Category: Training

While beginners in the weight room have a tremendous number of things to worry about, one aspect of lifting weights doesn’t seem to get talked about enough: proper breathing during weight training.   While this isn’t a make-it or break-it kind of thing for recreational lifting, proper breathing is important for high performance.  There are also some safety issues to consider.  I want to look at them all.

It’s More Important That You Breathe Than How You Breathe

While “optimal” breathing during weight training will always give the best performance, it’s far more important to breathe period.  By that I mean it’s not uncommon to see people, generally but not always beginners, holding their breath while lifting.  This is especially true in the early stages when there is so much to be thinking about already.   What muscles are being worked, how quickly to lift and lower the weight, overall form, etc.  It’s a lot to take in.… Keep Reading

Having previously examined proper technique for the Clean Style Deadlift, I want to look at two related (and often confused) movement that are somewhat related to the deadlift. Those two movements are the Romanian Deadlift (RDL) and the Stiff-legged deadlift (SLDL).  Many in the field tend to use these two terms interchangeably but they describe two somewhat similar but ultimately very different exercises.

Why is it Called a Romanian Deadlift?

Let me start with a rather pedantic note.  The RDL is often referred to more generally as a flat-backed, semi-stiff legged deadlift, a description that will make more sense after I demonstrate how it should be done.

So you ask, why do we traditionally call it The Romanian Deadlift or RDL?

As the story goes, the Romanian Olympic Lifter Nicu Vlad was seen doing the movement in the Olympic Training Hall prior to either winning a medal, setting a world record or both. … Keep Reading

Today I’m going to share a story of a trainee who was having trouble making progress in her squats and Olympic lifts. I couldn’t figure out why until a happy accident happened which ended up in her learning to jump.

Coaching is Half Science, Half Intuition and Half Luck

I think if more coaches were honest, they’d admit that most of what they’ve learned or figured out about training people came from one of two places:

1. People smarter than them.
2. Lucky accidents.

Rather than trying to appear as if they figured out the secrets of the universe (available for only 3 easy payments of $77.77) all by themselves.

As often as not, it seems like learning ‘amazing’ new things about training people is as much luck and being in the right place in the right time as anything else.  It certainly has been the case for me and this article is about one of those times.… Keep Reading

In contrast to strength training which is about increasing the ability to produce force or increase muscle growth, endurance training is aimed at improving the ability to sustain a given speed or power power output for extended periods.  Like strength performance, there are number of physiological determinants of endurance performance.

That is, while increasing the total amount of force/power is clearly important (in that it will increase speed), being able to sustain that force/power for long enough to compete well is at least as important.

In this article, I want to look at the three primary determinants of endurance performance and talk a little bit about each. I’m not going to talk about the specific determinants of each or how to train for them; this is just meant to be an overview, introductory article on the topic.

The Importance of the Aerobic Engine

Strictly speaking, any event lasting longer than about 2 minutes can be considered an endurance event. … Keep Reading