Training Age vs. Chronological Age: Why It Matters
One of the biggest mistakes coaches can make is assuming that age tells us everything we need to know about an athlete. It doesn’t. Training age and chronological age are two completely different things, and both matter for different reasons. Chronological age tells us how old somebody is. Training age tells us how long they’ve […]
What Good Training Looks Like When Nothing Exciting Is Happening
We need to find a way to make the small wins matter more than the big ones. Because the big ones—the PRs, the platform lifts, the competition days—they’re already exciting. Athletes don’t need help getting up for those moments. That’s the easy part. The harder part is everything in between. If you’re training in […]
Building Athletes Who Can Train Hard for Years, Not Months
One of the hardest things for me to understand as an athlete was that what I needed in that moment wasn’t always what I needed before. What worked for me in my early 20s didn’t just automatically carry over as I got older. And that was a tough adjustment. Because when you’re used to training […]
Programming for Sustainability, Not Just Performance
When I sit down to design a program, one of the first things I think about is whether I’m actually building something… or just taxing the athlete for another day. Because those are two very different things. It’s not hard to make someone feel worked. It’s not hard to write something that looks good on […]
How I Decide What Doesn’t Belong in a Training Program
If You Can’t Explain It, It Doesn’t Belong: How I Build Training Programs One of the biggest shifts in my coaching career came when I stopped looking at programs as collections of exercises—and started treating them as systems built around a clear idea. Every program I write starts the same way: With a thesis. Not […]
What I Look for Before I Ever Change an Athlete’s Program
It’s hard as a coach. Especially when you care. When you’re invested, when you want things to be right, when you hold yourself to a high standard—it’s easy to look at a session that feels off and immediately think: “Something’s wrong. I need to fix this.” But early on, I learned something important: Before I […]
Why “Trust the Process” Only Works If You Actually Have One
“Trust the process.” It’s one of the most overused phrases in coaching. And most of the time, it means nothing. Because if an athlete asked, “What’s your process?”—a lot of coaches wouldn’t have a clear answer. My Process Isn’t Just Programming For me, my process isn’t the program. It’s how we communicate. Do I […]
How to Train Through a Slump: Staying Motivated When Progress Stalls
Getting Unstuck: How to Navigate a Training Slump Progress slows. Lifts feel heavier than they should. You’re tired, sore, and starting to ask yourself, “Why does this feel so much harder than it used to?” What’s worse: you keep pushing, hoping the next session will magically fix everything, only to find yourself right back in […]
The Mental Side of Heavy Lifting: Overcoming Fear Under the Bar
Training Fear and Mindset in Weightlifting I remember a moment at Nationals in Colorado Springs where fear showed up fast and loud. I had already secured a silver medal, and my coach said, “We can go for the win.” The number he wanted to load? 191 kilos — a six-kilo PR clean and four-kilo PR […]
Training the Mind Like a Muscle: Building Mental Reps in Weightlifting
By Coach Dan — Tri-State Training | Mindset. Movement. Memorable. For me, the journey into mindfulness and mindset work started close to home. My father worked a high-stress job as a detective. I watched him balance stress, separation, and the weight of the job. Over time, he leaned into mindfulness practices to find balance and […]