Acute, catastrophic injuries resulting from weight training are thankfully, rare. For those of us with chronic, painful, “non-descript” injuries however, that fact is less than comforting. There’s nothing more frustrating than that all-too-familiar “it doesn’t hurt until I lift” pain.

Sometimes, these injuries take the form of chronic inflammatory problems such as medialepichondialitis (tennis elbow), a shoulder that clicks, low back spasm, heel pain, the list goes on and on. Often, these injuries are unnoticed during normal day to day activities, but as soon as you try to run or lift, or anything else, there it is again. This leads to the observation that weight training doesn’t cause injuries, it reveals them.

In this post I’m going to outline a training method that, more times than not, will allow you to re-establish your training without flaring up those injuries. I call it the “boil the frog” method. But first, let’s look at a few things you really should consider if the opening paragraphs of this post sound like you…

If you’re a competitive lifter, your “core” lifts are your actual competitive lifts (clean & jerk and snatch for O-lifters and squat, bench, and deadlift for powerlifters).

Historically, most lifters have tended to go intense & heavy on the core lifts, and then a bit lighter on the assistance lifts. In recent years, powerlifting maverick Louie Simmons turned the traditional paradigm upside down: his Westside charges go moderate and fast on the core lifts, and then get down to business, going super-heavy on the assistance lifts.

Here’s why this approach CAN work very well, especially for experienced lifters:

In order to experience further progress, do you need to know more, or do you need to make better use of what you already know? Don’t answer yet, just absorb that question…just let that question penetrate your brain for a moment…

Incidentally, I grew up in the martial arts tradition of Bushido, and we were always taught that knowledge doesn’t exist without action – in other words, knowledge that isn’t acted upon isn’t really knowledge at all.

Pop Quiz: What’s the main difference between you and an Olympic athlete?

Genetics? Drugs? Coaching? Facilities? Motivation?

Certainly all of these and more factor into the equation, but I’m convinced that the most significant point of difference is consistency.

Maximal strength (MxS) is defined as the maximum amount of force one can produce irrespective of time or bodyweight.

The qualifiers “time” and “bodyweight” distinguish MxS from power and relative strength, respectively.

MxS is perhaps the core quality that all individuals should be concerned with, because it’s acquisition is the fastest route to all other motor qualities, including relative-strength, speed-strength, strength-endurance, speed, and speed-endurance.

During my recent talks in Bellaria Italy, a theme developed which reflects what I consider to be a problem in the way that most people think about resistance training. In particular, during one roundtable discussion on EDT training, I fielded numerous questions about the so-called “correct” number of sets, reps, rest duration, etc., etc., for EDT workouts.

Finally, I saw the underlying problem behind the various questions I was fielding: the attendees were focusing too much on the means of optimal weight training and not enough on the ends. As I thought about it, virtually ALL resistance training systems and philosophies focus on means, often to the total exclusion of the ends…

The Brink Front Squat

The alternative grip I developed to the traditional grips used in the front squat* came from my own frustrations with this movement. Some people – including yours truly – could never get comfortable with the traditional grips used in the front squat no matter how hard they try, and thus simply don’t make progress in this exercise or simply avoid it altogether. Over the years I put serious effort into the front squat, only to get frustrated with it and drop it from my leg routines. No matter what I did, I simply could not get comfortable with the traditional grips. I came up with something that worked for me. I call it the Brink Front Squat.

The Facts About Muscle Fatigue

What actually causes muscle fatigue? It’s a build up of lactic acid right? Wrong. Readers will be interested to learn, lactic acid is not the cause of muscle fatigue, and, what actually causes muscle fatigue has been something of a mystery, which has only recently being elucidated.

As you work through the process of creating and refining your goals, don’t limit yourself to a single definition of success.

For example, a lot of guys might find themselves frustrated with a woman who embarks upon a weight-loss campaign, only to quit after several weeks, despite having succeeded by all rational measures: she looks better, her bodyfat percentage has dropped, her clothes are loose, her energy has increased, and her blood lipids have improved. Yet, because her weight has remained the same, she considers herself a failure.

Top Ten Stealth Strategies for Maximizing Your Strength Training Results

1) Never sacrifice quality for quantity. This is the first commandment for athletic success. Violate it and prepare to fail.

2) Target the weakest link. If you’re naturally strong, train for speed and/or endurance. If you’re naturally fast, train for strength.