Practice Habits: Your key to Long Term Improvement Every coach says, do the hard work and pay attention to the details. I constantly harp on doing each of the power lifts with perfect technique. Going beyond these generalizations in real workouts and doing so for many months at a time can be much more difficult ..read more

Your Inner Coach #3- Muscle Control Exerting control over your muscles is essential for putting out the maximum force possible during a heavy lift. Unfortunately, many lifters have developed the habit of exerting less than maximum force through years of lifting lighter weights with high repetitions. This is because endurance lifting is a different skill ..read more

Longevity and Lifting Weights It is nearly impossible to put a value on the positive aspects of waking up every day and not worrying about your health. Sadly many people over age 50 spend a significant portion of their day struggling with their medical problems. Their quality of life is diminished, often dramatically. They are ..read more

Your inner coach #2 Last week I introduced you to your three inner coaches. One of them deals with the high level organization and management of your training. The second one deals with the narrative that goes on in your mind all the time you’re awake. The third one will deal with the micro control ..read more

Building your inner coaches Realizing your full potential as a lifter will be greatly enhanced by developing your internal mental skills that enable you to perform at your best. This is not positive attitude or motivation. This is using your mental capacity to organize and manage your best physical performance. IMHO There are three Inner ..read more

Recovery: When You Make all the Gains There is an underappreciated quote from the legendary coach Dan John: Lifting heavy weights will not make you strong. Lifting heavy weights and recovering will make you very strong. Probably 98% of all the content in power training text, videos and podcasts focuses on doing the work of ..read more

A Forgotten Training Approach that can Build Big Strength Anyone remember static contractions? A quarter century ago these were mildly popular. However, like many training techniques that produce significant results but require unusual types of effort, it was largely abandoned. Gym rats (and almost everyone else) prefer to work in their familiar zone. This is ..read more

Meaningful Data on Your Workouts Powerlifting is all about numbers. But numbers alone don’t mean anything unless they’re related to some significant purpose you are trying to achieve. Many of us keep detailed data on our workouts. It is important that the data we keep has some real meaning in terms of making progress toward ..read more

Preventing Lower Back Injuries With the Kettlebell Swing Preventing injuries is vastly superior to doing rehab. A huge percentage of American men will suffer from lower back problems. Depending on the source used as many as 80% of men will have a back problem at some point in their life. The most common reason for chronic lower back problems is the combination of weak abdominal muscles and tight hamstrings. This results in the spine being pulled out of alignment and pressure being put on the sciatic nerve. Other nerves may also be impacted. This condition is common among runners. It is also ra ..read more

No Brain, No Gain Having spent many years in gyms, I am consistently surprised by the number of people who work out for years and never seem to make any progress. Not changing much if you are in great condition is probably OK. However, most people who train regularly seem to do so with very little understanding of the results they can expect from what they are doing. Nobel laurate Richard Feynman wrote that he was continually amazed at the number of people who simply did things by rote. They had no apparent inclination to understand what they were doing or why. Over several decades in training ..read more