Powerlifting

The pin press is one of the most honest exercises in the gym. You press the bar off pins set in the rack, from a complete dead stop, with no bounce and no stretch reflex to help you. It exposes exactly how strong you are at a given height and then builds that strength. What…

The Spoto press looks simple and humbles almost everyone the first time they try it. You stop the bar just short of your chest, hold it, and press from a dead stop in midair. It builds control, bottom-end strength, and tightness, and it exposes any weakness you have been hiding with a bounce. How to…

When your bench dies in the top half, the board press is one of the oldest and most reliable fixes in the game. It lets you handle heavier weight through the part of the press where you are weakest, the lockout, and it teaches you to grind through that range. What a Board Press Is…

If your bench dies right off the chest, the cambered bar is one of the best tools to fix it. It is a specialty barbell built to attack the exact spot where a lot of lifters fail, the bottom of the press. Used right, it builds strength in the hardest part of the lift. What…

The bench press is the lift everyone wants to be good at and the one most lifters stall on the longest. After thirty-plus years around the platform, I can tell you the bigger bench is not built by benching harder and hoping. It is built by training the right things in the right order. Here…

Powerlifting is contested in weight classes, and where you sit can shape your whole approach to the platform. Pick the wrong class or cut it the wrong way and you can show up weak on the day that matters most. Let me walk you through choosing a class and eating to make it without wrecking…

Cutting fat as a powerlifter is a balancing act. Lose weight too fast or too carelessly and your strength goes with it. Done right, you can drop fat, hold onto nearly all your strength, and even move better for it. I have walked plenty of lifters through this without watching their numbers fall apart. Go…

More muscle has more potential to produce force. That is why most powerlifters spend part of the year deliberately building size. The trick is gaining mostly muscle instead of just getting fat and calling it a bulk. Done right, you come out the other side bigger, stronger, and still able to move. Eat in a…

Once you know which supplements are worth taking, the next questions are how much and when. The good news is that the few supplements that actually work for powerlifters are simple to dose. You do not need a complicated schedule. You need consistency. Creatine: Daily Beats Timing With creatine, the timing barely matters. What matters…

The supplement aisle is built to separate lifters from their money. Most of what sits on those shelves does nothing you can feel. But a short list of supplements has earned its place for powerlifters, backed by decades of real use under the bar. Let me cut through the noise and tell you what is…

Powerlifters spend a lot of time thinking about protein and carbs and almost no time thinking about the vitamins and minerals that let the whole system run. These are the small parts that keep your energy, your recovery, and your bones holding up under heavy iron. Miss them and you feel run down without knowing…

Hydration is the easiest thing to get right and one of the most common things lifters get wrong. A small drop in how hydrated you are can cost you strength, focus, and bar speed before you ever feel thirsty. Under heavy weight, that margin matters. Why Hydration Affects Your Strength Your muscles are mostly water.…