Stefi Cohen (@steficohen) has made headlines in the powerlifting community time and again for setting all-time world records (22 of them, to be exact) in the sport, and for such feats as becoming the first woman in history to deadlift 4.4 times her bodyweight. To earn that standout distinction, Cohen—whose weight typically hovers around 120 pounds—pulled a cool 545 pounds at the 2019 Arnold Sports Festival. She also boasts a 507-pound competition squat PR and a 242-pound bench press PR, both of which were pulled off at the 2019 Kern US Open.
Cohen is undoubtedly one of the strongest women on the planet, and she’s blazing trails for countless female strength athletes who once found themselves in the shadows of the athletic world. More than 630,000 people follow her on Instagram, giving Cohen (who, by the way, is a C.S.C.S., exercise physiologist, and doctor of physical therapy) a massive platform to educate people. She’s not your typical social media influencer, but a world-class athlete and certified trainer with a doctorate who knows what the hell she’s talking about. Cohen is the sort of driving female force who proves that lifting isn’t just for the boys, and she knows better than anyone how much her voice matters.
“I think it’s a lot of responsibility, but I like it—and I think I’m well-suited for the job, as well. I feel like I’m looked up to not only by females, but also by males, and that feels really nice,” Cohen told M&F. “I’ve gotten messages from male, high-level lifters asking me for advice with their lifting and for help with their program and coaching. On the platform that I’ve built, Hybrid Performance Method, a higher percentage of people are male, so it does just show the type of influence that I’ve been able to have even being a female in a male-dominated sport.”
Cohen’s Instagram feed speaks to her passion for teaching. In addition to awe-inspiring lifting accomplishments, she posts plenty of videos and graphics to share lessons that would prove useful for pretty much anyone with fitness goals.
“It’s usually topics that I feel have been misconstrued by the fitness industry in general,” Cohen explains. “I do a lot of those just trying to help people critically think about information that they’re reading, to present it with a different lens using evidence-based information.” She also draws inspiration from the questions she gets from followers and shares anything she thinks could be helpful to all athletes in the pursuit of strength.
Cohen constantly pushes her limits both in the gym and during competition, so she has to practice what she preaches when it comes to her own workouts, diet, and everyday lifestyle. You may not be hitting the numbers that she does in the gym, but you can still benefit from her education and knowledge of all things powerlifting. Below, check out some of Cohen’s top tips for setting new PRs and staying healthy, as told to M&F.
“Each training block lasts about 12-16 weeks, and is specifically designed to allow me to add weight leading to an event to put me in the best position to break a world record or a personal record. Throughout the peaking phase, there are many opportunities to hit personal records. Some of them are planned targets that I expect to achieve when I organize the block, and some are totally unexpected and unplanned based on how I feel, which I find to be the most rewarding.”
“When training at the highest level for a long time, you have to make sure you have the basics down: sleep, stress management, and nutrition. If you expect your body to perform at its best, you need to make sure you’re controlling as many variables as possible. The days leading into a competition or a heavy and strenuous training day where I’m expecting to improve my marks, I go to bed as early as I can and get at least eight to 10 hours of sleep.”
“I try to eat as clean as I can and stay away from processed foods, just because they don’t make me feel good. The day or two before a PR, I make sure to eat enough carbs and protein—I call that a mini re-feed. Enough protein is about 1.2g per pound of bodyweight from different sources like plants, red meat, tuna, salmon, and anchovies. I increase my carb intake by about 100g for those two days, making it 350-400g of carbohydrates from rice, sweet potato, and vegetables.”
“The quality of the food is very important. A misconception surrounding strength training and nutrition is that to lift the most, you have to eat the most, and that what you eat doesn’t matter. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Nutrition, from a performance standpoint, needs to be as strategic and precise as your training when you’re trying to improve by 0.5% each time you max out.”
“Visualization, or what’s called motor imagery, is crucial, so when you’re under the bar, you know exactly what to do. The more detail you go into, the better—walking or driving to the gym, putting your shoes on, the sounds, putting chalk on your hands, grabbing the bar, the smell of the iron, the feeling in your hands, and a successful execution of the lift in detail.
The second part, which I believe to be even more important, is visualizing a negative outcome. We don’t want to plan for it, but we need to prepare for it so we know how to react. Can you keep it together and try again, or will you crumble under pressure?”
“Warmups don’t need to be that complicated. The purpose of the warmup is to prepare your body for the exercise you’re trying to do, increase your core body temperature, heart rate and circulation, as well as to lubricate and loosen your joints. It should include a general portion such as a five-minute bike, row, or walk, then a stability component either for your core if it’s a deadlift or squat, or for the shoulder if it’s a press. Finally, move into a more specific movement that pertains to the exercise.”
“Although I do the bulk of my programming, I always resort to other people that might have more experience, or that are also well-respected lifters, just for their opinion. To see if they think my splits are good, or if I should be doing something different, or if I should add something into my routine. I always stay open-minded and always want to ask for other people’s opinions, just in case I’m missing something. When you think that you know a lot, then that’s a problem. You should always be trying to learn from other people.”
“[Injuries are] not 100% preventable, but I like to think of them as manageable. It’s a matter of listening to your body and understanding the signals that it’s giving you, in combination with your preparation for that particular day. Things like decreased sleep, increased stress or improper nutrition can put your body in a state of increased stress and more susceptibility to injury. You can manage these variables and do your best to decrease your likelihood of an injury, but you can’t prevent them altogether.”
2. Preparation a. Cossack squat contralateral load kettlebell x 8 b. Sumo stance KB swing x 8 c. Goblet squat x 8 Repeat 2 times
3. Trunk activation Bird dogs for 1 minute per side x 2 (with one foot pressed against a wall) Prone supermans x 10
4. Movement prep Empty barbell RDL x 10 Empty barbell sumo deadlift x 10
5. Working deadlift sets 2 sets of 3 at 70% 1 set of 3 at 80% 1 set of 1 at 90% 1 set of 1 at 97% 1 set of 1 at 102%
6. Accessories a. Pin deadlift isometrics for positions: 4 x 5 70% b. Back extensions: 4 x 10 c. Farmer carry: 4 x 60yd d. Glute-ham raises: 4 x 6 (with perfect form)
