The Westside Barbell Blog

A resource for serious lifters and athletes seeking proven strength training methods. The Westside Barbell blog breaks down programming, exercise selection, recovery, and performance strategies built on decades of elite coaching experience of founder Louie Simmons and his dedicated team.

We’ve undertaken a project to organize our 1,400+ articles — start with the curated guides below
Burley Hawk
Author

Burley Hawk

Burley Hawk is the Lead Powerlifting Coach at Westside Barbell and a Conjugate Method strength coach with over a decade of direct training and study under Louie Simmons. As a longtime member of the Westside team and a loyal student of Louie's, Burley has developed a deep, working mastery of the Conjugate Method and how it is applied to competitive powerlifting.

Burley runs Conjugate Club, the home of our powerlifting community. Conjugate Club is where lifters from around the world train under monthly programming written by our coaching staff, access Louie's archived material that has never been released anywhere else, and get direct communication with real coaches. It is the closest thing to training at Westside without being in Columbus.

Per Louie's plan, Westside no longer fields an in-house powerlifting team. But the work with lifters continues. Burley coaches competitive powerlifters online through Conjugate Club, works one-on-one with visiting lifters who come to Columbus to train, and also coaches athletes in the gym at Westside HQ. His experience spans beginner lifters building their first meet total to advanced competitors chasing elite numbers.

Burley is also the primary voice behind the written content at Westside-Barbell.com. If you have read our programming breakdowns, methodology articles, or athlete spotlights in recent years, there is a good chance Burley wrote them.

Articles by Burley Hawk

235 articles · page 17 of 20
Burley Hawk · · 4 minute read

Know Your Role

Powerlifting is an individual sport on the platform but a team sport in the gym. To be maximally successful, you must train with a group of like-minded individuals....

Burley Hawk · · 5 minute read

Barbell Conditioning

As an athlete, your conditioning decides a lot about the success you’ll have in your sport. Failure to maintain proper conditioning levels relative to your sport will lead...

Burley Hawk · · 5 minute read

Starting Conjugate: Initial Max Effort Exercise Selection

Absolute strength is the King of all strengths. If you wish to develop your speed-strength, strength-speed, muscular endurance, and muscular size to the fullest, you must constantly focus...