Above the Rest Training Systems

Above the Rest Training Systems Training Facility focused on building athletes of all kinds through the Strongman, Powerlifting, and

09/04/2026

Tempo work is not about making a light exercise unnecessarily difficult. It is a way to control where tension is being placed and how long the target tissue has to produce force.

Muscle growth requires meaningful tension through the ranges of motion you actually want to develop. If you rush the eccentric, bounce through the bottom, or use momentum to finish the rep, other structures can take over and reduce the amount of work being done by the muscle you are trying to train.

Slowing the lowering phase changes that. Adding a pause changes it even more. Both strategies remove some of the momentum that normally helps you through difficult positions and force you to produce tension where you are weakest.

This can be especially valuable during accessory work. Rows, pulldowns, pressing variations, leg work, and isolation exercises are not just about moving weight from one position to another. The goal is to load the intended tissue and make that tissue do the work.

A simple place to start is a three second lowering phase followed by a one to two second pause in the position you want to strengthen. Use a load you can control for every rep and keep the effort around RPE 7 to 8.

The load may need to come down. That is not a problem. If the target muscle is working harder and you are creating more tension in the range you want to develop, the exercise is doing its job.

Tempo and pauses are tools. Use them when you need more control, more targeted tension, or more strength in a specific position.

You're not getting specific too late. You're getting specific too early.Most strongman athletes treat event-specific tra...
09/03/2026

You're not getting specific too late. You're getting specific too early.

Most strongman athletes treat event-specific training as the goal; the sooner they get there, the better. That's the error. And it costs more long-term than almost anything else you can do wrong in a prep cycle.

Strongman events change every contest. What doesn't change is the general strength the athlete brings to whatever gets put in front of them. Over-specialize for events that won't repeat, and you've spent your training budget on something that expires.

The principle: as general as possible, only as specific as necessary.

The shrinking overlap between event demands isn't a warning that you waited too long on specificity. It's the signal that specificity is now required. If the general phase was built correctly, you're right on schedule.

The specificity at the end of a prep cycle is only as powerful as the general base that earned it.

Save this for your next prep, and check which phase you should actually be in right now.

If your event training feels stale before contest day arrives, the structure wasn't built right from the start. That's what coaching is for.

DM us COACHING.

09/02/2026

If you only chase outcomes in training, your subconscious will fill in the process however it wants.

That is where technique gets messy.

Your conscious brain sets the ask. Move the dumbbell. Hit the rep. Make the lift.

Then your subconscious runs the movement pattern that is most available. Not the one that is best for you. Not the one that transfers. Just the one it can get away with today.

So if all you measure is the outcome, you accidentally teach your body that the shortcut is the skill.

That is fine in a peaking block. I want outcomes there. I want to see the number move and I want to see the comp lift getting cleaner under heavy load.

But in most blocks, hypertrophy, GPP, strength work, variations, accessories, that is not the job. The job is building the positions and the mechanics that make the outcome repeatable later.

If your dumbbell press turns into “whatever shoulder angle gets the rep,” it won’t carry over to an axle or log. Same with rows. Same with leg press. If you let the knees cave and just survive the set, do not be shocked when the transfer is trash.

So ask a better question in your training.

Not “did I get the rep?”

How did I get it, and did that process match the reason I am doing this lift in the first place?

What is one lift you know you are chasing the outcome on right now? Drop it below.

GPP is not a philosophy. It's a financial decision.You have a limited number of sessions before competition day. Limited...
09/01/2026

GPP is not a philosophy. It's a financial decision.

You have a limited number of sessions before competition day. Limited recovery. Limited exposures.

Every session you spend is gone.

So when you spend one of those sessions and it only moves the needle on one event, that's an expensive return on a scarce resource.

The better question isn't "does this look like the event?"

It's: what does this session pay me back across my entire event card?

GPP done right doesn't just fill the program. It makes the specific work sustainable.

Treat it like the budget decision it is.

If your program is built around the events you're most afraid of, you don't have a program. You have a reaction.

DM us COACHING if you want a program with actual logic behind it.

08/30/2026

Missing a rep does not automatically mean you need more aggression. Sometimes the better response is to figure out exactly why the rep failed.

One of the most valuable skills a strongman athlete can develop is the ability to diagnose a problem quickly. Did you lose balance? Was the implement out of position? Did you lose tension? Did you rush the setup? Those questions give you something useful to work with before the next attempt.

Getting angry can create more intent, but it can also create new technical faults. You may complete the rep while moving farther away from the technique you actually want to reinforce.

Instead, take a few seconds and identify one thing you can change. Use a different cue, adjust your setup, correct the implement position, or change your strategy. Then take the next rep with a specific purpose.

