100 Lessons of Strength, Life, and Power

Have you ever read a book where the author spends dozens of pages expanding on various points, mostly telling you what not to do, rather the right way to do things? I have lately, and it is pretty annoying. In order to shift the balance of the performance universe a bit, I have rolled out 100 lessons I have learned in the last several years in regards to life, strength, performance, lifting, etc. etc.

I am doing this in honor of this being the 100^th article published on this site! It’s been a long ride so far, but an enjoyable one. I hope that you enjoy reading this article as much as I did writing it! It is always fun to look over your career and list some of the most important things you have learned along the way. If you have a comment, leave it at the bottom, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Here are 100 things I have learned in the past several years that I feel have made me a better coach, athlete and person.

Never be afraid to be wrong. Fear is a far greater deterrent to success than lack of skill.
Center your pressure in your feet when you squat rather than pushing through the heels. We aren’t built to move on a peg leg.
Strength training is complementary to sports.
Programs focused on strength training will offer short term results, but to win in the long term (4 years +) you must put movement in the premium spot. You still need to strength train, but you must always build your body in balance.
Listening to others is a much more valuable skill than the ability to show how much you know.
Every blind squirrel finds an acorn every once in a while. In the same vein, don’t put too much faith in a coach just because they coached one or two great athletes. Seek information from coaches who consistently turn out quality performers.
Those who we regard as “intelligent” coaches/trainers really have just worked harder in reading, researching and analyzing then other coaches. Being a good coach is not genetically determined.
Strength numbers are not everything when it comes to athletic performance. Don’t try and put a square peg into a round hole just because someone doesn’t squat 2x their bodyweight. Keep training in balance.
Keeping training “in balance” doesn’t mean that you lift the pink dumbbells in the weight room either. Get after your performance!
Beware of the anchoring bias, which means that the first way you were taught to do something is going to be the one that sticks with you the most. There is likely a better way.
Learn to teach your athletes the art of encouraging each other. Not everyone will innately do this, and it goes a long way.
You can never make an athlete in one workout, but you can break an athlete in one workout. ~Vern Gambetta
Don’t ask: “Does this work?”, ask “Is this optimal?”. There is always a better way, and it is your job to find it.
Consider the effect of personality types when looking at programs that coaches have made. Intuitive thinkers are going to see training differently than sensing feelers, but champion athletes have been coached by both.
Learn to put yourself in your athlete’s shoes.
Don’t feel the need to validate yourself as a trainer with too much fancy programming. Remember, sometimes less is more.
You can only ride the “PR train” for so long before the conductor finds you don’t have a ticket and kicks you off.
Don’t look too far into muscle typing and physiology. Spend more time looking at biomechanics and how muscles work in terms of eccentric, isometric and concentric demands.
You don’t have to deload every 3-4 weeks if you are writing your programs with a good plan.
You do need to deload at some point
Don’t stop learning. Learn something new everyday. If you can’t find something new to learn, find someone with a lot of experience and ask them questions.
If you want to get better at something, do it every day.

