Self-Organizing Technique
By Mike Tuchscherer 19 November 2018
We all want athletes to have the proverbial “perfect technique”. Some astute coaches even say “THEIR perfect technique” – to emphasize that “perfect” is relative to the individual athlete. But how do we get there?
Why Skipping The Wave-Load Might Be Useful
So I’ve been talking about Emerging Strategies for a while now. If you’re not sure what that is, you’ll want some background before proceeding. I suggest this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdGP120e4B0
Naturally, a question to arise from a concept such as ES is something like, “Which is better, ES or a more traditional approach?” Of course if I’m advocating for an ES model, then that’s my answer. But I also think that it depends on what you mean by “better”.
Peaking with Emerging Strategies
IPF Classic Worlds 2018 is underway in Calgary. We have 16 lifters competing this year — a point of pride among RTS coaches and athletes. As such, this seems like an ideal time to write in a bit more detail about how we taper for competition.
Emerging Evidence For Recovery Techniques
I recently came across this review article: https://www.
I quickly noted that they ranked massage as one of the best recovery modalities around. And if course then I remembered that I wrote an article last year saying that (n=1) I got no real results from it. You can read that article here: https://articles.
How to Use RPE in Your Training *Correctly*
By Mike Tuchscherer, 5 December 2017
You may see people using the term “RPE” regarding their training, but not be sure what it’s all about. Or, more likely, you are one of the people who *thinks* you know what it’s about, but still make fundamental errors with it. No matter which one you are, or even if you do for sure get RPE training correct, hopefully you can learn something from this post.
Concurrent Training
Concurrent Training
By Greg Nuckols
Cardiovascular training has been much maligned in the powerlifting community. By that, I am referring to purely aerobic work. You’ll find people touting the benefits of sled work, sprints, or barbell complexes, but steady state aerobic work? Never! We’ve been told it’ll make us small and weak so many times we’ve taken the bait. The real story is a little more nuanced than that. Let’s dive in. Read more…
TRAC Instructions
TRAC Instructions
By Mike Tuchscherer
If you don’t know what TRAC is, you should definitely check out the information on it here.This article will focus on how to execute the required tests to get your TRAC score.
TRAC consists of three tests: The Orthostatic Test, the Reaction Time test, and the Tap Test.All tests are performed in that order first thing when you wake up in the morning. The first test we’ll discuss is the Orthostatic Test. This test seems to be the most difficult, but it’s really not hard once you get the hang of it. There are two versions of the test; the test for those with a heart rate monitor and a test for those without a heart rate monitor. Read more…
Understanding Your TRAC Score
Understanding Your TRAC Score
By Mike Tuchscherer
We live in a smart age. Smart phones. Smart bombs. Even smart cars (yuck!). It’s about time our training system got smart too. When you think about it, this is really the mission of TRAC – smart training.
And boy, is it ever smart! When you perform your tests in the morning, it takes somewhere between 7 and 10 minutes to complete it. Using that data, TRAC can figure out how several systems in your body are functioning and it spits it out on a nice, smart report! Your TRAC Report is really what gives you insight on how you can react to your body. But when you’ve got smart tests, smart systems, and a smart report, do you have to be smart too? Well, maybe a little, but by the end of this article, you should be smart enough to get the bulk of your TRAC report.
Just to reiterate, it can take a few days before your report is populated and several days after that before TRAC “gets to know you” well enough for your report to be reliable. But just the same, the more you use it, the better it works. Read more…