The Lab: Strength

The Lab: Strength Helping people with injury prevention, motivation, healthy food choices for their body, strengthening, and athleticism. I use.

Holistic approach to helping people reach their goals.

03/07/2026

Perfection slows athletes down.
Adaptability makes athletes dangerous.

Here are 3 ways to improve:

1️⃣ Build a strong foundation first
You must know the basics so well that you don’t have to think about them when things get random. Fundamentals should become automatic.

2️⃣ Train with randomness
Once the basics are solid, introduce chaos: bad passes, different tempos, unpredictable situations. Games are rarely perfect.

3️⃣ Reset (Mentally) quickly after mistakes
The best athletes move to the next play immediately. Dwelling on errors slows reaction and decision making.

Great athletes aren’t perfect.

They’re adaptable.

03/06/2026

“I thought it was just lack of discipline.”

But it was Binge Eating Disorder (BED).

Recognized in the DSM-5, BED is a clinically defined condition where someone repeatedly eats large amounts of food while feeling a loss of control.

It’s not simply a willpower problem.

Understanding what’s actually happening can be the first step toward learning how to manage it.

03/02/2026

Adaptations are often misunderstood... how do you know when you are in the green, the red, or somewhere in the yellow?

Lots of variables. You have to assess what system you are looking at: neural, muscular, other connective tissues, cardiovascular, etc.

The body is more complex than most understand, so many think throwing everything at it will help. Then burnout happens, back goes out, or long-term nagging pain.

02/26/2026

Simple, fast, but not easy..

Workouts are more than just doing the same thing over and over workouts have to be periodically adjusted and always monitored.

If you are not tracking, how do you know why to change?

02/26/2026

In goal setting, it is more important to set a specific, realistic, measurable, achievable, goal.

02/24/2026

When to push and when to pull back on your workouts.

02/18/2026

Focus on you.

01/14/2026

Most people need to change up their movements.

Changing how you squat.

Back squats load the system differently than front squats.
Front squats demand more upright posture, core engagement, and upper-body mobility.

Back Squat
Emphasizes the glutes and posterior chain while still training the quads. This allows the more load but comes with more forward lean and higher spinal stress(which requires spinal stability with proper core control. Best for building maximal lower-body strength.

Front Squat
These emphasize the quads more so, the core, and the upper back due to a more upright torso. May have to start with lighter loads, but improves posture, transverse abdominal activation, and knee-dominant strength. Limited mainly by upper-body mobility rather than leg strength.

Bottom line:
Back squats build force. Front squats refine mechanics and redistribute stress.

So... you want to try the front squat.. but..

Can’t hold a clean grip yet?
That’s not a failure—that’s information.

Use straps.
Reduces wrist stress
Accommodates shoulder or lat tightness
Improves balance and positioning
Keeps the front squat in your program
The goal isn’t forcing positions.
The goal is to progress to those new positions you don’t currently own, over time, while still training.

So,
Change the squat.
Keep progressing.

11/03/2025

Your 30-minute warm-up might be doing nothing for your body?
The stretching, jogging, and foam rolling could just be busy work disguised as “preparation”?

Here’s what’s going on — most people think they need to “get warm” before they can train effectively. People/trainers say it raises core temperature, wakes up muscles, and prevents injury.

But really?… hmm.
If your body needs half an hour just to start moving right… doesn’t that mean something’s off in the first place?

The Real Purpose of a Warm-Up

A warm-up isn’t supposed to be busy work. It’s supposed to get your body ready for the exact movement you’re about to do.
That means specific — not random.

If you can pick up a barbell cold and press it overhead without pain or tightness, your body’s already ready.
If you need 30 minutes of band work just to do the same thing, that’s not a warm-up problem. That’s a movement readiness issue — this means something deeper (mobility, stability, or imbalance) needs attention.

What Actually Works

You don’t need to jog for 20 minutes to lift weights.
You don’t need to stretch everything just to do one lift.

Try this for a more effective progression:
If your goal is a 95-pound overhead press, do a set of 10 with 45 pounds first. That’s a specific warm-up — not a random one.

Thirty minutes on a treadmill won’t prepare your shoulders for pressing. It just wastes your session time. And if you want the most out of your sessions, warm up before you see your trainers/PT/Chiros/massage therapist.

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