Imagine a staircase that never descends. Each step is a demand — a training session, a deadline, an argument, a notification, a decision, another night of bad sleep. You keep climbing because that’s what the staircase asks you to do. There is no landing. No place to sit. The steps just keep going up until they don’t. Until the staircase ends abruptly at the edge of a cliff. Most people don’t know they’re approaching it. Any coach worth listening to understands the basic trans

We are not a series of isolated systems. The skeletal system is not separate from the muscular. The muscular system is not separate from the nervous. The nervous system is not separate from the immune. They are complementary pieces of a larger organism. One system may be its own entity, but it is essentially worthless without the others. This should be obvious. But, for some, it isn’t. Somewhere along the way, the fitness and performance industry convinced itself that the bes

Roughly 7% of high school athletes play any college sport. Less than 2% make a Division-1 Team. 1% or less receive full scholarships. Your kid can be good — very good — and still not be that. Pouring money into year-round club sports doesn’t change the math. It just makes the injury more expensive.

Balance is the most overused word in self-improvement. Work-life balance. Balanced training. A balanced approach. It sounds reasonable. It’s also a trap. The idea that we can give equal attention to everything and somehow excel is a pleasant fiction. Spin enough plates and they all come down. Not dramatically. Slowly. One wobble at a time until you’re standing in a pile of mediocrity wondering where the effort went. Excellence doesn’t come from moderation. It comes from commi

There's an old painting of three men standing around a vat of vinegar. Each takes a sip. One is disgusted. One is bitter. The third smiles. The third one gets it. The vinegar doesn't change. The experience does. Life is sour. It's supposed to be. The man who smiles isn't pretending otherwise. He's tasting the same thing and choosing not to fight it. Most people spend their energy fighting the vinegar. I coach sprinters. On any given day the work is monotonous, uncomfortable,

Tempo Purists be damned. Sprinters need an aerobic base. I learned this lesson the hard way. Sprints are alactic and glycolytic events. No energy system works in isolation. The aerobic system underwrites the others — ATP resynthesis, recovery between reps, recovery between sessions. Ignore it and the work above it suffers. This is why extensive tempo lives on every low-CNS day, year-round. Not seasonal. Architectural. Charlie Francis built his career on the high/low split, an

A well-executed snatch or clean and jerk is impressive. The work and discipline required to perform either at a high level is real. None of that makes them necessary. Olympic lifts are sold on triple extension. But this pattern isn't exclusive to the Olys. It's trained with jump shrug, a broad jump, medicine ball throws, kettlebell swings, hang pulls, and a host of other lifts and exercises. All of them train the ankle, knee, and hip extension coaches keep insisting only the

Lactate Why everyone seems to attribute muscle soreness to lactic acid is beyond me. Lactic acid does not cause the burn. It does not cause soreness. It is not a waste product. We've known these things for decades, but somehow these misunderstandings refuses to die. Let's discuss what's actually happening. At rest, the aerobic system covers energy demand. When demand outpaces what oxygen can fund, the glycolytic system steps in. It breaks down blood glucose and muscle glycoge

Training programs typically focus on highly intensive efforts, and rightfully so. Cellular change is impossible without adequate stress,...

An athlete’s diet is extremely important to performance. Plant-based diets have experienced a surge in popularity lately, but is a vegan...

What is the goal of a strength and conditioning program? Several coaches and athletes would say their goal is to make the athlete bigger...