For Lift-A-Palooza 2027, we've assembled five exceptional coaches with wildly different backgrounds and perspectives to create a weekend unlike anything you've experienced before:

Vanessa Edwards, Molly Morris, DJ Murakami, Dr. Garrett "G Money" Kuljian, and "Iron Tamer" Dave Whitley 

You can learn a lot about strength training from books, videos, and online courses.

But nothing compares to being in the room with great coaches.

Getting immediate feedback on your technique. Asking questions you can't ask through a screen. Trying something completely new and discovering you're capable of more than you thought.

And best of all, spending a weekend surrounded by people who get just as excited about training as you do.

That's what Lift-A-Palooza is all about.

Here's what's in store...

Explore the joy of movement through breath, mobility, body awareness, and playful exploration.

Kick off Lift-A-Palooza with Vanessa and Molly for a hands-on exploration of mobility, breath, body awareness, and athletic movement.

You'll discover how to move with greater freedom, generate tension when you need it, and tap into the natural springiness and responsiveness that make movement feel powerful and fun.

Prepare your body for action

We start with a sequence of guided tissue work to unlock and prepare for the weekend. Develop a deeper connection with your body so you can move with intention and confidence.

Lymphatic Big 6 Reset

This quick routine by Dr. Perry Nickelston supports natural detoxification, improves circulation and energy, and assists with post-exercise recovery.

Breathe with purpose

Discover the power of the 360 breath and learn to coordinate your breath with different movements, tempos, and levels of intensity.

Build strength through movement

Explore how your feet, knees, hips, and spine work together to support whole-body strength. Learn to lengthen, create tension, and load your body with greater control. Let's take your spine in ALL directions.

Rediscover your athleticism

Experiment with accessible plyometrics, quick reactions, and playful movement challenges designed to help you become more springy, responsive, and adaptable.

Build your daily practice

Leave with a plan, practical tissue work, mobility, and breathing practices to nourish your body and support how you move and feel each day. 

Come ready to explore, experiment, and play.

Discover how hands-on feedback, unconventional tools, and creative constraints can change the way you train, move, and coach.

The most versatile piece of training equipment in the gym isn't a barbell, kettlebell, or machine...

It's your own two hands.

Join DJ and Dr. Garrett for an unconventional, hands-on exploration of strength, mobility, and movement.

You'll discover how carefully applied manual resistance and physical feedback can transform the way you move, train, and coach others.

At the center of the workshop is MEC (Manual External Constraints), an innovative approach that uses hands-on resistance and feedback to help the body find better positions, create tension, and learn new movement patterns.

Instead of relying on endless verbal cues, you'll experience how the right physical feedback can make a movement suddenly click.

Here's What You'll Explore:

Make movement click with M.E.C.

Learn to use your hands to provide resistance, guidance, and immediate feedback. Discover how simple adjustments can make challenging movements feel more intuitive.

Unlock new possibilities for strength and mobility

Explore how manual constraints can help you access new ranges of motion, improve body awareness, and find more effective ways to generate tension.

Build full-body strength with the Torque Stick

Experience how rotational forces can challenge your stability, reinforce joint positioning, and create powerful connections throughout your body.

The "Predator Protocol"

Dive into one of DJ's most unusual training methods: jaw and neck training. Explore an often-overlooked area of the body and its relationship to bracing, positioning, and movement.

Become a more adaptable lifter or coach

Discover new ideas you can apply to familiar exercises, whether you're helping someone else learn a movement or experimenting with your own training.

This isn't a workshop where you sit around listening to lectures or memorizing a complicated training system.

You'll work with partners, experiment with unusual training methods, and experience firsthand how small changes in resistance and feedback can produce surprisingly different movement experiences.

Come with an open mind, a little curiosity, and a willingness to try something different.

You might never look at training the same way again.

Unlock the power of kettlebell training's most rewarding lifts.

There's something special about the old-school approach to strength.

