Posts categorized in:
Lifting Technique
Should You Squat Tall Athletes?
One thing that truly bothers me about our industry is black and white statements, all-encompassing statements. If you look at it from a global view, everything we do is a shade of gray – there are rarely “good” or “bad” things to do. So when the following post came up last week on Instagram, I […]
Continue Reading4 Squat Variations You Should Try ASAP
A few weeks back, someone on Instagram asked me the following question: “Why would you want to load your quads on a squat?” Now I did my best to contain myself, but let me tell you – it wasn’t easy. If you want to know why squatting is a good thing, or why we should […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Snatch Grip RDL
As I’ve mentioned numerous times in the past, I’m pretty vanilla as a coach. I want to teach my athletes to squat, hinge, push, and pull – but I want them to do so with impeccable technique. But just because I’m vanilla, doesn’t mean I’m unwilling to change. Case and point – I’m a huge […]
Continue ReadingTraining the Overhead Athlete (and Meathead)
Note from MR: I’m slooooowwwwwwllllyyyyyyy recovering from the Physical Prep Summit this weekend, but I wanted to make sure I got some fresh content to you ASAP. Tony Gentilcore is a guy I’ve known for years, and it’s been cool to watch him grow and evolve. In today’s post, he’s going to give you the […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Simple Step-up Progression
Step-ups are an incredibly common exercise, regardless of your goal. Whether you want to build muscle, lose body fat, or improve your athleticism, a step-up variation can help you achieve any of those goals. Being such a common exercise, it’s also one that I get questions about all the time. Should I keep my foot […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Reaching vs. Rounding
In my opinion, reaching is one of the most important things we can incorporate into our programming. Whether it’s driving the rib cage back, opening up the back side of the body, or repositioning the abs and getting them into a more ideal position, every client I train is going to work on reaching. But […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Low Box Reverse Lunge
Split-squats and lunges are two one of my go-to moves when it comes to training my athletes. Don’t believe me? Just check out all of these articles I’ve written on the split-squat alone! But just because I love an exercise doesn’t mean I’m not willing to change things up – especially if it makes it […]
Continue Reading5 Mistakes You Are Making with Olympic Lifts
Note from MR: So needless to say, I’ve got quite a few irons in the fire right now. Yesterday I had a 7-hour video shoot with STACK.com. This week is nutty as I’ve got approximately 1,087 things going on. And oh yeah – our Physical Preparation Summit is coming up fast. So when Wil Fleming […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Hip Postion on 2-KB Front Squats
I’m a huge fan of 2-kettlebell front squats. In fact, with a lot of my athletes that I may only have in for a short period of time, it’s my go-to squatting progression. Not only can you load it up fairly quickly, but it’s almost impossible to screw up. Almost. As with most lifts, the […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Floor Coming UP on Squats
If you’ve followed my site for any extended period of time, you know that my thoughts on the squat have changed pretty drastically over the years. As a powerlifter, my goal was to hoist as much weight as possible, by any means possible. So low bar, wide stance, bent-over torso squattin’ was all fine and […]
Continue ReadingPhysical Preparation with Tony Gentilcore
Tony Gentilcore is one of the co-founders of Cressey Sports Performance and worked there as a coach from 2007-2015. He now runs his own studio in Boston called CORE where he still trains athletes and general population clients from all walks of life. I originally met Tony all all the way back in 2006, and […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: The Plate Squat
Anyone who is serious about training likes to squat. Well, let’s be honest – it’s probably more of a love-hate relationship. Maybe a better way to put it is that everyone who is serious about training respects the squat. But this leads us to a big question: How do you teach someone to squat safely, […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: The Crossover Step-up
If you’ve been training for any extended period of time, you’re familiar with the step-up. The step-up is a fantastic exercise for many reasons: It builds single-leg stability and control, It can help iron out side-to-side strength imbalances, and It’s a functional, real-world movement. Like most weight room lifts, however, the step-up is very sagittal […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: The Sprinter Step-up
Step-ups are one of my favorite single-leg exercises. (Well if we’re being transparent, I think of them as pseudo single-leg exercises. But I’ll discuss that more in the EADS 3.0 videos coming soon!) There are numerous benefits to the step-up over similar exercises: It leads with a concentric (versus eccentric) movement. You can easily adjust […]
Continue ReadingRTS Coaching: Push-up to Downward Dog
We’ve focused a lot on the push-up in recent weeks (and in case you missed it, you see what I mean here, here, here, and the big push-up article here). With all of this focus on coaching and cuing, something I wanted to throw in this week was one of my favorite push-up variations of […]
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