How To Make Strength Training 5x Times Easier

/ Testify Strength & Conditioning/

Strength training doesn’t have to be intimidating or complicated. In this video, Starting Strength Coach Phil Meggers covers 5 simple tips that make lifting more approachable, more accessible, and more effective for anyone—no matter your age, experience, or fitness level.

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3 Obvious Gym Tips…That No One Follows

/ Testify Strength & Conditioning/

Evan demonstrates a handy trick for loading and unloading your deadlift.

(A Blast from the Past article originally posted on 04/16/21)

In Part I of this series, we discussed several tips and tricks that might help you as a new lifter, and now, in Part II, we’re back with a few more. With practice, using these tactics may seem obvious, and you might wonder why you didn’t think of them earlier, but when you’re starting out, these types of tips are often anything but obvious.

Easy Loading for Deadlifts
When you’re loading (or unloading) your deadlift with more than one 45 lb plate per side or more than one bumper plate per side, roll the plate (on the side you’re currently loading) up onto a 2.5 lb plate. This will raise the 45 lb plate or bumper plate off the ground just enough that it makes it easier to slide on the next plate (see the photo above).

Of course, using a deadlift jack is makes things even easier, and we have a video on how to make one (click here or scroll down to the end of this article), but in lieu of that, using a 2.5 lb plate works quite well.

Holding Valsalva for Multiple Reps
You can hold your Valsalva (i.e., your tightly held breath) for multiple reps on the bench press. Holding your Valsalva for 2-3 reps is pretty common on the bench press, and as long as you aren’t running out of oxygen, doing so works very well as you don’t have to get tight again before the next rep.

Two warnings, though: first, don’t take it as a personal challenge to see how many reps you can get on one breath - this may not end well - and second, holding your Valsalva for multiple reps doesn’t usually work very well for lifts other than the bench press.

Easy Unloading for Bumper Plates
If you’re finished snatching, cleaning, or deadlifting (even rowing), and you have multiple bumper plates on each side of the bar, here’s how to unload your bar: first, take the collars off both sides of the bar. Second, unload all of the plates from the left side of the bar. Third, raise the empty left side of the bar - walking it upward (the right side of the bar remains on the ground) until the bar is sitting vertically inside the stack of plates on the right side of the bar. Finally, simply lift the bar out of the stack, put the bar away, and then put the plates away.

Evan shows how to easily remove multiple bumper plates at once.

We hope these tips help you get stronger and live better, and perhaps we’ll be back with a Part III in the future.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

  • Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

  • Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

  • Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

  • Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

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At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

2 Squat Mistakes Every New Lifter Makes

/ Testify Strength & Conditioning/

Stop doing this. 

Today’s two squat mistakes make for inefficient training, they can be borderline dangerous, and . . . they make you look like a newb.

On the upside, both errors are quite easy to fix from a technical standpoint, so let’s grab this low hanging fruit real quick-like.

Mistake #1: Where are you going?
When you unrack the squat, don’t walk a marathon back from the rack to set up (Figure 1). Stay relatively close to the rack.

figure 1: An exaggeration, yes, but not by much

Most people who squat inside a power rack will typically do this well as lifters only have so far to walk back (Figure 2) before hitting the uprights behind them. However, when people train with a squat stand (Figure 3) or squat outside a power rack, they often walk ridiculously far back from the rack.

figure 2: squatting inside a power rack will force you to be reasonable, so Do this whether or not you’r inside a cage.

Don’t do that.

After standing the barbell up from the hooks, take one step back with your right foot, one step back with your left foot, make any small stance adjustments you need to make, and then you’re good to go.

figure 3: far enough back to clear the hooks yet close enough to be efficient and within the length of the spotter arms

No - you don’t want to stand so close that you risk running into the hooks when squatting, but you also don’t want to waste a bunch of energy by walking back five steps before starting to squat. On top of that, when you’re exhausted at the end of your set, you want a short, efficient distance to walk back to the rack - not the equivalent of a city block.

Mistake #2: What on earth are you looking for?
Stop looking for the hooks (Figure 4) when you re-rack the bar.

figure 4: don’t do this.

They didn’t go anywhere while you were squatting, so when you finish your set, keep staring at the same focal point you used during your set, walk forward until the bar makes solid contact with both uprights, and then slide the bar down the uprights until it’s back in the hooks (Figure 5).

figure 5: this . . . is much better.

Your torso tends to follow your head, so by looking side-to-side for the hooks, you tend to create a twisting effect, and you greatly increase the chances that you will someday miss one of the hooks when re-racking the bar.

