One of the interns at my sport performance training and research center, Athletic Lab started his internship the week I left NC to take over as the fitness coach for the Vancouver Whitecaps. While the mentorship continued in my absence, we weren't able to have the daily professional dialogue that goes on all the time at Athletic Lab between staff and interns. When I was back in NC last month, he [...]

Fitness is great, but performance is a lot more interesting. I would rather see a WL Championship than see a Tae Bo class on youtube. The Olympic lifts are getting some popularity for good reason, as they are time tested. I use them with some athletes and have no bias either way if I use them or not. Pulling form blocks or from the floor, whatever is best. Do we need more exercises? Are the new ex [...]

You can't do this or you must do that. Don't listen to absolutes. I was appalled when I read one prominent consultant share his opinion that swimmers should not do olympic lifts like it was gospel. His evidence was "it was documented the power clean caused the back problem". Well my documentation shares a boatload of olympic gold medalists and world records by those who have used bars and bump [...]

I am a casual fan of the sport of Weightlifting, as it's a requirement, not a crime like it is with some "strength and conditioning" circles, to be explosive. Currently the World Championships are underway and I felt a quick post was necessary. It's easy to attack cross-fit or John Broz from afar, but without people putting down the work on the platform everyday, a major modality erodes from t [...]

The so called experts say that the reason we all have poor posture is because we sit and drive too much. This is a lie, because when Grog the cavemen decided to sit on a tree stump instead of the ground, chairs have been used for a very long time. The Book The Posture of School Children is about 100 years old and talks about "corrective" methods because of poor posture. Number one solution? Get [...]

I wanted to make sure readers could take another look at Matt Delaney's article because it really hits home the truth of why many people can't perform the olympic lifts properly. I keep learning every year and went form modest knowledge to being involved in sports science research on the lifts now. I don't know the secrets, but it's good to work backwards and see people who do get great result [...]

I was going to use "Death to Corrective Exericise" but that was used before, so I will raise the stakes. While I do believe in corrective exercise so I will again not speak in absolutes. One important factor to look at before we start adding additional "stuff" is to look at the reason why something is not working in the first place. Sometimes a body by birth or surgery needs a little extra som [...]

A member of my Olympic Weightlifting training group at Athletic Lab recently shared a video with me that I thought might be useful for those of you interested in the Olympic lifts, training for sport, and resistance training in general. The video is in Russian but has some great exercises and training means and methods. It requires the Silverlight application so make sure you have it if you can't [...]

Les Simonton did a nice job sharing his construction guide to making Jerk Boxes. We need more open sharing like this in order to raise the bar. Many schools and organizations have in-house carpenters and electricians, and it's possible to save thousands of dollars while building better equipment with good documentation. You can build a double frame (read twice as thick) box set for both jerks and [...]

Harry Aikines-Aryeetey's 170kg clean video was impressive, and good questions were asked about the emphasis on such raw power in the weights vs perhaps actual running focus. With his 200m time and 60m time having a disparity, the real question is when or if he will go sub 10 and improve his speed and speed endurance. The real question is how much resources does one have to developing power throug [...]