Exercise guides

Rowers are a super common piece of exercise equipment these days. You can find them everywhere from CrossFit gyms to your corner rec center. Whether you’re a rowing machine fan or foe, knowing how to use one properly just adds to your fitness arsenal. Are you getting...

Squats are a hot topic in the strength and conditioning world, and that fact isn’t going away any time soon. With so many resources out there on squatting, how does a novice know where to start? Cory Caruthers is a trainer and ACSM certified Exercise Physiologist...

Your hamstrings can be easy to ignore since they’re just “back there”, but strong hamstrings are the foundation for a meaty and symmetrical posterior chain. Neglect them to your peril. Aja Campbell is a CSCS/CrossFit Coach with a decade of fitness experience. She’s...

We know deadlifts help make up the meat and potatoes of posterior chain training, but there are so many underutilized ways to pick something up from the ground. How do you know which variation to work on for maximum strength gains? Daniel Yalowitz has a background of...

Back squats and deadlifts get the most exposure as top posterior chain builders, but what if you have imbalances or a weaker side? Split squats are the perfect underrated movement for working on unilateral strength and size gains. Coach Ryan Johnston (MS, CSCS, USAW2)...

Your power clean capacity says a lot about your weightlifting technique—speed, explosiveness, timing—it’s all there. What should you be focusing on to dial in your power clean skills and claim beast status? Justin Barchus, owner and head coach at Kraken Strength out...

Your back squat is the hallmark of your lower body strength. But what if your stiff tissues and junky joints don’t let you access a deep squat range of motion? Jason Giles, owner of Iron Monkey Strength out of New York, has a lifetime of passionate dedication to...

Pull ups are your nemesis. Maybe you haven’t really tried working on them yet, because where do you even start?? Gym Jones head coach and certified bad b*tch, Cate Williams, leads you through her tactics for nailing the most-requested movement in the gym: pull ups....

Pandemic isolation was a real test of our ability to adapt to a weird new workout situation. Maybe you’re still trying to figure out just how best to use the equipment you’ve got. Sari Terranova is a total supermom, CPT, and nutrition coach who introduces women and...

Short shorts are the new stinger tanks...rocking those big tree trunks with canyon deep cuts is a look that works on everyone! Leg extensions are a bodybuilding staple—they isolate your quads, the front-facing muscle group of your thighs, by flexing (bending) and...

Face pulls are an uncommon pulling exercise that bodybuilders use to shape thick, meaty back muscles and healthy shoulders. Though it sounds like a weird skincare routine or something a toddler would do to get your attention, face pulls train your ability to handle...

Your glutes are the largest muscle group in your body. They’re responsible for almost everything your legs do—walking, running, jumping, squatting, lunging, and just standing upright. As far as moving through space goes, strong glutes are the bedrock of overall...

It sounds like some kind of crazy dance move, but the Russian twist is actually a useful core exercise that challenges more than just your abs. It’s a good staple for accessory work and useful to shake up your normal routine of situps and leg lifts, which only work...

Josh Bryant, owner of the hugely popular Jailhouse Strong programs, is an absolute badass in his own right. He specializes in powerlifting, powerbuilding, and coaching strength athletes to record-setting numbers. In this blog, he outlines the most reliable ways to...

There’s nothing like a bodyweight calisthenic movement to put you in your place athletically.  Coaches often see a recurring issue with some populations of lower-body-dominant athletes who favor squats, deadlifts, and other barbell movements that use their strongest...

Of all the myriad ways to squat, there’s one variation you could probably stand to do more often: front squats.Set your leg workouts on fire with the front squatFront squats challenge your body to balance weight across your shoulders (front delts) instead of behind...

Massive overhead strength is a hefty goal to chase. Since it’s one of the more difficult aspects of strength to develop, holding a fat stack of plates overhead always looks impressive, feels epic, and establishes dominance over your enemies.Master the Push Press for...