It is safer, more efficient, and far easier to simply stay tall and walk straight ahead until the rack stops you - then “squat” down until the bar is in the hooks.

Although this error is easy to fix from a technical point of view, it also can be a difficult habit to break, so remind yourself that the goal is to hit the uprights - not the hooks - with the bar.

As always, we hope these tips help you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

  • Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

  • Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

  • Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

  • Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

  • Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

4 Gym Tips No One’s Talking About

/ Testify Strength & Conditioning/

(A Blast from the Past article originally posted on 03/19/21)

When you’re new to some task, like lifting, there are always a few tips and tricks that will seem rather obvious to you years later, so in an effort to speed things up a bit, here are several that might prove useful to both new and experienced lifters:

figure 1: An additional use for your wrist wraps

Deadlifting on a Non-level Floor
If you must deadlift on a slightly non-level floor (hopefully very slightly!), and you find that the barbell always wants to roll a bit, you can simply place your wrist wraps on the floor in front of the plates (Figure 1).

You can, of course, use any other soft, thin items like socks, lifting straps, even sponges, but don’t use a hard item like a 2.5-lb plate. If you set the bar down, and it glances off that item, it will come back at your shins, and shins and horizontally moving barbells don’t get along well (hint: the barbell always wins). In addition, the contact between the plate(s) on the bar and the 2.5-lb plate on the floor may cause one or both of them to chip. Wrist wraps are thick enough to immobilize the bar but soft and compressible enough that setting the bar down on top of the wrist wraps won’t cause any problems.

Quit Using 2.5-lb Plates . . . Sometimes
Stop using 2.5-lb plates in your warm-ups. As you get stronger, you’ll find that you can round most - if not all - of your warm-up weights to numbers that end in “5.” This will allow you to stop using 2.5-lb plates in your warm-ups.

If you’d like to use 2.5-lb plates in your final warm-up in an effort to be a bit more precise, that’s fine, but most of your warm-up weight selections won’t require this level of precision. (If your work sets on a given lift are less than 100 lbs, you might decide to use 2.5-lb plates more often in your warm-ups, but you can apply a similar exclusionary logic to the 1.25-lb plates instead.)

Stop Resting . . . Sort-of
Stop resting between your warm-ups sets. We mention this on a regular basis, but it still blows people’s minds that they don’t need to rest 5 minutes between every single set.

Do your empty bar sets (alright, you can rest 15 seconds between your two empty bar sets of five reps), then add weight and go. Then add weight and go again. Repeat until it’s time for your first work set, before which you should probably rest a few minutes. Remember - the act of changing the weight on the bar gives you enough rest to do the next warm-up set. This will save you a lot of time in the gym.

Write Out Your Next Workout
Write out your next workout before leaving the gym. As you gain experience, you may ditch this habit, and that’s perfectly fine, but when you’re new, it’s a very productive use of your rest periods to start writing out your next workout in your training journal - especially the warm-ups. You’re already in “training mode,” and the warm-ups you performed today will inform and influence the warm-ups you do next time, so now is as good a time as any to write out your next training session (and you won’t have to think too hard when you come in the gym next time).

As always, we hope these tips and tricks help you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

  • Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

  • Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

  • Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

  • Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

  • Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

The Best Way to Put On a Lifting Belt! (and a secret weapon)

/ Testify Strength & Conditioning/

(A Blast from the Past article originally posted on 05/26/23)

A lifting belt is an extremely useful tool for your strength training, and within a month or two of starting to train, you should be using one regularly. Putting on a lifting belt, however, can be a bit tricky, so let’s sort this out.

How to Do It
There is one way - that’s right, just one - to put on a belt correctly, and it involves the upright of your squat rack. The photos here show a double-prong belt in use, but the method works just as well for single prong belts (in fact, it’s slightly easier). The steps are below, and to learn it even quicker and better, watch the included video.

  1. Put the nose of your belt through the buckle and wrap the nose of the belt around the upright.

  2. Lean away from the upright. Be sure to lean away so that your hips move away from the rack as well (Figure 1); don’t lean away like you’re trying to avoid a punch (Figure 2).

  3. Twist your body away from the rack. For example, if the nose of the belt came around the right side of your body, twist to your left (Figure 3). This will tighten up the belt.

  4. Put the prong(s) through the appropriate hole(s).

Taking off the belt is much the same as putting it on - wrap the nose around the rack, lean away, twist to loosen, and then remove the prong(s).

Squat Stands vs Squat Racks
If you have a squat stand (free-standing, two uprights) instead of a squat rack (anchored to the floor, four uprights), it may tip toward you when you lean away. This is bad. However, it’s an easy problem to solve. Simply place your foot down on the far side of the floor support, and you’ll be able to keep the squat stand anchored in place.

