Coaching and Programming

If you've been strength training long enough, you may have heard people throw around the term "back-off sets". It sounds technical but it's actually super simple. I'm here to explain what back-off sets are and how to incorporate them properly into your strength training. Back-off sets come after your main lift. Think of them as the work you do after your heaviest effort for the day. For example, if your goal is to hit a heavy single on a squat, deadlift, or bench press, that

The holiday season is upon us. From Halloween to New Year's Day, someone decides they’re gonna stay perfect through the holidays. The most wonderful time of the year and they’re determined to treat themselves like Scrooge. Strict macros. Ramping up their training program. Stone-cold discipline. We can already predict how this will turn out for most people. The resolve breaks down fast. That extra helping of Gran’s Thanksgiving casserole turns into a few too many beers during

Being a college student and trying to get stronger is already enough without the noise. Between classes, late nights, random schedules, and whatever else is going on, the last thing you need is a new training philosophy every week from someone on your phone telling you that everything you’re doing is outdated. Strength training does not require constant reinvention. It requires repetition. You pick a plan that makes sense for your lifestyle, then you stick with it long enough

You’re busy. I get it. Work, kids, extracurriculars, errands, repeat. But here’s the truth: if you’re running on fumes, you’re not doing yourself any favors by skipping workouts. Strength training as a parent does not look like a perfect schedule, a clean routine, or a carefully curated fitness plan pulled from social media. It looks like limited time, interrupted days, and training squeezed in wherever it fits. A lot of what you see online in the fitness community ignores t

Coming back to strength training after time off is where a lot of lifters make things harder than they need to be. You think you're able to jump right back in as if the break never happened. I've tweaked enough muscles doing this myself to know that this isn't the way to go. Your strength doesn't disappear when you step away from your training for a bit, but what does happen is your sense of timing, coordination, and familiarity with the bar is lessened. You haven't been goin

Exercise selection gets overcomplicated fast. A lot of people treat exercise selection like the Konami Code of training. There's not an exact combination of movements to unlock perfect programming. But that doesn’t mean you just throw random exercises together and hope for the best either. The truth about exercise selection is pretty straightforward. Every exercise you pick should do one of a few things well. Build strength in a movement pattern, target a weak area, or suppor