The Strength Athlete

The Strength Athlete The Strength Athlete is a powerlifting coaching service designed to promote and advocate participati

12/26/2025

Here at The Strength Athlete, we LOVE paused work and chances are it’s somewhere in your program.

It’s useful for nearly every powerlifter because it’s:

* Self Limiting- this means that even at RPE 10, if you’re doing the movement correctly, you won’t be able to load your max on its competition counter part. With fatigue management being a cornerstone of programming, this is a great way to build it into the program even in the case of overshoots.

* Specific- In fact, it’s about as specific as you can get without doing the competition movement itself.

* A great opportunity to slow things down and focus on technique fixes and technique repeatability

Some great insight from : Technique is an aspect of training that receives a great deal of attention in powerlifting, an...
11/04/2021

Some great insight from :
Technique is an aspect of training that receives a great deal of attention in powerlifting, and for good reason. First and foremost, certain technique is required for competitions, for example, hitting depth on squats or foot positioning on bench. Good technique sometimes means being the most beneficial for hypertrophy. Many of us have been taught that good technique is a the primary means of avoiding injury. However, our bodies are all different from one another. Our leverages and anatomy make it impossible to lift with the exact same technique. So how do we define technique? What is "good" and what is "bad"?

This question becomes even more ambiguous when we realize that people can make progress and not get injured from seemingly "bad" technique. We've all seen people who look like they're going to break their back every time they deadlift, and many recognize this as bad technique, but bad in what sense? Does it negatively impact the lifter? Or do we just find it aesthetically unappealing? We're not saying you should intentionally round your back when you deadlift, but we must recognize that not all bodies move the same way. Clearly, there is no one way to define what is proper and what isn't.

Good technique should be repeatable, efficient, feel stable, and allow room for progress. In the context of powerlifting, your technique should allow you to move as much weight as possible while avoiding any negative consequences. For example, low bar squats may be your strongest position, but it may also cause shoulder or elbow pain. We want to find ways to reduce these impacts while still moving weight efficiently. Overall, everyone moves weight a little differently and while there may be good technique for you, it is impossible to define what technique is good for everyone.

Coming soon to a strange European nightclub near you.
04/26/2021

Coming soon to a strange European nightclub near you.


Especially now, the primacy of habits in guiding behavior can’t be understated. All the behaviors of good nutrition, sho...
04/23/2020

Especially now, the primacy of habits in guiding behavior can’t be understated. All the behaviors of good nutrition, showing up, sleep schedules, tracking performance. Those are the behaviors that helped make you the athlete you are. It’s those same habits and values that carry you forward. We put this on our shirts because we believe that excellence is itself the product of your habits, the decisions you make on a regular basis ⚖️

24 weeks out from Raw Nationals, everyone! Two training cycles 👀👀
04/22/2020

24 weeks out from Raw Nationals, everyone! Two training cycles 👀👀

Here at the strength athlete we know that a lot of people are unable to train the way they normally do. That’s why we’ve...
04/01/2020

Here at the strength athlete we know that a lot of people are unable to train the way they normally do. That’s why we’ve scientifically engineered a way to train FOR you. By creating a quantum link between coach and athlete, us coaches can train in the gym (running your program, of course) and transfer all of the training adaptations to you, the athlete! The only thing left for you to do is make sure to eat right and sleep well! From the comfort of your own couch, you can be making gains as if you were sweating and grinding in the gym like normal!
We’re looking forward to training nearly 20 hours a day to serve our athletes and sacrificing our bodies and minds for you 😤❤️

Every year we get the privilege to work with a handful of athletes at some of the most prestigious meets in the world. T...
03/09/2020

Every year we get the privilege to work with a handful of athletes at some of the most prestigious meets in the world. The Arnold this year was a more intimate experience because all the competitions were in the same venue rather than being spread out. As a result we got to focus our efforts and really help athletes shine. Thanks to everyone for trusting in our guidance both on and off the platform. Your hard work makes us work harder 😤. We missed photos with a few athletes, send us photos if you have them!

