Whenever one of my lifters finishes a training block, competes in a powerlifting meet or otherwise reaches a turning point in training, I ask them the same question: What do you want to focus on next? Recently, I’ve had a lot of lifters set squat and deadlift PRs in training, but not as many bench …
5 Reasons Why Your Bench Press Might be Stalling Read More »
As I sit here with crippling delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS) from Tuesday’s squat session, I got to thinking about soreness and how it’s been misrepresented on both ends of the spectrum by coaches and trainers. One side (the no pain, no gain side) of the coaching continuum uses soreness as a form of self-validation. When …
3 Random Thoughts on Delayed-Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) Read More »
It’s important to set big goals. With performance-based activities like strength training, having a powerful long-term goal helps keep us focused and motivated. Competitions such as powerlifting meets are especially motivating because it gives your goal a specific deadline. Big goals can also be intimidating. This is a good thing. It means you’re challenging yourself. …
The majority of our lifters (myself included) train 4 days per week and follow an upper body/lower body training split. It looks something like this: Day 1: Heavy Bench PressDay 2: Heavy Squat/Light DeadliftDay 3: Light Bench PressDay 4: Light Squat/Heavy Deadlift This is a common training schedule seen in popular training programs/systems such as …
Autoregulation simply means programming in such a way to allow us to put the right weight on the bar and/or do the right number of sets and reps in reaction to how the lifter is feeling on a given day. When writing an individual training session, we strive to do a certain amount of work …
Many of my lifters have been subjects in the close grip bench press experiment. That is, using a close grip (about shoulder width) as their main bench press grip instead of their competition grip bench for an extended period of time. It’s worked tremendously well for most of them, many to the point of matching …
5 Reasons to Focus on Your Close Grip Bench Press Read More »
No matter what lift you’re training or exercise you’re doing, you’re aiming to do 1 of 3 things: Lift as heavy as possible Lift a light weight as fast as possible Lift a moderate weight for moderate-to-high reps close to muscular failure These three methods were first outlined by pioneering sports scientist Dr. Vladimir Zatsiorsky, …
Just because strength training concepts have funny names doesn’t mean they have to be complicated. One that gets thrown around a lot that seems complex but really isn’t is undulation. To put it simply, undulation means changing the sets, reps and load of a lift each time you do that lift within a certain period of …
Coaches and lifters love to argue over minutia and quibble over semantics. There’s probably some validity to every training method out there. And there’s probably some valid criticism for each one, too. Some training methods, therapies and remedies probably don’t do much good, but don’t do any harm either. And if we can agree that …
If it Doesn’t Help but it Doesn’t Hurt… it Probably Helps Read More »
When programming for the main barbell lifts, I typically prescribe either straight sets (multiple sets at the same weight/RPE, e.g., 5 sets x 5 reps @ 8 RPE) or a heavy top set with backdown sets (e.g., 1 set x 3 reps @ 9 RPE, then 2 sets x 3 reps @ 90% of top …
