28 Sep What Is Athleticism?
If you have a body, you are an athlete. That's according to the mega-brand Nike. Athleticism is a word you've probably heard a million times. What does it mean though? How would you define it? What exactly is "athleticism?" I've heard people say many times, "He - or she - is so athletic." So, I googled the term and here's what I came up with:
04 Sep How To Design Workouts Around 5 Basic Movements
Fundamental movements. What I want to explain is a simple concept that came from the work of the great Dan John. It's workout design based on 5 fundamental movements. If there's one coach who's had the greatest impact on me personally, it would be Dan. Since I was asked about this approach recently (thank you Brad), I'll explain how you can take this concept and put it into practice immediately. Workout design (*for the record, I much prefer to call "workouts" - training sessions, but that's another story) can be as simple as building around the 5 fundamental movement patterns.
06 Nov The Essential Guide To Farmers Walks And Loaded Carries
Loaded carries develop unrelenting strength.
The concept is simple, you pick up something heavy and go for walk.
How deceiving they are.
In addition, they’re also outstanding for conditioning, grip strength, and core strength. And, we all know that grip strength and core strength greatly contributes to full body strength. In other words, grip and core strength make us stronger, in general.
Carries also build mental toughness, strength endurance or work capacity, muscular hypertrophy, and a host of other unexplained benefits, some of which I’ll cover here.
If there’s an exercise that could probably be used in any training session, it’s the loaded carry.
03 Nov Why We Need To Be Strong (It’s More Important Than You Can Imagine)
What person desires to be physically weak? Who would refuse to feel strong and powerful in their body? And, what individual would want to potentially suffer from ill-health, diminished performance, or low confidence and self-esteem? The answer is that no individual desires any of these things. Yet, many turn...
22 May The “Gap” In Physical Therapy (Why Most Physical Therapists Don’t Understand Strength And What We Can Do About It)
I was recently talking to a top strength coach.
He was telling me about his experience at a strength seminar where he was doing a presentation for a group of physical therapists.
What he told me was that he was shocked to discover that the group of physical therapist’s had very little knowledge of barbell training - and strength training in general, for that matter.
As a former physical therapist, I was quick to point out that there was indeed an “educational gap” in the training for physical therapists (PT’s) and that I wasn’t surprised at all by his comments.
I do think the tide is changing in today’s world.
For me personally, I was a “lifter” long before I was a PT (I’ll talk more about that in a minute).
The Gap
01 Feb A Call To Strength
I don't usually write articles that are "rah-rah" or inspirational. While I definitely want to inspire you, that's typically not my bag to write the "rah-rah" type stuff. My thing is more about teaching ideas, concepts, or methods that you can walk away with and apply. Well, this article is a little different. With the release of my recent book The Edge of Strength I outlined my entire approach to training and optimizing human potential through decades of experiences. I've made mistakes, but I've also learned a lot and continue to learn every day. It was the legendary George Hackenschmidt who simply stated that “a man cannot derive real enjoyment from life unless he possesses a powerful and healthy physical constitution." I believe this to be true and this is why I wrote my book.