Luckily for us, observational data in powerlifting is as simple as watching replays of competitions. Here, we compared d...
12/17/2019

Luckily for us, observational data in powerlifting is as simple as watching replays of competitions. Here, we compared deadlifting stance between equipped and raw, updating some work we did a few years ago. While the data set is limited, it’s pretty clear to see that equipped deadlifters by FAR choose to pull sumo.
A few years ago, we thought there was a pretty clear trend of heavier lifters pulling conventional, and lighter lifters favoring sumo. While that still seems to be the case across the male weight classes, that pattern is less noticeable in the female athletes. More data might paint a clearer picture.
Questions remain!
• Has powerlifting moved over time toward more sumo deadlifting?
• Are there regional preferences for stances? I noticed a slight trend for conventional in Scandinavian countries, but I can’t be too sure without more research
• Are there differences in percentages of lifts made with sumo and conventional?
• Do the reasons for lift failure differ between sumo and conventional? (eg. downward motion more on sumo vs grip on conventional)
• Are stronger lifters generally sumo or conventional?
• Are there male vs. female preferences?
Looking over this, I found more questions than I answered, but that’s half the fun. Comment below and let us know what you think about these questions!

One might wonder whether powerlifting itself, or sports similar to it, are uniquely prone to higher experience of burnou...
11/01/2019

One might wonder whether powerlifting itself, or sports similar to it, are uniquely prone to higher experience of burnout. After all, there's very little variation in training difficulty (most workouts have session RPEs ranging from 6-9), generally very little training-to-competition variation (training looks a lot like competition), no structured offseason (athletes can compete at even intervals throughout the year and as often as they like). Especially with the increasing demands of modern training approaches that favor high training volumes, we may see an increase in rates of burnout mirroring the increase in competitiveness in other sports. Further, as an individual sport, the lack of social support during the training practice removes a common coping mechanism during difficult times--leaning on the support of other teammates.
As a result, powerlifting athletes might experience bouts of staleness--a severe outcome resulting from an imbalance between the total stressors and total recovery, largely determined by the overall capacity of the individual. While overtraining has since been refined in the literature to underperformance syndrome, athletes' experience of extended periods of insufficient recovery to training adaptations is still experienced by a broad number of athletes.
While we don’t have much directly on inter-sport comparisons, what we do have sheds some light on powerlifting. In one study, elite adolescent athletes involved in highly technical, endurance, aesthetic or weight-dependent sports are higher at risk for burnout. Powerlifting is both highly technical and weight-dependent and, depending on the athlete, also has aesthetic components.
Another study showed a reduced sense of accomplishment and sport devaluation in triathletes versus cyclists or runners alone. This might be because of the need to train three disciplines which might result in greater feelings of stress. Sound familiar to powerlifting, anyone?
From the preliminary findings thus far, powerlifting athletes may do well to intersperse periods of varied session RPE, slightly more formalized off seasons, and larger differences in the training for competition vs other periods

You might be wondering how big of a problem burnout is across athletic populations. While the research here is mixed, he...
10/31/2019

You might be wondering how big of a problem burnout is across athletic populations. While the research here is mixed, here’s a survey of some of the findings:
Using the Shirom-Meladed Burnout Measure (SMBM) with a clinically validated cutoff score, about 1 in 8 (12.5%) junior elite German athletes experienced clinical burnout.
Other studies showed a range of 1-5% of athletes, but showed that generalizing these numbers may be difficult because of problems in sample sizes. As previously mentioned, the prevalence of burnout may be on the rise, due to the changing nature of sport. (Eklund & cresswell, 2007; Gould and Dieffenbach, 2002; Gustafsson, Kentta, Hassmen & Lundqvist, 2007)
A different group of studies shows numbers of less than 10% in elite or college-level athletes. (Dubuc-Charbonneau, Durand-Bush, and Forneris, 2014; Hodge, Lonesdale, & Ng, 2008)
While one study showed that men experience significantly higher rates of burnout than women, another study showed the opposite. Results of gender on risk for burnout are therefore mixed and more research needs to be done.
It is noted that older athletes are less prone to burnout than younger athletes, possibly due to coping strategies in older athletes from greater experience. This may not necessarily be true and more a result of a survivorship bias. By the time older athletes are studied, many athletes have likely already dropped out of sport because of burnout or other reasons. The athletes that remain are likely to be less burnt out.

