He shifts his weight, each time swaying his shoulders as to not stand square with the man standing in front of him. His eyes scan up as he speaks and catches the coach’s eye for only a second before ... Continue Reading
Revamp Your Training for Long Term Success
I was scrolling through my Instagram feed yesterday, violating my rule to not mindlessly look through social media, when I saw a familiar figure. The plates stacked on the end of the barbell collar blocked ... Continue Reading
Ideal Body Weight is a Deceptive Goal
When people begin a weight loss journey, it makes sense that they place a heavy emphasis on the number they see on the scale. It's easy to measure, it's easy to track, and it makes it very salient whether ... Continue Reading
Are You Squat Dominant or Deadlift Dominant? Know Your Strengths
How do you know if you’re squat dominant or deadlift dominant? It’s not an exact science—some bodies are just better designed to squat than to deadlift and vice versa—but if your back squat is more ... Continue Reading
Everything You Need to Know to Compete in the New CrossFit Open
The CrossFit Open 2020 starts in October 2019. It's a new set of rules and a new look for CrossFit, and frankly, it might be a little confusing, and I have been doing the Open at all levels since 2011. So, ... Continue Reading
The Keys to Upper Body Strength Training for Women
In the age of becoming more and more gender-neutral, I still respect biology. And biology has shown me in a decade of coaching fitness that women have a harder time gaining upper body strength than men. ... Continue Reading
Stop Taking BCAAs If You Want the Benefits of Fasting
That’s right, BCAAs (branched chain amino acids) are ranked high as one of the most commonly “incorrectly” prescribed supplement for fasting. But have any of the bro scientists ever given you a good ... Continue Reading
The Relationship Between Injury and Back Pain: Neutral Spine Versus Flexion
As someone who has sustained two major back injuries early in my lifting career, I’ve become highly engaged in the current research on back pain and treatment/prevention protocols. Through this process of ... Continue Reading
5 Single Arm Strength Exercises to Improve Imbalance
You’re doing a max bench press and the barbell starts to move on a bit of a diagonal. You can’t hide anymore. One of your arms is stronger than the other. Left-right muscle imbalances are incredibly ... Continue Reading
Partner Up on Manual Resistance DB Flyes
The limitation of many dumbbell (DB) isolation exercises is the fact that the resistance profile of the exercises does not match up to the muscle’s strength curve. This is especially the case in flye ... Continue Reading
5 Ways That CrossFit May Never Get Fixed
Image courtesy of Bev Childress of Fort Worth, Texas Image courtesy of Bev Childress of Fort Worth, Texas Full Disclosure: I am and will forever be appreciative for what CrossFit and ... Continue Reading
The Pros and Cons of Intuitive Eating and Body Composition
Many who begin a diet do so with the desire to improve their body composition. Unfortunately, the available data on dietary success is rather daunting, and with failure rates estimated from roughly 85-95% ... Continue Reading
Is the GHD Still Useful?
There was a time GHDs (glute-ham developers) were used in 10,000 CrossFit gyms around the world—predominantly for GHD sit-ups, a movement that demands that you go into massive spinal extension before ... Continue Reading
The Benefits of Side Lying Dumbbell Reverse Flyes
If I surveyed 100 meatheads and asked them, “what is the best exercise for the rear delts?” 99 of them would answer “reverse flyes.” The seated reverse flye is the most common exercise used to ... Continue Reading
Side Lying Dumbbell Reverse Flyes
If I surveyed 100 meatheads and asked them, “what is the best exercise for the rear delts?” 99 of them would answer “reverse flyes.” The seated reverse flye is the most common exercise used to target the ... Continue Reading
Include Rotational Movements In Your Training
Life isn’t linear. Nor is it perfectly controlled—neither are sports. In both life and sport, we rotate, we reach, we turn, and we spin. Yet in the gym, we often focus entirely on moving linearly ... Continue Reading
Arousal Management: The Science Behind Getting Mad at the Bar
We have all heard our training partners tell us to "get mad at the bar" when egging us on to make ever-bigger lifts. It works. Indeed, in order to get the most out of ourselves physically, we must get our ... Continue Reading
Why Are You Chasing PRs and Personal Bests?
Welcome to Ego Lifting 101 this is your bro coach speaking. Social media never fails to astound us with the tomfoolery that demonstrates the fitness community's finest lifters. Instagram is riddled with ... Continue Reading
Lateral Movement Training
If you have ever played a sport—unless your sport was rowing—you probably appreciate the ability to move laterally, meaning the ability to effectively move sideways. Yet our training often doesn’t ... Continue Reading
Diversify Your Training Portfolio
As an aspiring professional bodybuilder, entering the area of Chinese weightlifting in some regard is foreign. Why would a bodybuilder train two times daily for two weeks without bodybuilding training ... Continue Reading
Is Training to Failure Right for You?
I’ll bet you’ve heard of training to failure. It’s popular in the always do more attitude that’s seeped into the strength and fitness communities. This style of training usually makes the mind wander to ... Continue Reading
The Best Tool For Overall Health
It is tough to figure out exactly what and how much to eat when you embark on a workout or weight loss plan. There is so much conflicting information online and so many different diets around. Having a ... Continue Reading
Bulletproof Your Bum
It’s a great time in the world, isn’t it? A time where we seem to appreciate a little heft in the bum more than ever. Whether we were moving in that direction already or not—or whether Baby Got Back ... Continue Reading
Lack of Sleep Is Killing Your Body Composition
If you’ve been pursuing an aesthetic physique for any measure of time you’ve likely heard how important it is to dial in your training and diet. Although these are critical aspects, one topic that doesn’t ... Continue Reading
