In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, NASM CPT John Taylor and I write love letters to our favorite lifts: the Squat, Bench Press, Deadlift, and Strict Press (overhead press). As a coach, I’m a big fan of variance in my programming of exercises. But these 4 movements are the foundation of my programming and show up every week in one form or another in my programming. Of course ALL of the other movements we do are important and are pivotal in creating truly balanced functional athletes, but these 4 lifts are the base for a host of reasons that we get into.

Things also get weird on some of the letters...especially with the musical accompaniments.