Wenning Strength

BUILD 3 THINGS THAT ARE HARD TO BREAK.

A body that can handle load.
A mind that stays calm under pressure.
Knowledge that makes other people better.

This picture is from my 1,197-lb world record squat.

But the number isn’t really the lesson.

You don’t get under 1,197 pounds without building more than muscle. You have to build a body capable of surviving the load and a mind capable of staying composed when every instinct is telling you how fu***ng heavy it is.

And after 35 years of studying, training, competing, adjusting and repeating that process, I’ve learned something else:

Knowledge isn’t worth much if you can’t use it to make somebody else better.

That’s why I coach. That’s why I teach. That’s why my training has continued to evolve long after the records.

Build strength that makes you harder to break.

Build the mental capacity to perform when s**t gets heavy.

Then take everything you’ve learned and use it to help somebody else.

BUILD STRENGTH.
BUILD RESILIENCE.
BUILD VALUE.

Neglecting your health isn’t just about you.

When people depend on you—your family, your team, your employees, your athletes—you have a responsibility to stay capable.

That doesn’t mean living in the gym. It means doing the basic s**t consistently.

Get strong.
Keep your muscle.
Keep your conditioning.
Eat like an adult.
Sleep.
Fix problems before they become injuries.
Train so you’re harder to break, not just harder to look at.

I’ve spent over 30 years under the bar, and one thing becomes clearer with age:

Strength is independence.

The goal isn’t simply to lift more weight. The goal is to still be useful at 50, 60, 70 and beyond—to the people who count on you.

Taking care of yourself isn’t selfish.

It’s part of taking care of them.

WenningStrength.com

Stress is coming whether you like it or not.

The question is what do you do with it?

Too many people cope by eating like s**t, drinking, sitting around, or finding some other way to temporarily shut their brain off. None of that actually fixes the problem.

TRAIN.

Get under some weight. Move your body. Put your energy somewhere productive.

Training isn’t just about getting bigger, stronger, or looking better. It gives you an outlet. It creates discipline. And over time, it teaches you how to handle discomfort instead of constantly trying to escape it.

You don’t need to destroy yourself in the gym either. Train with intent. Get the work done. Leave better than you walked in.

Your body needs the stimulus.
Your mind needs it too.

MOVE YOUR BODY. CLEAR YOUR MIND.

WenningStrength.com

Decline crunches aren’t just about smoking your abs.

Done correctly, you’re getting core activation while creating traction through the spine at the same time.

That combination matters.

Heavy squats, pulls, carries, and presses create a ton of compression over time. Your accessory work should help counterbalance that accumulated mileage, not just pile more stress on top of it
At Wenning Strength, we don’t pick exercises just because they’re hard. Every movement needs a purpose.

WenningStrength.com

Football beats you up. That’s part of the game.

Knees get irritated. Hips get tight. Ankles get beat to hell. That doesn’t automatically mean you stop squatting — it means you adjust the training to what the athlete can handle that week.

One of the easiest changes? Put a box behind them.

Instead of free squatting when the knees are already taking a beating on the field, the box squat can help control depth, keep the movement consistent, and shift more of the workload into the hips and posterior chain.

The goal during the season isn’t to prove how tough you are in the weight room. The goal is to keep strength while managing mileage.

Don’t eliminate important movement patterns every time something gets irritated. Find a variation that lets you keep training without adding unnecessary wear and tear.

Modify the stimulus. Keep the strength. Stay on the field.

WenningStrength.com

INTENT, NOT INTENSITY. Every training session doesn’t need to destroy you

The question is: what are you trying to accomplish with the movement? Or the session

Strength. Speed. Hypertrophy. Technique. Recovery. Tissue preparation. Work capacity.

Those require different loads, volumes, velocities, and levels of effort. And most most times people don’t program correctly

If your only measure of a good workout is how smoked you are afterward, you’re confusing fatigue with adaptation and they are sometimes very different

The best athletes I’ve worked with don’t train at maximum intensity every day. They train with a specific intent, manage fatigue, and accumulate quality work they can actually recover from.

That’s how you build performance without piling up unnecessary mileage.

More training education and programming:
WenningStrength.com

Football isn’t played straight ahead.

Cutting, changing direction, absorbing contact, accelerating and decelerating all require a strong pelvis and strong adductors.

That’s why we use Copenhagen planks.

Most athletes spend plenty of time training what they can see in the mirror while completely ignoring the inside of the hip. Then they wonder why the groin and pelvis become weak links when speed and intensity go up.

Copenhagens build serious adductor strength while forcing the trunk and pelvis to stabilize together.

For football players, that’s exactly what we want — build the weak links BEFORE the field exposes them.

Accessories aren’t filler. They’re what allow the big movements and athletic work to keep progressing.

Train the whole system.

WenningStrength.com

When you find a 30,000-mile ’96 Impala SS, the goal isn’t to reinvent it—it’s to make the right upgrades.

We installed Hertz Mille speakers throughout the interior for a serious improvement in sound quality, along with a new alarm system to protect a car that’s getting harder and harder to replace.

Keep the car clean. Keep the original character. Upgrade what actually makes it better.

2006 Ford GT. 🇺🇸

One of the greatest American supercars ever built.

Supercharged 5.4L V8.
550 horsepower. Now tuned to 750hp
6-speed manual.
Mid-engine.
Rear-wheel drive. Zero traction control

No hybrid system. No complicated electronics trying to do the driving for you. Just a manual transmission, a supercharged V8 sitting behind your head, and one of the most iconic shapes Ford has ever produced.

Built as a modern tribute to the legendary GT40, the 2006 Ford GT has only become more special with time.

Raw. Mechanical. American.

They don’t build them like this anymore.

Heavy compound movements build strength — but they also accumulate compression and mileage.

That’s why decompression and traction are built into the Wenning Strength system.

The Wenning Warm-Ups aren’t just about getting hot. We use targeted movements to prepare the joints, activate the right musculature, drive blood flow, and help counterbalance the stresses created by heavy squats, pulls, and presses.

Then our accessory work continues the job — building weak areas while giving the body movement and loading patterns that offset what we accumulate under heavy compound work.

You can’t just compress the body all week and expect it to keep performing.

Load it. Strengthen it. Decompress it. Repeat.

That’s how you build strength while controlling mileage for the long haul.

WenningStrength.com