Not every training session needs to leave you destroyed to be a GREAT session As kids, we're like sponges. We absorb what we see, hear, and experience. The way we learn to train when we're young can shape our relationship with exercise for the rest of our lives. If all we're taught is that a good workout means sweating, throwing up, or pushing ourselves until our legs are shaking uncontrollably, we're setting ourselves up for failure. Why? Because this isn't the relationship

Whether you’re a high school runner preparing to compete in college, a collegiate athlete chasing a PR, or an adult who simply loves to run, your strength training should have one primary goal: Make you a better runner, not a more tired one. Running already gives your body a lot of what it needs. My job as a strength coach is to identify what running doesn't give you and fill those gaps. Running is a lot of single-leg work Think about what happens every time you run. You la

Conditioning can seem complicated when we start talking about the ATP-PC system, glycolysis, aerobic metabolism, lactate, VO₂ max, and all the other terminology that comes with energy systems. But you don't need to overcomplicate it. At its core, conditioning is about manipulating intensity and duration to emphasize the energy system you want to train. And before we go any further, remember: All of your energy systems are always working. You don't completely shut one system o

Every year, athletes return to campus and suddenly the goal becomes: More running. More lifting. More conditioning. All with no direction or proper progression. As if the purpose of preseason is to see how much an athlete can tolerate before the season starts. I think we should look at it differently. The goal of preseason is to prepare athletes to PERFORM. Not to survive training. Not to make them as sore as possible. Perform. Your athletes are not necessarily “out of shape”

“Chest up.” “Brace.” “Knees out.” “Push through the floor.” “Control it.” “Breathe.” “Stay tight.” “Drive through the ground.” At some point, we have to ask ourselves… Are we actually helping the athlete, or are we just talking? One of the biggest mistakes I see coaches make is giving an athlete too many cues at once. And the thing is, the cues might all be correct. But if you give an athlete five different things to think about while they’re trying to perform a movement,

If you’re constantly feeling “tight,” your first instinct might be to stretch. You stretch your hips. You stretch your hamstrings. You stretch your shoulders. And maybe you feel better for a little while, but the tightness keeps coming back. So what if you don’t actually need to stretch more? Sometimes, that feeling of tightness isn’t a lack of flexibility. It may be a lack of strength and control. Strength Training Can Be Your Mobility Training Mobility isn’t just about how

ACL injuries are often discussed as if they’re random or unavoidable. But when you look at the research, patterns emerge. Female athletes experience ACL injuries at significantly higher rates than males. Depending on the study, this difference is commonly reported as approximately 2–8 times higher risk (Arendt & Dick, 1995; Agel et al., 2005). The important question is not if the risk exists, but why. The answer is not one factor. It is a combination of anatomy, hormonal infl

The benefits and common misconceptions about youth strength training