Twenty years ago, strength training was considered taboo for martial artists. Today, it is gaining in popularity, despite the fact that it is rarely carried out in a rational manner. Due to strong influences from the world of bodybuilding, most martial artists are only getting half the potential benefit that strength training has to offer.

Video article today! Learn some of the illusions about olympic lifting technique and execution. This is an eye-opener if you have some preconceived notions about how O-lifts should be done!

Knee problems of varying descriptions are as common as five pound plates in gyms and health clubs throughout the world. Anyone who has recently experienced knee surgery will attest to their awareness of this fact, as they quickly begin to notice legions of zipper-like knee scars among their gymgoing peers...

Whenever you perform a "workout," there are a number of possible objectives that you might be trying to achieve. You might wish to become stronger, faster, more flexible, more agile, more muscular, or a better technician in your chosen sport. You might be rehabiliting an injury or "prehabbing" to avoid a future injury. You might even use a workout as a stress-buster after a hectic day at work. But of all the possible outcomes you might be seeking, burning calories is the easiest.

In this article, I'd like to present video taken of my talk at the 2008 Staley Training Annual Summit in Scottsdale, AZ...."Making The Switch From Exerciser To Athlete In Six Easy Steps." Regular physical training is a prerequisite for a happy, healthy, successful, productive life. Thinking like an athlete is the key to removing your self-imposed obstacles toward better fitness and physical functioning...

Got something a little different for you this week! I've put together 5 sport-specific questions that I've received along with my answers to those questions. If you're a coach or athlete, this is really informative stuff that can really help you improve performance.

It's probably safe to say that virtually anyone who has worked out for more than two or three years has experienced shoulder pain at one time or another. More than any other joint, the shoulder seems particularly prone to injury, both chronic and acute.

As an athlete, there’s nothing you can do about your genetic inheritance, but there’s always room for improvement when it comes to your training methods. Particularly, it’s important to identify and correct the most significant error you’re making, because resolving this error has the most potential to improve your athletic performance...

In my experience, "paralysis by analysis" is the most common barrier to action, and by extension, successful action. Because after all, analysis is the preface to action- it isn't action itself. Analysis can certainly serve a useful purpose, but for many, it's both a crutch and an excuse for delaying action...

Question: If you train and eat exactly like Dorian Yates, can you expect to develop an identical physique? The question is rhetorical, obviously. And while genetics is usually blamed for lack of progress, it's not that simple. Your genes are just one aspect of what makes you different from everyone else. But more on that later...

If I were to isolate three motor qualities that nearly everyone could use more of, they'd be...

Do some people-watching at the gym during your next workout. At first glance, it may seem that people have very little in common when it comes to their exercise habits and techniques. But upon closer inspection, you might notice that they have two things in common...

Whether or not they realize it on a conscious level, the majority of people who lift weights for bodybuilding purposes regard fatigue as the primary goal of training. This has always struck me as odd and unproductive, yet all the current trends in modern exercise culture support my premise. In fact, two of the most popular exercise trends today, Tae Bo and Body Pump, are superb examples...

Durante unas charlas recientes en Bellaria Italia, se expuso un tema que refleja lo que yo considero un problema en términos del modo en que la mayoría de la gente piensa acerca del entrenamiento de sobrecarga. En particular, durante una discusión en una mesa redonda sobre entrenamiento EDT, recibí numerosas preguntas acerca del denominado "correcto" número de series, reps, pausa, etc., etc., para los entrenamientos EDT.

Although people engage in fitness and sports activities for various reasons, the fact remains that they are inherently physical activities. So whether you exercise for stress reduction, weight loss, or sport, it makes sense to train in a manner which is consistent with accepted training principles and methodologies...

Do you think that motivation is a fundamental issue when it comes to successful exercise or athletic training programs?

I don’t. In fact, I KNOW it isn’t!

How can I say this? Easily, often, without hesitation, and with supreme confidence.