Secret Weapon
I told you there’s only one way to put on a belt, and this is true . . . mostly. If you’re at a meet, you might not have a squat rack handy when you’re about to step on the competition platform. Oh, you’ll have plenty of racks in the warm-up room, but there will quite possibly be none near the competition platform. Here’s what you do (and again, watch the video above to see this in action):

  1. Put the nose of your belt through the buckle.

  2. Place the pointed end of a screwdriver through one of the holes of the belt (Figure 4).

  3. Grab that end of the screwdriver (don’t impale yourself), and pull back, treating the screwdriver as a lever (Figure 5). This will get the belt as tight as you like.

How Tight Should Your Belt Be?
When you’re new to wearing a lifting belt, it should be uncomfortably tight. If it’s comfortable to wear and easy to wiggle around, it’s merely a fashion accessory. Don’t let your belt be a fashion accessory. With practice, what was uncomfortably tight at the beginning will simply feel correct.

Need to Buy a Belt? Watch This First.
If you’re getting ready to buy a lifting belt, I’d recommend watching the included video here to get a good sense of what to look for when purchasing one. You’ll also find some links below to a few belts we recommend to our members.

Belts
My belt is from Best Belts, and I’d love to recommend them to you, but as of May 2023, they're backlogged and aren't taking orders, so with that in mind, here are a few belt options we often recommend:

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

As always, we hope this helps you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

  • Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

  • Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

  • Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

  • Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

  • Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?

What Every New Lifter Gets Wrong - Part III

/ Testify Strength & Conditioning/

Can you see what Dawson is doing wrong here? Hint - Dawson can’t.

(A Blast from the Past article originally posted on 04/09/21)

In Part I and Part II of our series on common mistakes new lifters make (as well as how to avoid them), we’ve discussed everything from misloading your bar to breathing at the wrong time when lifting. Today, in Part III, we’ll continue by looking at a few other errors you might make when starting out and talk about how to correct them as well.

Unloading the bar by more than one 45 pound plate difference (squat, bench, press)
If you’ve ever seen an unevenly loaded barbell cartwheel off the rack, you’ll know what we’re talking about here, and if you haven’t, well, that’s a good thing. When you load or unload the barbell, there will be differences in weight from from one side to the other as you load weight on one side of the bar and then repeat the process on the opposite side of the bar.

A little asymmetry won’t cause the barbell to tip over, but the key is to keep that asymmetry within limits. A good rule of thumb is to never load or unload the bar by more than one 45 lb plate difference between sides of the bar. For example, if you have one plate (i.e., a 45 lb plate) on the left side of the bar, you can have zero, one, or two plates on the right side of the bar, but don’t load three plates on the right side (i.e., since three plates compared to one plate is more than a one plate difference). A cartwheeling bar is a loud and potentially dangerous event, and this practice will help you avoid this situation.

Letting go of the bar between reps on the deadlift
New lifters will often let go of the bar between reps on the deadlift. Easy fix here - don’t. Remember, it’s only considered a set of five (or three, four, etc.) when you do all five reps without letting go of the bar (otherwise, you’re just performing singles).

Do not give yourself permission to let go of the bar between reps. The deadlift will be hard, the hook grip will be uncomfortable, and you’ll want to stop, but you’ll be fine. You might not feel fine while you’re doing it, but that’s normal when doing hard things, and this way, you finish the set sooner than you otherwise would, and then you get to the best part of lifting that much faster as well . . . resting.

Allowing your gaze to wander or closing your eyes during the set
Do you tend to look all over the place while you lift, or do you close your eyes when lifting? Pick one focal point before you start your first rep and remind yourself to look there until you are done with your last rep.

Use your warm-ups for practice. Don’t look somewhere else while performing a rep, and don’t even look somewhere else between reps. If necessary, put a mark on the wall in front of you while pressing, or put a small plate on the floor in front of you while squatting. One focal point.

As always, we hope these tips help you get stronger and live better.

-Phil

PS: Whenever you want even more Testify in your life, here are some free resources:

  • Book a free intro and strategy session with us HERE.

  • Pick up a free copy of Testify’s Squat Guide: 12 Tips to Improve Your Squat Now HERE.

  • Get our free weekly email - containing useful videos, articles, and training tips - HERE.

  • Follow Testify on Instagram HERE.

  • Subscribe to Testify’s YouTube channel HERE.

(Some links may be affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, Testify earns from qualifying purchases.)

At Testify, we offer small group training, private coaching (in-person or remotely via Zoom), online coaching, and form checks. Interested in getting stronger, looking better, and having more energy?