(#22) Years of daily purposeful practice is a common theme among most professionals
Yes, can even include squats and depth jumping.
Unfortunately, after testing #23 in real life, this only works well for about two weeks.
Not everyone who becomes an athletic beast is “on the sauce”.
In the same vein, don’t say a certain program or setup doesn’t work simply because “those athletes were on drugs”. Steroids help build muscle, but they aren’t magic.
Motivation and drive goes a long way in results. A driven athlete with a mediocre training plan will whip an unmotivated athlete on a fantastic training program, given those two athletes have the same talent level.
Not all research is going to carry over to the weight room or playing field. Untrained subjects in labs are different than real life.
On the other hand, I have become a much better coach by at least being aware of the trends in current research, particularly biomechanics and case studies.
If an athlete has been doing a movement their whole life a certain way, don’t expect to be able to change it in a week, a month, or even a year. Motor patterns are stubborn and take some work to re-wire… or better yet, write over.
Spend some time learning about other things in life than sport, such as music, philosophy, psychology, art, the universe, happiness, or whatever you are interested in.
Make your lifting and movement “core centered” rather than “neck centered”. Learn to pack your neck.
Soft tissue work is much more precise than a foam roller. Lacrosse balls, softballs, baseballs, golf balls, and a barbell might make you forget foam rollers even existed.
Master various forms of controlling tension for maximal muscle gains. Straight up and down repetitions get old after a while. Look at the upper body of gymnasts for an example of the benefits of controlling tension.
Although many sources suggest that the weight room should be slow and controlled, while speed is trained specifically through sprinting, jumping, cutting, etc. I have found that seeking speed in the weightroom during specific preparation periods is superior for developing the highest levels of power in athletes.
Girls respond better to high velocity work in the weightroom then guys do.
That “can barely walk” feeling you get after a high volume squat day isn’t your muscles torn to shreds, but rather, the dis-coordination of the nervous system. The CNS will become very uncoordinated following acute bouts of acidic shock brought from lacate.
Most athletes with poor motor control in their posterior chain will tend to lead with their head when squatting, deadlifting, etc.
If your sport relies on linear top end speed, you should be doing hip thrusts and Nordic hamstrings regularly.
Most acute overtraining for strength/power athletes revolves around psychological factors.
Put a velocity measure on your athletes in the weightroom. Timed repetitions or, if you have the resources, tendo units, are very important for speed and power gains.
Do your static stretching prior to your dynamic warmup. Do static stretching cold, and hold the stretch for 2+ minutes. Focus on the areas you are tight, not the areas you are already good at, or you may end up worse off.
Quit arguing about whether low bar vs. high bar squats are better for athletes and instead take the time to learn which muscles each squat activates and lengthens and apply that to specific situations and builds. Look at the unique mobility of each type.
Stop teaching knee lift when teaching kids to sprint, and rather focus on hip/thigh pop. Don’t overdo coaching front-side mechanics.
Quit stomping your cleans and snatches. Focus on extending through the toes. If you want a better way to train RFD off the catch, do depth jumps instead.
Most athletes need to spend a lot of time doing hip flexor/quad stretches, thoracic mobility and soft tissue work to fight off the effects of sitting on the couch.
Various glute activation exercises don’t have all that much carryover to actual running and jumping. The load is too light, and it is more important to focus on the movement pattern that got your glutes weak in the first place.
Don’t be too proud to ask questions. A high percentage of millionaire entrepreneurs actually have learning disabilities. How is this relevant? Because they had to ask for help their whole life, which translates to real world success.
Record your training progress via benchmarks such as vertical jump, 30m dash, backwards overhead shot throw, etc. It is surprising how many coaches guess their way on how training is going up through a season.

