Programming
Writing your own programme
At some point following someone else’s template stops fitting your schedule, your weak points and your recovery. Writing your own is more straightforward than it looks.
Entire Strength — Train hard. Think harder.
Strength Science
What we still do not know
A survey of the open questions in strength training, which is a more useful thing to read than another confident answer to a settled one.
Latest
Browse everything →
Injury & Rehab
Lifting with a long-term condition
Arthritis, hypertension, diabetes and a range of chronic conditions were once reasons to avoid resistance training. For most of them the evidence now points the other way.
Recovery
Motivation, mental fatigue and the sessions you do not want to do
Waiting to feel motivated is the least reliable training strategy available. Understanding the difference between mental fatigue and reluctance is more useful.
Strength Science
Does muscle damage matter for growth?
Muscle damage was long assumed to be one of the mechanisms driving hypertrophy. The evidence increasingly suggests it is a side effect that carries a cost.
Injury & Rehab
Seeing a professional: who does what and what to expect
People delay seeking help partly because they do not know who to see, and partly because a previous experience involved being told to stop lifting.
Fuelling
Making weight without wrecking your performance
Weight cutting is normalised in several sports and much of the standard practice is both dangerous and counterproductive.
Programming
All programming →Programming
Writing your own programme
At some point following someone else’s template stops fitting your schedule, your weak points and your recovery. Writing your own is more straightforward than it looks.
Programming
Peaking for a meet: the last eight weeks
A peak is not more training. It is the deliberate removal of fatigue so that fitness you already have becomes visible on a specific day.
Programming
Autoregulation: training by effort rather than by percentage
Percentage-based programming assumes your maximum is stable and your readiness is constant. Neither is true, and autoregulation is the fix.
Technique
All technique →
Technique
Explosive lifts for people who are not weightlifters
Cleans, snatches and their variations develop qualities that grinding heavy lifts do not. They also take time to learn, which is the honest argument against them.
Technique
Hip thrusts and the case for direct glute training
Squats and deadlifts train the glutes, and they train them at a specific part of the range. Direct hip extension work covers the part they miss.
Technique
Conventional or sumo: choosing a deadlift stance
The two stances load the body differently enough that they are best thought of as separate lifts, and which suits you is largely a question of your skeleton.
Recovery
All recovery →Recovery
Motivation, mental fatigue and the sessions you do not want to do
Waiting to feel motivated is the least reliable training strategy available. Understanding the difference between mental fatigue and reluctance is more useful.
Recovery
How long a muscle actually needs between sessions
The forty-eight-hour rule is a rule of thumb that has hardened into dogma. The real answer depends on what you did, not on the clock.
Recovery
When you cannot sleep well: shift work, small children and broken nights
Most sleep advice assumes you control your schedule. A great many people do not, and the useful guidance for them is different.
Fuelling
All fuelling →Fuelling
Making weight without wrecking your performance
Weight cutting is normalised in several sports and much of the standard practice is both dangerous and counterproductive.
Fuelling
Training and eating on the road
Travel disrupts routine more than almost anything else. A plan that survives a week away is more valuable than an optimal plan that does not.
Fuelling
The boring parts of a lifter’s diet: fibre, micronutrients and vegetables
Protein and calories get all the attention. The things that determine how you feel day to day are usually further down the list.
Injury & Rehab
All injury & rehab →Injury & Rehab
Lifting with a long-term condition
Arthritis, hypertension, diabetes and a range of chronic conditions were once reasons to avoid resistance training. For most of them the evidence now points the other way.
Injury & Rehab
Seeing a professional: who does what and what to expect
People delay seeking help partly because they do not know who to see, and partly because a previous experience involved being told to stop lifting.
Injury & Rehab
Wrist and elbow pain: the joints that complain about volume
Elbow and wrist problems in lifters are almost always load management issues, and they are among the most responsive to simple adjustments.
Strength Science
All strength science →
Strength Science
What we still do not know
A survey of the open questions in strength training, which is a more useful thing to read than another confident answer to a settled one.
Strength Science
Does muscle damage matter for growth?
Muscle damage was long assumed to be one of the mechanisms driving hypertrophy. The evidence increasingly suggests it is a side effect that carries a cost.
Strength Science
Who to trust: evaluating fitness information sources
The volume of training content vastly exceeds the volume of reliable training content. There are reasonably good signals for telling them apart.
About Entire Strength
Programming, technique, recovery and the physiology underneath them — for lifters who want to know why, not just what. We publish explanatory articles rather than news, which means an article here is written to still be useful a year from now. Every piece is bylined, sourced and read by an editor before it appears — the full process is set out in our editorial policy.