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Programming

3 Simple Ways to Classify Your Unilateral Exercises

As trainers and coaches, we love to classify our exercises. We have our quad dominant and hip dominant lifts. We have horizontal and vertical pressing and pulling. And of course, we’ve got elbow flexion and extension, because we have to find a way to make arm training sound sophisticated, right? But when it comes to […]

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Online Coaching: Past, Present and Future

Online coaching (or online personal training) is something that I’ve done since 2006. And to be quite honest, I kind of fell into the whole thing. I was writing fairly regularly for T-nation at the time, and an avid reader named Mark (who lived in Japan) reached out to see if I could write training […]

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The 4×15 Athletic Workout for Busy People

Fact #1: We are all busy today. Fact #2: Fact #1 is probably not going to change. Fact #3: Even if we accept Fact #1 and Fact #2, we still need to find ways to get great training sessions in. For many years, I struggled with the concept of the “perfect” workout. If I didn’t have […]

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6 Tips for Writing Better Conditioning Programs

The year is 2012. One of my favorite athletes of all time, Kathryn Voelker, had just gotten a soccer scholarship to play at Purdue in the fall. Life was grand – except it wasn’t. KDawg had struggled with conditioning her entire career. Here was a girl that had some pace and explosiveness, and could do […]

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4 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 […]

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5 Tips for Writing Better Gen Pop Programs

Note from MR: Todd Bumgardner and Chris Merritt are two guys I truly respect in our industry. Not only are the life-long learners, but they’re also guys who simply “get” the training process. In this article, Todd is going to give you some fantastic ideas on how to write better gen pop programs. And while […]

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Training 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 […]

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4 1/2 Ways to Reintroduce POWER to Your Training Program

As athletes, we all know that power is the name of the game. Sure strength is important, but at the end of the day, being strong isn’t enough. It’s being able to express that strength as quickly as possible that’s truly important. The unfortunate thing is a lot of athletes aren’t training power correctly. Or […]

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6 Ways to Improve My Training Programs

I have one simple goal in life: To get better every day. Now keep in mind – I said it was a simple goal. But definitely not an easy one 🙂 And while this goal applies in all areas of my life, it’s really evident when it comes to my coaching and programming. I have […]

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Periodization for the Everyday Athlete

If you’re over the age of 30, chances are you realize you can’t train like you used to. Back in the day, you could go four, five, or six days week for 90 minutes to two hours in the gym with no problem. But now, things are a bit different. You’ve got real, live sh*t to […]

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5 Updates to My In-Season Training

I’ve been doing this physical preparation thing for 16 years now, and it’s safe to say I’ve learned a thing or two along the way. While I’ve always spent more time coaching athletes in their off-season, the past three years have provided a new challenge: Keeping athletes fit, healthy and strong over the course of […]

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5 Steps to Building Better Athletes

Today I’m giving you the goods. Not that I ever really hold back, but today, I want to give you something that will make a profound impact on how you train your athletes. As my good friend Joe Kenn says: The days of taking a kid and putting a bar on his back Day 1 […]

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4 Ways to Upgrade Your Programming and Coaching

As coaches and trainers, we’re constantly looking for tools to make us better. Maybe it’s a new style of programming. Maybe it’s a new exercise you’ve heard a lot about. And maybe it’s  coaching and cuing one of our big-bang exercises in a slightly different way. The bottom line is that we coaches will leave […]

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5 Things I Wish Someone Would’ve Told Me About Coaching

In the summer of 2000, my life changed forever. I thought I wanted to do something in fitness, and the thought of being a personal trainer or strength coach sounded pretty darn cool. Problem was, I’d coached/trained less than 10 people in my entire life! (I had, however, become an absolute ninja assassin in the […]

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5 Qualities EVERY Athlete Should Train

Building an athlete requires building multiple physical qualities. When I first started in this industry, I took a lot of pride in the fact that I was “strength and conditioning coach.” But I think in many cases, we took the title “strength and conditioning” a little bit too literally. And if we’re being totally honest […]

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