What qualities, attributes, or behaviors should you be focusing on in your training? Are they the attributes that you truly prioritize, or maybe not? This article is about a system I've created to get you to do the right things in training- it's a way to make deliberate practice more palatable. I call it the PR Model, and it's based on a simple behavior modification system that's so effective, it's prominently highlighted in nearly every major religion: punishment and reward...

Whenever you perform a workout, you're exposing your body to a challenge- a form of stress. In order to describe and quantify the character and extent of that stress, we use the phrase "loading parameters." I'd like to share a few thought about loading parameters…

Recently, through the work of popular fitness movements such as CrossFit and its many imitators, the previously unexplored concept of randomized training has received a significant amount of popularity throughout the fitness community. This popularity is not without reason- randomized workouts have significant benefits, but like all approaches, random training also has its drawbacks...

Perhaps the most common oversight made by bodybuilders and other athletes is failing to consider the risks of day-to-day, non-training activities. Typically, most trainees will be very careful about their form when exercising (which comprises at most, 20% of all activities in any one given day) yet totally ignore the potential consequences of other activities which make up a much greater portion of our lives...

There are many excuses commonly used to explain lack of progress in bodybuilding. Poor genetics. Poor facilities. No motivation. Illness. Your drug supplier is incarcerated. The list goes on and on. However, the most common excuse for chronic ectomorphy is also one of the lamest— "I don't have enough time."

The majority of competitive athletes compete in events where a variety of motor qualities must be developed to a great degree. Sports such as judo, bobsled, football, decathlon, boxing, highland games, and nordic skiing (to name only a few) require liberal amounts of absolute strength, power, anaerobic strength endurance, and often, muscular hypertrophy as well...

I know, I know, I've written about this a lot. But the subject is deserving of ongoing discussion. After all, periodization is frustrating- on the face of it, the premise is both compelling and logical. Dig a little deeper though, and the problems become evident.

One of the societal trends that I enjoy observing is our instinctual distrust of technology. This trend encompasses nearly every segment of society, but today, I'd like to discuss technophobia from a fitness/nutrition standpoint:

I’ve put together several sample circuits for different objectives such as maximal strength development, lean mass gain, and explosive strength development. Please use these examples as templates from which you can create your own solutions, rather than viewing them as the "Holy Grail" of CT. In other words, when I point the way, you shouldn’t be looking at my finger!

When I teach acute training parameters in seminars across the USA, a very common question regards which exercise to do first, second, third, etc., in any given workout. Traditional wisdom says to do whatever exercise is most important first, since fatigue accumulates over the course of the workout. While I agree, there is a much more refined way to address the problem of accumulating fatigue, and it’s called circuit training...

Your mental climate during workouts is one of the most significant factors (if not the most significant factor) that will determine the level of success you'll experience from that workout. What follows are my favorite tricks and tactics for more productive gym sessions:

Although most athletic skills and events depend upon a variety of physical qualities, speed strength (also called power) certainly rates among the most important. Whenever you need to accelerate yourself (as in running, cycling, swimming, skating, or skiing), an external object (such as a ball, a barbell, a javelin, or another person), or both (such as pushing a bobsled or driving through an opposing lineman in football), your ability to generate force with speed will be a primary determinant of your success...

The ability to squat safely and effectively is an important arrow in the lifter's quiver- properly performed, squats dramatically improve your strength, power, mobility, lean bodymass, and as my friend Father John Peck might add, a big squat also improves your "gym cred." The downside? Only one: if you're long of limb, they can be difficult to master. Here then, are 7 tips that have served me well in my 20+ years of teaching the squat:

Although many anaerobic athletes often eschew the concept of endurance training altogether, in fact, ALL athletes must have the capacity to endure their event(s), no matter how brief or long that might be...

Too many people unnecessarily avoid power cleans because (unlike other lifts) they wrongly tend to assume that any minor technical error they make will result in catastrophic injury. Are you one of these people? Do you just assume that cleans are only for "advanced" lifters and that you have no business attempting them?

Look, if you're young, healthy, and stupid, you can skip the warm-up- for now. But if you've got a few miles on that chassis and you're not yet ready for replacement parts...