This matters even more in competition. You will not always have familiar equipment, ideal conditions, or events that behave exactly like they did in training. When something goes wrong, you need to be able to process it quickly and make a useful adjustment.

Practice that skill during training. Miss the rep. Diagnose the cause. Make one correction. Execute again.

Do not chase the rep. Chase the cause.

08/29/2026

When we're hitting rows, the intent of the row should be to build a massive back. We're trying to develop the musculature that moves the shoulder blades around on the torso and gets our arms back behind us so that we can pull ourselves toward other objects and pull other objects back into ourselves.

If we create a lot of movement in the torso to facilitate the movement of the weight, then that torso rotation is what we're training. We might see the muscles of the back work alongside the torso to some extent, but the only way to truly know that we're getting good hard work done with the back muscles is to isolate them away from the torso.

The rotation of the torso that we see in the video is one of the most common technical faults that I see giving athletes unilateral rolling movements. And it usually comes up as they try to force overload.

Try to have the discipline to keep the rib cage fixed in space and to make your body work to move the weight around that torso instead of moving the weight with that torso.

Give this technical change a shot for a block, and you’ll start to see your rows transfer to the rest of your game.

08/28/2026

A lot of lifters are taught to press by forcing the elbows in, maintaining external rotation, and trying to keep everything as tight as possible.

The problem is that this can turn the movement into something dominated by elbow extension. Instead of using the entire pressing system effectively, you end up relying heavily on the triceps.

A barbell changes the mechanics because both hands are connected to the same implement. Once your hands are anchored to the bar, force produced by one side affects what happens on the other side.

This is where the scissor lift concept becomes useful.

When the triceps extend and the arms create force inward against the bar, the bar prevents the hands from simply moving toward each other. That force has to go somewhere.

The result is leverage that helps drive the bar upward.

Allowing some natural internal rotation can help create this position. You are not simply pushing with the elbows. You are using the shoulders, arms, and bar together as one connected system.

That does not mean shoulder position is irrelevant.

Scapular control still matters. The shoulders need enough stability to transfer force effectively while the arms produce the movement.

The goal is not to force your elbows into one universal position. The goal is to understand how your body and the implement interact so you can create the most effective pressing mechanics possible.

For some lifters, improving this coordination can immediately improve their press without any increase in strength.

Stop thinking about pressing as nothing more than extending your elbows. Learn how to use the entire system.

Your event numbers stopped moving. You blamed technique. But your technique is fine.The real problem is structural.A pyr...
08/27/2026

Your event numbers stopped moving. You blamed technique. But your technique is fine.

The real problem is structural.

A pyramid can only grow as tall as its base allows. When you train only the event, year-round, without a GPP phase, you're adding height without widening what's underneath.

At some point, more event training stops producing more event performance. Not because the work got worse. Because the base ran out of room.

The general work you cut from your program wasn't filler. It was the foundation the specific work needed to keep producing results.

You don't build a bigger peak by attacking the peak.

If you've been training hard and stopped progressing, the issue is usually structural, not effort. That's what ATR figures out before building the program.

DM us COACHING.

08/26/2026

When coaches talk about creating tension, they're talking about something very specific. Tension is an isometric contraction. It's your ability to actively squeeze a muscle and hold a position without movement.

That muscle contraction creates stability and structure throughout the body. It helps you brace against external forces, maintain strong positions, and transfer force more efficiently during a lift or athletic movement.

The problem is that many athletes are told to "create more tension" without ever learning what that actually feels like. If you can't intentionally contract and hold a muscle, it becomes much harder to train that skill or improve it over time.

The good news is that tension is trainable. Practicing isometric contractions helps you build better body awareness, stronger positions, and more control when it matters most.

Remember this simple rule. Tension equals isometric contraction. The better you are at creating one, the better you'll be at creating the other.

"Is this exercise specific?" is the wrong question.Specificity isn't something you have or don't have. It's a fingerprin...
08/25/2026

"Is this exercise specific?" is the wrong question.

Specificity isn't something you have or don't have. It's a fingerprint, made of multiple variables, each one its own dial.

Load. Skill. Fatigue state. Work-to-rest ratio.

An exercise can score high on two of those and low on the other two. Both choices might be correct. But they're training different things — and a program that doesn't know which dial it's turning isn't specific. It's just hard.

Knowing which variable matters for this event, this athlete, and this phase of prep is where programming precision starts.

Save this for your next program design session.

If you want a program where that decision has already been made, across every event on your card, across the full prep cycle, that's what ATR builds.

DM us COACHING.

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