Strength Training Fundamentals

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

It’s 2026 and people are still trying to dodge deadlifts. I've heard a lot of excuses: "It's too risky," or "I'm not trying to get too big," they say. Meanwhile, I'm about to bonk someone over the head like Bam-Bam. Deadlifts work well for my caveman brain: Me lift heavy. Me drop heavy. But don’t let this simple exercise deceive you. Deadlifts are a powerhouse movement chock-full of real world benefits, and you’re leaving strength on the table when you leave deadlifts out of

Something I’m not shy about: how much burpees suck. You’re gonna get a lot of people saying that they’re the ultimate full-body workout. Let’s get real: they’re the ultimate full-body destroyer. Yeah, they increase your heart rate and work up a sweat. But what’s going on behind the scenes is a high-impact movement that’s rough on your knees, wrist, shoulders, and spine when you don’t have the form down pat (which is a lot of people because it’s multiple core-reliant movements

If your pull ups look like you’re trying to launch yourself into orbit, I’m staging an intervention. You know the look. Legs kicking, hips snapping, shoulders doing whatever they can to keep up. It's called kipping. I also call it a shortcut...a shortcut to wrecking your joints. Approaching maximum intensity and exertion in a workout is great. Love it. What I do not love is watching a herky-jerky vertical dance just for the sake of getting more reps. This type of pull up is s

I still see the bench press getting treated like a relic of the past. Many people think of it as an arm exercise, but it’s a full upper body lift that builds strength, shoulder stability, tricep power, and upper back in one pattern. It also teaches how to stay tight under load while producing force, which carries over into every other barbell lift. A solid bench starts with setup, not the unrack. Here's the lowdown on solid bench press form: Lie down and build a stable base.