Dear Knee Sleeves, It’s not you, it’s me. I think we have grown apart, and it’s time we stopped seeing each other. I won’t be wearing you anymore. What? Yeah, I said it. I am breaking up with my knee ... Continue Reading
The 5 Best Plyometric Exercises for Runners
The running community tends to advocate training principles from the Dark Ages. Okay, maybe not that old, but not much more recent than the 1980s. Let’s take a look at what most runners do to ... Continue Reading
How to Manage Your Conditioning Program, Part 1
Watch My Video: Optimizing Your Energy Systems Training Despite the vast complexity of the human body and the diversity of specific training goals, whether or not people achieve them is simple. In fact, ... Continue Reading
3 Tips for Developing Fine Motor Control During Childhood
Enouraging fine motor control is a critical part of raising children. Not only is fine motor control essential to daily life, but when it comes to sports, fine motor control is paramount. Just a ... Continue Reading
You Can Out-Exercise a Bad Diet and Lose Fat
Conventional wisdom suggests you cannot out-exercise a bad diet to achieve fat loss. That simply means if you eat like crap, you can't combat that calorie hoarding with an exercise counterpoint. On ... Continue Reading
A Self-Help Guide for Members of the Short Hamstring Club
Are your hamstrings the bane of your athletic existence? Or even worse, do you find hamstring tightness or pain interferes with your daily activities? If so, you're not alone. Research suggests ... Continue Reading
Use Old-School BJJ Moves to Keep Your Opponents Guessing
Recently, a video of a baseball choke made its way onto my social media feed. It had a great setup from the bottom, and I shared it with a training partner to see if we could drill it. I had actually been ... Continue Reading
Yogic Anatomy: Mapping the Mind-Body Connection
With the exception of a few subcultures, the western way slants heavily toward what the eastern yogic traditions would label gross (or physical) level awareness. From the time we’re born, we are educated ... Continue Reading
Beyond the Bar Path: Reinforcing Movement Patterns in Weightlifting
We held our first ever movement pattern seminar at Takano Athletics just recently. It turned out extremely well as the attendees were exposed to something that was a new and different concept to many of ... Continue Reading
The Difference Between Age and Maturation in Youth Weightlifters
Over the last few decades, there has been a trend to begin the training of children at ever-younger ages. This was pointed out most dramatically in 1982 when a fifteen-year-old Naum Suleymanoglu set not ... Continue Reading
Successful Pull Ups for Beginners: Say No to Bands
I have a rule when working with new athletes on pull ups. I ask them to “just say no” to bands. Bands are much like drugs in that once a person gets hooked, it is difficult to get them off. You may ... Continue Reading
Sleep to Win: How Your Mattress Could Be Affecting Your Training
Any time I’ve felt pain in my body over the past six years, I’ve blamed Brazilian jiu jitsu. Bearing the weight of people who are at least fifty pounds heavier than I am in every roll can take its toll on ... Continue Reading
What Separates a CrossFit Coach From a Weightlifting Coach?
There is a train of thought in the worlds of art and music that before you can break the rules, you must first learn the rules. If you want to smack paint all over the canvas like Jackson Pollock (right), ... Continue Reading
Train Barefoot to Increase Your Lifts and Avoid Injury
If you’re reading this, I know you’re into fitness. You like learning how to improve yourself and your training. You probably train your chest, your hips, your back and all the other major muscle groups. ... Continue Reading
5 Ways to Improve Your Defense and Win More Fights
"The best fighters hit the most and get hit the least." - Rocky Marciano There’s an adage in boxing that the best defense is to not get hit. Being a proficient defender is the key part of not getting ... Continue Reading
Post-Competition Reflections (Athlete Journal 10)
With my last competition of the season in the books, it’s now time to reflect on this meet in order to improve before my next trip to the platform. Looking Back This was my first year powerlifting, ... Continue Reading
Strongman Profile: Siegmund Klein Teaches Us a Different Way to Squat
Siegmund Klein was a famous all-around old-time strongman. He was well regarded for his physique and posing skills. In addition to being strong with barbells and other weights, he was accomplished at hand ... Continue Reading
30 Minutes of Exercise Per Week Improved Health in Overweight Clients
One of the most common objections trainers and coaches have to face with their clients is that there isn’t enough time. In a recent PLOS ONE study, researchers examined whether or not a short exercise ... Continue Reading
Healing Time Can Be Learning Time (Athlete Journal 60)
I had to take it easy this week because of a few injuries, but I’m hoping to be back 100% by next week. Time to Heal I acquired some injuries while competing at the Goodfight two weeks ago. I ... Continue Reading
The Power of Positive Skill Transfer (Athlete Journal 116)
As I mention below, after about two years of not doing a snatch, I hit 85% of my all-time best result this week. How is this possible? Positive Transfer The answer is that I’ve benefitted from what’s known ... Continue Reading
Maximize Performance Through Controlling Your Arousal Level
Have you ever been really excited about an event or training session and found that then things went really well? This phenomenon was examined as long ago as 1908 and resulted in the classical ... Continue Reading
How to Prepare for Success in Your First Triathlon
I first got interested in triathlon way back when I was finishing high school. That year, Dave Scott and Mark Allen raced in the infamous Iron War race. They battled shoulder-to-shoulder for nearly the ... Continue Reading
Lack of Food Might Make You Better at Making Decisions
Many people who have used intermittent fasting and other hunger-inducing dietary strategies have noticed some interesting effects. Many of these claims may even seem counterintuitive, such as more energy ... Continue Reading
High Tops Are Ruining Your Kids’ Feet and Knees
High-tops were originally intended for basketball players to help prevent injuries from sudden stops and quick turns. But the high-top shoe has become popular and fashionable in mainstream society, ... Continue Reading
