting 1,000lbs!), and as the saying goes, all good things come to an end. This means that at some point, you'll miss reps. What do you do then? Some people have the impression that missing reps means it's time to change the program, and that's not necessarily true. Often there are recovery issues at play that can be addressed, allowing the lifter to extend progress on the ..read more

Dr. Robert Santana and Coach Trent explore the Stress/Recovery/Adapation cycle (adapted from Hans Selye's General Adaptation Syndrome) and how it serves as a guiding model for programming decisions in the intermediate phase of training.   Weights & Plates is now on YouTube! https://youtube.com/@weights_and_plates?si=ebAS8sRtzsPmFQf-   Weights & Plates: https://weightsandplates.com Robert Santana on Instagram: @the_robert_santana   Trent Jones: @marmalade_cream Email: jonesbarbellclub@gmail.com   ..read more

The novice linear progression (NLP, or LP for short) is a fun time in the training career of a lifter. Never will you make as much progress -- and as fast! -- as you will during LP. It's also brutally hard, especially toward the end. Nevertheless, it comes to an end for every lifter, and people often spin their wheels trying to figure out what to do once the simple A/B program stops working. In today's episode, Dr. Santana and Coach Trent discuss some basic principles of post-novice programming, and point out that at all stages of the game, the main goal is that the weight must go up.   W ..read more

For a variety of reasons, the predominant form of exercise in popular culture is endurance training. Endurance is valorized in the media, with sports like swimming and running receiving prime position in Olympic broadcasts. Military films often depict the hero enduring through miles and miles of trackless jungle and urban wastelands. The overarching experience of endurance training is pain, and pain is relatable. Everyone suffers, or will suffer, from pain in their life. It's even in the popular saying: "no pain, no gain."   Strength training, however, does not elicit the same pain respon ..read more