During Part 1 of this series, I talked about how we start the exercise selection party with our intake testing. But, man, once you get the party started you ain’t gonna want it to stop. And to keep the party rolling, you need to know which strength exercises make the most sense for you right...Read More

There’s a silly, old Goodwrench commercial featuring Stephen Colbert. He walks around a GM Goodwrench garage interviewing the different fellas that work there in a sly effort to tout the lengths to which the company goes to improve their service. At the end of the commercial, Colbert asks a mechanic, “If Mr. Goodwrench were a...Read More

Imagine a sweaty, dirty, grimy hole-in-the-wall gym in a small town deep in the hills of Central Pennsylvania. If you know me, knock about 13 years off of my age and place a 24-year-old Todd in your mind’s eye. I’ll help you. He’s about the same size, but there’s no red beard on his face....Read More

Something’s not working. You’ve been training hard; you’ve been training consistently, but you’ve plateaued. Or worse, you haven’t made any progress. You feel like you’ve got the elements of your training in line. You’re strength training. You’re conditioning. You’ve even added mobility training to your regiment. But something isn’t right. You should be a better...Read More

I started lifting weights when I was 12 years old. Initially, my brother took me along with him to work out at a gym in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. Soon after, I hit the Juniata Valley YMCA with my middle school buddies. We’d scour the muscle magazines for the next program that guaranteed us bigger, stronger muscles....Read More

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself...Read More

The only strength training you need is heavy barbell strength training.   There are a lot of folks that live and die by that philosophy. They think that as long as they are barbell strong, and they’re training others to be barbell strong, they’ve done enough. And they’re wrong.   As much as I love...Read More

You check the clock. It seems like the numbers are slowly creeping down. You tap your foot. You look around, then you pace for a second. “Screw it, hot stuff, let’s do it,” you say to yourself. Then you grab the weights, and you do your next set. But it’s only been 30 seconds. You...Read More

Most people don’t cool down at the end of their workout. They finish up their last set, gather their things and rush into the next part of their day. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a big mistake. Cooling down is critical for getting the most out of the current workout while prepping you for...Read More

Deadlifting seems simple, right? How could you mess it up? You just bend over, grab some weight, and stand up with it. In essence, that’s true. But deadlift performance is more nuanced than it seems. While lots of shitty coaches lead you to believe deadlifting is nothing more than picking something up and putting it...Read More