Having a strong back translates to a ton of functional movements, but it generally means you can pick heavy things up off the floor. There are two main ways to do this: a deadlift or a row.Add Bent-Over Rows to Your Back Workouts for Serious SizeDeadlifts and clean...

One of the first movements a quality coach assesses for a new personal training client is the most basic movement in all of human physiology: the air squat. Get Good Squat Mechanics for LifeThe squat is a full-body functional movement that translates to necessary,...

Arguably the most grueling, efficient, functional full-body movement and the biggest middle finger to gravity is the thruster. Like burpees, thrusters are a very polarizing exercise—you either love them, hate them, love to hate them, or some combination of all three....

Handstands are a gymnastic staple, but unless you took to gymnastics as a kid, they’re not easy to learn. Holding a freestanding handstand for just one minute can take years to perfect, but even the less gymnastically-inclined athlete can learn to do handstand push...

It’s the simplest variation of the clean and jerk. It’s also arguably the easiest place to start when dipping your toes into the Olympic weightlifting pool: the power clean.  Get Faster & Stronger Under the BarPower cleans are one of the few technical lifts seen...

From a mechanical standpoint, how can you make picking something up off the floor more challenging? An obvious answer is to increase the load—a less obvious answer is to make the floor farther away. Enter: the deficit deadlift.  Deficit deadlifts are often programmed...

Of all the myriad ways to squat, goblet squats are the best for beginners and most useful if you’re dealing with injuries. They can also help improve your hip-hinge movement patterns and absolutely blow up your posterior chain if you’re into that. (We know you...

One of the most advanced gymnastics skills is now regularly taught in CrossFit classes: the muscle up. You can do them on a pull up bar or gymnastics rings; you can do them strict or with a heaving full-body kip. That is, if you can do them at all. A guide to the bar...

Romanian deadlifts (RDLs) are a totally underrated pulling movement that hit your glutes and hamstrings in the best way. Sometimes called stiff-leg deadlifts or straight-leg deadlifts, RDLs are an athlete’s best friend for building the kind of posterior chain that...

If you’ve ever attempted high volume Bulgarian split squats, you know how heart-poundingly nasty they can be. The combination of hip hinging and stabilization under load is a brutal use of your legs, glutes, and central nervous system. Master the best single-leg squat...

We already know that the snatch is one of the most technical movements in the world of weightlifting. It combines more elements of athletics into one movement than almost any other lift: speed, coordination, strength, flexibility, power, balance, accuracy…Let's get ...

Named after the iconic Governator himself, the Arnold press adds elements of rotation and muscle fatigue to the standard dumbbell press. It’s perfect for upper body training days and an excellent accessory piece to aid in your quest for massive big-girl boulder...

Ahh, bicep curls—the target of fit culture hater-ade since the dawn of the bro sesh. If you’re not into bodybuilding, curls seem like the ultimate useless isolation movement for the sole purpose of growing big arms and a bigger ego (à la Gaston).  Bicep workouts are...

Author: Lily Frei

Planks are a core staple, but let’s face it—they’re boring. And for some people, they’re too easy. If you fall into that second camp, we’ve dug up some advanced plank variations to get your core working harder.

Why is the overhead squat so hard?Ask any coach worth their salt what the most challenging weight-bearing movement is for mobility and they’ll probably say overhead squats. If you want to get specific, a double kettlebell overhead squat or a close-grip overhead squat....

Author: Lily Frei

Everyone knows the secret to big, bulging chesticles is a strong bench press. Or at least, no one with huge bench numbers has a small chest. But your standard flat bench isn’t the only way to build chest strength. In fact, if you’re leaving out a variety of forward pressing movements, you could have some holes in your fitness or physique game.

How and why to do sumo deadlifts, plus technique for training a massively strong sumo pullPicking up something off the ground is a mechanically essential skill for humans on planet Earth. Deadlifting is considered the best test of strength for this skill, and one of...

I have a secret weapon exercise that will get us really close; it has a lot of bang for its buck. It builds massive quads, big glutes, a wide back, and some awesome biceps. Exactly what every athlete needs.