Main Blog RSS feed

Most 5/3/1 PDFs online are outdated scans missing entire chapters. Here's what's actually in the official paperbacks — and why the details matter for getting the program right.

For those of you who live in the cold and the snow, conditioning can become a chore in the winter.  But if you have access to a treadmill and a weight vest here are two very simple, but not easy, conditioning challenges.

It's not an attack on your work ethic or your manhood to repeat cycles (or back up). In fact, if you do have to lighten your Training Max, I'd recommend staying at that lighter TM for one cycle longer than you think. 

If you've been on the forum for a few minutes, you've heard the term "Raise the floor, not the ceiling". This is a folksy way of reminding you to build a base of training before you worry about your 1RM or anything similar. Too many of us don't spend enough time training consistently and yet we believe we are "owed" strength. Your current effort level affords you exactly what you've earned.  Here's a couple ideas/examples that will support the idea 

At this point, I realized that Weak Point training is for for people who were strong.  A “weak point” meant that I had a “strong point.” And because I had no strong points, I had ZERO weak points.  EVERYTHING was weak.   I made the ultimate mistake – I thought I was too good for basic training.

A more blatant and obvious example is someone who is very overweight and out of shape - his program can't be what Sammy SixPack has been doing for the past 5 years.

There is no "ONE WAY" to condition; every couple of years, a new study/fad comes out. First it was jogging, then H.I.I.T., then all Zone 1 and then it was all about Zone 2.

Listen, you have a screwed up schedule and you have a lot of things going on in your life. It's not perfect. Nothing is. But....you still have the chance to be awesome if you accept what you have access to and totally believe in what you are doing. Train hard and be consistent and stop searching for something you can't do. Be awesome at what you CAN do.

As always, there is a balance between strength and building size. But if you aren't eating/training to build muscle - and your bench/press is in the dumper and has been for awhile - maybe it's time to build some muscle on the body and see if that gets you over the hump.

The question is about weight training for a marathon; the athlete has not run a marathon before but does have lifting experience.  Even if you don't want to run a marathon but would like to get back into running, this programming concept can get you there.

I've been sitting on this one awhile. I sat down and mapped out a very general program for myself (if it were me training a marathon). Also, this fit into some of the recommendations I had with some sprinters at London and how they should train.

Super proud of how aggressive we played (it was 21-0 in the first quarter) and how we never lifted our boot from their throat.  Most important was our unrelenting effort and desire to punish the opponent. We threw 2 passes.

Keep in mind that I'm NOT training him to become a scholarship or anything like that. I'm training him like this because this should be the standard in anyone's life.

The popularity of the bench press needs no introduction – it’s the Prom King, captain of the football team and is banging the hottest cheerleader. Besides questions on accessory work, the bench press and how to increase it is the top question I get asked. But anytime I give advice to someone they respond with a host of reasons why it won’t work for them. So let’s present some of the best ways to increase your bench press, the excuses and then responses to the excuses.

So we had some fun with the bench press this week. Here's how we switched it up.