Don’t Train the Freak Out of the Freak

by- Josh Bryant I’ve seen coaches do this forever. An athlete is really good at something, has an obvious weakness somewhere else, and pretty soon the entire program revolves around fixing it. On paper, it makes sense. But, quoting myself, you gotta bring your biggest gun to the fight. Get too hell-bent on fixing the…

Read More

Explicating Muscle Fiber Types: What’s the “Diff” Between “Slow-Twitch” and “Fast-Twitch”? by Joseph Giandonato, PhD, MBA, MS, CSCS Introduction The human body is the most sophisticated piece of machinery in nature. Comprised of an assemblage of intricate systems that work interdependently to facilitate functions and processes critical to sustaining life, the human body is irreplicable,…

Read More

Energy Systems: Comparing and Contrasting Aerobic and Anaerobic Conditioning by Joseph Giandonato, PhD, MBA, CSCS Introduction Human movement is facilitated by a torrent of chemical reactions in which stored energy is mobilized, released, and converted to mechanical work that comprises muscular contraction. Stored energy is found in two predominant forms: glycogen within muscles and the…

Read More

13 KILLERS. NO FILLERS.

by- Josh Bryant At 16, I became the night and weekend manager of a hardcore gym. I was exposed to bodybuilders, powerlifters, ex-cons, great personal trainers, terrible personal trainers, and a cast of characters ranging from an exotic dancer who was in love with a strip-club bouncer who broke a wine bottle over her head…

Read More

The Exercise Lottery

Tom Haviland is a master of the Zercher squat. Muscles don’t need to be confused. They need a reason to adapt! Somewhere along the way, muscle confusion became a training principle. Maybe the Trappist monks have it figured out better than we do. These guys have been brewing basically the same beer for generations. No…

Read More

Are You Too Old—or Just Acting Old?

by- Josh Bryant About five years ago, during the pandemic, I stopped at the Ol’ Beer-To-Go on the south side of Hugo, Oklahoma, to grab a coffee. It was hot, humid, and basically a default wet T-shirt contest. Out back was an older white guy working off his truck. His face looked like weathered canvas…

Read More

Bro Science Hall of Fame

Bro Science legend Anthony Schlegel demonstrates his unconventional approach to stadium security. Mark was a biker, landscaper and Vietnam veteran who trained at our YMCA in skin tight jeans and a wife beater. When he wasn’t telling war stories about Vietnam, he loved talking about bodybuilding. A lot of people called him white trash behind…

Read More

You Built the Strength. Don’t Blow It on Meet Day.

by- Josh Bryant Ogden always showed up big on meet day. You’ve been working harder than an ugly stripper for months. You added muscle, built strength, hit rep PRs and survived the peaking cycle. Now comes the day of reckoning: the powerlifting meet. This is where you display the strength you built. Unless you made…

Read More

My Squat Is Down 30 Pounds. What Should I Change?

Derek Thistlethwaite Squatting 881 Raw (Josh Bryant’s Longtime Client) Years ago, I had a column on Bodybuilding.com called Ask the Strong Guy. Every week I’d answer readers’ training questions. When the site went behind a paywall, I decided to walk away. Nothing against them, but my goal has always been to get good information into…

Read More