Wrist wraps are a useful piece of equipment to own. While they aren’t going to add gobs of pounds to your total, they can make a useful difference on each and every lift. They’re allowed by most federations’ rules, so you may as well take advantage of them. In terms of what you’re looking for in… Read More »
Before we get started, I’d like to say that I drew heavily from the concepts I learned in Starting Strength to create this material. While Starting Strengthis not a book about powerlifting, it contains more than 300 pages of biomechanical analysis directly relevant to the powerlifts. If you grasp this knowledge, you will begin to… Read More »
I’ve mentioned this at the beginning of every article in this series and I’ll continue to do so here: I drew heavily from Starting Strength to create this material. If you enjoy biomechanical analysis, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Starting Strength. There is literally no other book in existence that… Read More »
I have to make it abundantly clear that many of the biomechanical principles and physics applications in this article are derived from Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. If you enjoy discussions on leverage and optimizing technique, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of the book. Of the three powerlifts, the conventional version of the… Read More »
If you weren’t aware by now, a lot of the concepts in this Powerlifting Technique series were distilled directly from Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. While I’ll do my best to convey these complex topics in stream-lined article form, if you find yourself wanting more, note that Starting Strength contains 300+ pages of this type of… Read More »
Mark Rippetoe just released the third edition of Practical Programming for Strength Training. As a Starting Strength advocate, and a certified Starting Strength coach, frankly, buying and reading this book was a no brainer. If you just want to know my overall recommendations, skip ahead to the bottom. Admittedly, this is a very long review, if… Read More »
I don’t care if I sound like a broken record: the principles used to create the optimized powerlifting bench press technique in this article were distilled from Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. If you find yourself enjoying this type of analysis, you’ll love Starting Strength. Do yourself a favor and snag a copy of the book..… Read More »
In today’s day and age where nearly every single phone has a video camera built-in, you have no excuse not to be recording your workouts. If you get your training on video, it will benefit you in a myriad of ways. Let’s address some of the most important reasons you should be filming all of… Read More »
Many of the core, foundational biomechanical principles discussed in this article were gleaned from Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. Though the book is not about powerlifting per se, it contains over 300 pages of discussion on how to apply classical mechanics to the powerlifts. I highly recommend getting a copy of the book if you consider… Read More »
As far as I am aware of, there is only one book in existence that analyzes lifting from a framework of biomechanics and classical physics: Mark Rippetoe’s Starting Strength. Though the book is focused on general strength techniques, the powerful powerlifting optimizations contained in this article were distilled from principles found in Rippetoe’s book. If… Read More »
In Powerlifting, athletes often select their technique in one of two ways: a) they simply “do what works for them” (what is most comfortable, usually) or b) they copy great lifters. While both of these methods have their merits, unless you get lucky, both tend to cause more problems than they solve. In this article,… Read More »
Skip to my recommendations. If you’d rather watch than read: For this installment of the Powerlifting Competition Series, we’ll be talking about how to pick the right powerlifting federation for you, personally. Powerlifting is all about numbers. Breaking one of the hallowed records of the sport represents the pinnacle of achievement for a Powerlifter. In sprinting,… Read More »
The deadlift is the simplest test of strength that exists. You throw some chalk on your hands and you see how much weight you can pick up off of the floor. Like the movement itself, the rules for the deadlift in Powerlifting are relatively simple compared to the rules for the squat and the bench.… Read More »
We all know the feeling. It’s Monday; it’s just you, your wrist wraps, the bench, the bar, and the plates. So, how much ya bench, bro? Sorry, I tried to resist, but I just couldn’t. Though the bench press is ever popular among gym-goers worldwide, of the three powerlifts, I would argue that it has… Read More »