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Every time I teach the deadlift, a particular question comes up: whether to perform “stop reps” or “touch and go” reps during sets. As I start to answer the question, I first explain the benefits and disadvantages of each approach. I then ask a few questions: What are your goals for the deadlift? What are you […]

In the strength and conditioning world, we frequently hear that quality is more important than quantity regarding training. For those athletes who adhere to this, they find their training improves along with their performance, while they also experience a decreased risk of injury. Those who don’t follow this see their injury rates increase while their performance

On the flight home from teaching a StrongFirst Lifter certification (SFL), I was thinking about the programming section and some of our discussions. One of the questions that always gets asked is: “What about assistance exercises?” My answer is simple—until you have spent at least a year working on the movements that we taught at

When creating the StrongFirst Lifting (SFL) Manual as well as the accompanying SFL Barbell Certificati, we developed standards for the five tests administered at the SFL. These standards are based on the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) and the USA Powerlifting (USAPL)’s “Rules of Performance.” Some of the SFL standards are identical to theirs and some

The very definition of a lift is moving load upwards against gravity; but what goes up must come down. If you’re only paying attention to one half of every squat, deadlift, and press, you’re missing out on a heap of strength and stability, and likely setting yourself up for injury down the road. It’s time

When Pavel and I wrote the SFL Manual back in 2012-2013, we decided to build it on top of what is taught at the SFG Level I Certification. Namely, the swing, get-up, goblet squat, and the arm bar.  This article attempts to say more than just how to do them, but why you did them.