Grip is something in strength training called a limiting factor. For example, you can have the back strength to deadlift 600 lbs, but if your grip can't hold the weight, then you're limited to what those ... Continue Reading
6 Serious Battle Rope Circuits to Build Your Core and Shoulders
Ah, battle ropes. The simultaneous dread and delight of all my personal training clients — and me! While they may look all innocent, laying there on the ground waiting for a badass like you to pick them ... Continue Reading
5 Kettlebell Circuits That Will Maximize Your Endurance
So you’re a lifter who needs to boost your endurance because you’ve realized that when you’re grinding out that last rep, it helps to have a killer cardio system backing you up. Or you’re an endurance ... Continue Reading
6 Steps for Walking Out Perfect Squats From a Professional Powerlifter
When it comes to squatting technique, you can find a ton of information about everything from foot placement to the head positioning and all the stuff in between. But one of the more overlooked ... Continue Reading
Improve Muscle Mass, Technique, and Mental Toughness With 1 1/2 Reps
If you're on the never-ending quest of improving your training cycles, then you may want to look into adding 1 1/2 reps to your training toolbox. In my opinion, the best training tools are the ones that ... Continue Reading
4 Exercises Everyone Can Use to Improve Mobility, Durability, and Recovery
From the top level professional athletes to young children in P.E., for one reason or another most of us enjoy the adrenaline rush and positive feedback associated with training hard and ramping up the ... Continue Reading
Annie Thorisdottir’s Five Favorite Tips for Mastering Pistol Squats
When CrossFit Open Workout 20.4 was announced last week, people were surprised to see pistol squats earning a debut in this year's Open. Pistol squats, or single-leg squats are a body-weight ... Continue Reading
How Tempo Work Helped Me Push Through a Plateau
Retiring from being a competitive CrossFit athlete is different than moving on from any other sport. When I quit gymnastics, I stopped practicing beam routines. Cold turkey. When I retired from ... Continue Reading
Muscle Fiber Found In Elite Powerlifter Is 22% Larger Than a Rhino’s
Where do the upper limits for strength and size exist? We're in an interesting time in the world of fitness and strength sports. The popularity of lifting and competing in strength sports continues to ... Continue Reading
The Ultimate Beginner Pull-Up Guide (4-Weeks to Your First Rep!)
The pull-up could be referred to as a milestone exercise. The ability to successfully lift one's chin over a pull-up bar from a dead hang position is incredibly self-empowering. For true ... Continue Reading
The Best Powerbuilding Guide and Program (Brought to You by Gravitus)
Powerbuilding, a relatively new and trendy buzzword in strength training, is continuing to grow in popularity due to the principles that most powerbuilding programs aim to accomplish: (1) get stronger, ... Continue Reading
World Record Holder Blaine Sumner Explains His Chicken Shake Diet
Chicken, rice, egg whites, spinach, olive oil, water. No salt, no spices. This is the 1,000-calorie shake that Blaine Sumner drinks eight times a day. And look, the man has the International ... Continue Reading
How Should the Shins Be Positioned In the Deadlift?
Shin angle in the deadlift often gets overlooked, but it's incredibly important for success. The deadlift, like every other compound lift, is the culmination of multiple joint angles working with ... Continue Reading
3 Reasons Why Bicep Curls Are Good for Your Shoulders
It’s the one exercise everybody knows about when they’re a gym newbie: the biceps curl and all its variations. This exercise is in our DNA. Nobody taught you how to do them. But when you enter the gym, ... Continue Reading
7 Steps for Nailing the Perfect Squat (Feat 2-Time IPF World Champion Taylor Atwood)
There's a lot that goes into a great squat. The un-rack, walkout, descent, and ascent all need to be perfectly aligned to move efficiently under a loaded bar. An important lesson to learn under ... Continue Reading
Weight Over Bar Guide: How-To, Benefits, and Programming Tips
Weight over bar is a classic strongman event. This event is contested in a couple different ways in strongman and Highland Games competitions. In the weight over bar event, athletes will throw an object ... Continue Reading
Will You Take the BarBend Kettlebell Swing Challenge? (Max Reps!)
The kettlebell swing is one of the best fundamental movements any athlete can master. It builds strength, tests grip, and — when done for high reps — can tax your endurance in a crazy way. We ... Continue Reading
5 Ways to Improve Your Bench Press Lockout
Getting stuck in the bench press can be caused by a wide variety of issues. It can be related to strength, mechanics, muscle imbalances, and more. The bench press is like a chain of commands and if ... Continue Reading
3 Ways to Use Kettlebells for Active Recovery
If you’re like me, the idea of taking a day off from the gym is more painful than that soreness you get after some solid stiff-leg deadlifts. And on many days, even rest periods between sets get me antsy ... Continue Reading
The Ultimate Guide to Rich Froning’s Diet
On an average workout day, Rich Froning eats somewhere in the area of 200 grams of protein, 500 grams of carbs, and 100 grams of fat — between 3,500 and 4,000 calories per day. But what makes up ... Continue Reading
Study: A Healthier Gut Could Mean More Muscular Strength
Actually absorbing the nutrients in protein and calories is really key when you're looking to gain muscle. Think about it: what would be the point of drinking countless protein shakes and shoveling down ... Continue Reading
What Do Lifters Mean When They Say “Bend the Bar” In the Bench Press?
There are a ton of different cues lifters use for the bench press and one of the most popular you hear is "bend the bar," or perhaps more usefully, "separate the bar", but what exactly do they ... Continue Reading
The Definitive Guide to Picking a Powerlifting Coach
A powerlifting coach can help improve technique; develop long-term, individualized programming, provide mental skills and strategies, and assist with competition preparation. The purpose of getting a ... Continue Reading
Should You Sumo Or Conventional Deadlift? (Feat 3x World Record Holder Kevin Oak)
To sumo or conventional deadlift that is the question... The sumo versus conventional deadlift is a hot topic across all lifting populations. Which should you do? Should you train both? Should their ... Continue Reading