Back for more antecedents to burnout, lucky us!COACHES:Given the integral role of the coach in guiding the individual or...
10/30/2019

Back for more antecedents to burnout, lucky us!
COACHES:
Given the integral role of the coach in guiding the individual or team, in being part instructor and part leader and role model, coaches can play an important role in potential for athlete burnout. It is the case that burned out coaches provide less instruction, attention, and empathy for their athletes, decreasing the coping resources for athletes under stress.
PRESSURE: Coaches can also provide unwanted pressure. It is part of a coaches’ responsibility to drive athletes forward and encourage them to be their best selves. However, unrelenting and insensitive drive to progress or perform without empathy creates undue pressure on athletes, resulting in a sense of entrapment, fear of failure, and symptoms of burnout.
QUALITY: Athletes must feel like they can be honest in a trusting, mutual, empathic, goal-directed relationship with their coach, with positive reinforcement, technical instruction, and respect. "Controlling coaching behaviors, such as coach negative conditional regard, controlling use of rewards, and excessive personal control, indirectly influenced motivation through athlete perfectionism, and motivation in turn affected athlete burnout.”
LAISSEZ-FAIRE: A hands-off and detached approach, especially where such an attitude didn't exist before can reduce athlete motivation by way of relatedness and thereby symptoms of burnout.
LEADERSHIP: Coaching style is related to the psychological needs of the athlete. Therefore, the controlling style of coaching undermines intrinsic motivation and therefore facilitates burnout. Additionally, autonomy-supportive coaching styles increase sense of accomplishment.
SOCIAL PRESSURE: Some athletes are more prone to feeling that pressure from others negatively affects their performance and even their desire to pursue sport, especially when love, closeness, or attention are conditionally provided. “If you win, then I will love you or accept you.”
PERFECTIONISM: While **striving** for perfection actually longitudinally decreased burnout, athletes who became overly concerned with avoiding mistakes and overly critical when they made mistakes ↑ burnout.

With how complex and individual the athlete experience is, it’s no surprise that some of the things that happen *before*...
10/29/2019

With how complex and individual the athlete experience is, it’s no surprise that some of the things that happen *before* an athlete experiences burnout are so varied. It’s not just elite level athletes that experience burnout, so it’s also true that the experience of burnout can be categorized as relating to stress, training-related concerns, social factors, and mental character traits…things that ALL athletes face.
Of these, chronic stress is viewed as the single most important antecedent for burnout, and moreover that physical exhaustion should be seen as the core component of burnout. Other interviewed and surveyed athletes shared the following concerns:
- sport and money hassles: trouble affording coaching, travel, competitive equipment, meet fees, etc.
- work and school demands: increasing responsibilities in studying, class time, or pressure in a work setting
- perceived stress: outside of how impactful actual stressors are, the perception of stress makes all the difference.
- negative performance demands: interpersonal conflicts with team members or coaches
While training stress itself plays a role in increased risk for burnout, there is no direct link between training volume and burnout. It may be more about the amount of time spent engaging in sport or sport-related activities, rather than the amount of acute training volume or time spent performing practice. More research needs to be done to elucidate the effects of training intensity and other training-specific features and their role in burnout. With regard to training-related factors:
- excessive training stress: high levels of training which are compounded over little to no offseason or down time. In fact, prevalence of burnout may be on the rise due to increased training loads and mounting pressure in elite sports. This is due in part from the now year-round nature of sport participation at high level that used to be more seasonal in nature. With blurred lines between in-season and out-of-season, athletes are doing more to prepare themselves for performance at the highest level.
- lack of recovery: [continued in comments]

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