(#49) Log your workouts to track what works and what doesn’t
Speed ladders, mini-hurdles, agility courses, fancy drills, etc. are mostly a “smoke and mirrors” method of avoiding learning and teaching how a person moves in actual gameplay scenarios.
Acceleration is a quickly learned, quickly lost, and highly crucial skill in any athletic endeavor.
There are two types of people in life: Those who fix a mistake as soon as they make it, and those who forget about the mistake, move on, and do nothing to change it. Which would you rather be?
Muscle strength is the foundation of muscle endurance. How many times can you expect to bench 225 for reps if your max is only 245? Likewise, the best elite distance runners are often the fastest over 30m as well compared to their peers.
You can only train max strength for 6-8 weeks before some negative physiological and psychological factors starts to kick in for the majority of athletes.
You can maintain quite a bit of power, and even improve it, without touching max strength for quite a few months through lifting in the 60-80% range, and focusing on velocity.
Simple things such as making your bed as soon as you wake up can prime you to be more organized for the rest of your day. This is an example of a keystone habit.
Rolling your plantar fascia on a lacrosse ball goes a long way for your feet and your superficial back line.
Athletes with flat feet will benefit from learning the short foot exercise and correcting their anterior pelvic tilt.
I feel that creatine doesn’t work because it gives extra “energy” to your muscles, as research has shown that neural fatigue is a bigger deal than energy availability. Creatine works…think myostatin deregulation.
At the highest levels of sport, strength isn’t the distinguishing factor. Speed is.
When it comes to athletic movement in any direction, shin angles are the most important thing to look at.
Just because you are sore doesn’t mean you can’t get a great workout in that day. Part of training is learning to not be at 100% every day.
The morning hours are more productive than night hours. Successful people tend to wake up and get things done in the morning as opposed to those who do so at night.
The 10 bounds for distance test seems to have an extremely transfer to a broad number of track and field events.
Repeated long sprints are important for athletic development in terms of musculo-tendon stiffness.
Discipline is something that is learned and not genetic.
Faster athletes get to the big toe quicker, and push off of it harder than slower athletes. Don’t let the weight room injure your ability to do this.
When training for power, the faster you can load an athletic movement, the better. This will come more naturally to faster-twitch laden athletes.
Linear periodization is outdated. Always keep in touch with every element you seek to improve in sport.
Push the knees out when you are squatting. If you have trouble with this, work on your mobility, take a narrower stance, and elevate the heels while you get more mobile.
Don’t over-do auxiliary lifting. Most of your workout should focus on the things that will affect performance the most.
Most athletes don’t have the workout-frequency tolerance that they need to achieve their highest results.
The ability to inspire your athletes is important. If athletes don’t believe in your program, you are in trouble. If you can’t answer athlete’s questions about your program, you are also in trouble.
Endless sit-ups have been a staple of old-school bodybuilders over the years, but they aren’t a good idea for athletes. I use hip-flexion based abdominal exercises sparingly. Dead bugs are a foundation for most of the core work athletes should be doing.
Once you have read enough books, articles, and journals, most things in the world of coaching start to run together. To advance from here, you must find an expert with many years of experience who routinely coaches high performers and pick their brain.
Teach athletes how to goblet squat and hinge correctly. Do this every day you are in the weight room.
Every athlete should have an awareness of their pelvic posture.
The best jumpers get to their fore-foot much faster than poor jumpers. “Heel crashers” will never reach their vertical potential.
Weighted movements with a big range of motion are one of the best ways to build strength with mobility. One of the best ways to do this is a properly coached RFESS.
Learn the essentials of nutrient timing before you start looking around GNC for supplements.
When an agonist is relaxed in a movement, the agonist is capable of greater force production. Exercises such as oscillatory isometrics or lateral bench hops help improve this.
To build muscle size, you need a mix of low rep strength and then high rep bombing of your muscles. Doing only one or the other will cause limited gains.
You can do arm curls every day. Arms recover quickly. So do calves, triceps, and nearly any other “small” muscle in the body. I wouldn’t recommend doing them every day though if you are a tennis player or a pitcher. Probably not unless you want to be a pitcher who looks like CT Fletcher.
The human body is capable of a much higher work capacity than you think. The workout programs of elite athletes are extremely high volume in many cases.
Most athletes don’t get enough high quality work in their training program. You can’t expect to drive your car well in 6^th gear if you only practice driving it in 4^th gear.
Some athletes take a long time to recover from intense/maximal training. You must find a way to get these athletes quality work without burning them out.
Squats make an athlete fast…. for about 15-20 meters. When an athlete is in top-end speed posture, squats have a limited transfer of strength qualities.
Partial squats are great for building tension in the hips, knees, and ankles, but horrible for spinal health. When I find it necessary to go partial, I find a happy medium in 2/3 depth squats to a target.
Different training tempos can make an athlete much stronger than just going straight through a year with no tempo. You don’t want to be moving the bar slow when you want to be moving fast in season, however.
Don’t be jealous of the success of other coaches, people, or trainers. Realize that when people can’t have something, they don’t want others to have it either. I used to be like this. Don’t be one of those people.
You can be right, or you can be kind. There are times where it is OK to not win an argument.
You don’t have to always use high reps/drop sets to build muscle size, there are other ways to get the volume in such as ladders and cluster sets.
Elite performance comes from the instinctual brain, which is lightning fast. Relying on the cerebral brain (overthinking) kills fluidity.
Don’t be nice. Being nice is putting up with being mistreated to keep the peace. The world would be a better place if people would speak their mind, perhaps the #1 reason most corporate meetings are so unproductive. A delicate balance exists between this and #91.
When you get a great idea, realize you are likely not the first person to have ever come up with it.
If your knee hurts, quit spending so much time looking at the VMO and start assessing ankle and hip mobility as well as squatting mechanics.
Basic aerobic work for a power athlete will not turn them into a slow twitch machine. Light to moderate trail running can be a fantastic restorative method for any athlete.
You can learn so much about how an athlete moves by watching their shins during lifting. Athletes that squat and deadlift by pushing their shins far forward like to recruit the knee extensors more, and athletes who tend to keep their shins vertical will be more hip dominant. This doesn’t mean that either is the right way (or a good thing, if they are immobile).
The goblet squat, kettlebell swing, and kettlebell windmill are three great warmup and diagnostic tools for nearly all athletes.
Breathe through your belly, not your chest. Short, shallow breaths hurt your posture as well as your ability to recover and adapt from training stimuli.

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