Despite what many people think, the road to the top isn't usually linear. It's not simply a matter of adding more weight every workout until one day, you wake up looking like a comic book super hero. nstead, the path which leads to the fulfillment of your ultimate potential looks much more like a maze.

After watching Phil Stevens playing around (if you call 405x20 "playing around") with this exercise during his regular workouts at Bed & Barbell, I decided to give this unusual drill a shot recently while I was in a knee-rehab phase.

What's nice about the exercise is that it's a great way to train full trunk/hip-extension, with significant loads, while keeping stress off the knees.

During a golf clinic I recently attended, the instructor told us: "If there's one thing I'd like you to come away with today it's that 'every ball counts.'"

That's very sound advice for any golfer looking to lower his score, and it also made me think of parallels to lifting...

The notion of "training to failure" is perhaps one of the most revered practices in the modern bodybuilder's "toolbox." But interestingly, this training method seems unique to bodybuilding.

In other iron sports, such as Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting, and throwing, athletes develop enormous levels of muscle mass without training to failure, at least not in the way that most bodybuilders would define it...

Last week we examined the challenges many of us face when trying to apply the three bedrock principles (progressive overload, variability, and specificity) to your training.

This week, I'd like to challenge you to explore your personal "system" of training, and more specifically, I'd like you to take an assessment of your personal "Values" as pertains to training. In other words, what's your "Training O.S.?"

Last week we explored the general rationale behind having a protocol -- a proactive procedure to keep yourself on track when problems arise in your training.

And trust me, we all have problems to overcome. I'd even go so far as to say that the most successful athletes are those who most effectively manage their bad workouts -- not those who simply have great intensity and consistency when things are going well...

A few weeks ago I was having dinner at our local Outback, when I overheard the following in the booth behind me:

"My trainer says that if you eat too much protein, it'll turn to fat."

Did you catch that? And if someone posed that suggestion to you, how would you respond? This is a great exercise in logic, so let's look at it for a second...First, is it possible to get fat by eating too much protein?

If not, this might be great timing for you…please read on. If you haven't been to our discussion forum lately (http://www.TeamStaley.com), you'll certainly notice some significant changes- we've got a new look and (more germane to this article) a new name: Charles Staley's Athletic Dominance Protocol...

Recently one of our forum members made a casual comment regarding Charles Poliquin's Pull-up recommendations. That comment sparked a recollection about Poliquin's statement, so I did a little digging, and eventually found his statement regarding women and pull-ups...

Like all fields of human endeavor, bodybuilding has accumulated a vast collection of maxims— brief encapsulations of truth which are intended to serve as memorable (and often humorous) reminders of the proper way of doing things. So, I thought I’d take a look at some of these time-worn exonerations and see if these "kernels of truth" are worth their weight, or better left unsaid...

Here I present three methods which, when used consistently, will help you spend less time in the gym while getting better results at the same time. Only applied knowledge is power, so don’t just read, but apply!...

I wrote this when the BMI index began making the news. It struck me that the BMI actually discourages training— see if you agree. The BMI is designed to replace the old height/weight charts created by health insurance companies. But the question remains, what is the accuracy, not to mention, the utility, of the BMI?

After years of training and consulting to competitive martial artists, I’ve compiled a list of the ten most common errors (all of which I’ve made myself at one time or another) that martial artists make when embarking upon strength training programs...

In the first installment of this articleI outlined the fundamental components of training big. As the saying goes however, your training is only as good as your ability to recover from it. That's where big eating and big sleeping come in.

If you've heard the expression "eat big, train big, sleep big" before, you've already been exposed to the key components of all successful mass-gaining programs. If you've taken this advice to heart and acted in it, you've already experienced the synergistic power of reprogramming your metabolism. If you haven't tasted the Kool-Aid yet, what are you waiting for?

Last article we discussed a number of common fallacies about ab training, including belt use, diet, and force production. This week I'll continue with more little-known facts about your elusive six-pack.