Before fancy machines, complicated programs, and endless fitness trends, strongmen built extraordinary strength with simple tools and a deep understanding of how to use them.

On Sunday morning, legendary strength performer and kettlebell instructor Dave Whitley will take you on a hands-on journey through three essential kettlebell skills: the Swing, Turkish Get-Up, and Bent Press.

Whether you're brand new to kettlebells or have been swinging them for years, you'll have the opportunity to refine your technique, explore new challenges, and discover the strength-building potential of these classic movements.

Here's What You'll Explore:

The Kettlebell Swing

Explore the mechanics of a powerful hip hinge, efficient force production, and the coordination that makes the swing such an effective strength and conditioning exercise.

The Turkish Get-Up

Discover the remarkable combination of strength, mobility, stability, and body awareness required to move from the floor to standing while controlling a kettlebell overhead. Explore technique and progressions that make this complex movement more approachable.

The Bent Press

Step into the world of old-time strongmen with one of kettlebell training's most fascinating lifts. Learn the fundamental mechanics of the bent press and explore how positioning, mobility, and whole-body coordination can allow you to handle challenging loads with surprising efficiency.

Learn from the Iron Tamer himself!

Dave has built his reputation around extraordinary demonstrations of strength and a passion for teaching others how to become stronger.

Now you'll have the opportunity to learn directly from him, ask questions, and experience the principles behind some of his favorite kettlebell lifts.

Strength Coaches & Personal Trainers

Expand your coaching toolbox, discover new techniques, and learn from instructors with unique perspectives on strength and movement.

Dedicated Lifters

Sharpen your skills, break out of familiar training routines, and experience new approaches to getting stronger.

Curious Strength Enthusiasts

You don't need to be an elite athlete or certified coach to belong here. Bring your enthusiasm, your curiosity, and a willingness to learn.

If you love training, you're our kind of person.

April 2 - 4, 2027

Nashville, Tennessee

The full weekend itinerary will be available after registration.

Lift-A-Palooza is unlike any other live training event... not led by militant instructors or stuffy experts, but a group of passionate coaches dedicated to the art and science of strength training and sharing it with others.

Guaranteed.

And Lift-A-Palooza is open to all strength and skill levels.

Just bring a good attitude and an open mind.

You'll come away from the weekend not just feeling like you learned some new tricks, but have truly grown as a lifter and/or coach.

Interactive, hands-on training events with this mix of high-caliber coaches don't happen often.  

This is an unprecedented opportunity to train with and get personal attention from world-class coaches who truly care.

Very few events like this exist... much less at a reasonable cost.

In fact, most most seminars with this kind of lineup (and personal attention) can easily run upwards of $3,000...

But a ticket to Lift-A-Palooza is nowhere near that.

Less than $2,000...

Less than $1,500...

In fact, for all of this:

You can register now for just $799!

I worked on my own strength for years before I ever coached anyone, and the most important thing I learned wasn't on the bar. It was how to pay attention to what my body was telling me, and how much of training is mental. 

I've struggled with advanced scoliosis, and it taught me to understand my body. My body does want to move. Listening to it is how I learned when to push and when to back off. Now I get to teach my clients how to listen to their bodies while we work together toward their strength goals.

That doesn't mean limiting yourself. You still push, get strong and hit your goals, while protecting yourself along the way.

Although listening to your body is a big rule for me, it isn't the soft option. It doesn't mean we come here to give up when things get hard. It's how you learn the difference between good pain and bad. Bad pain is a full stop. Good pain means go, and we go. You'll get strong here. You'll build muscle. You'll just also do so while minimizing your risk of injury.

We're not going for perfect. We're going for net positive: walking out a little better than you walked in, week after week, until it adds up to something you're proud of. That takes time, and it's why this Sanctuary isn't built for quick fixes. It's built for the long haul.

Vanessa graduated from Belmont University with a degree in business administration.

Her certifications include NASM, FMS Functional Movement Systems and StrongFirst level one.

Molly has been a personal trainer and fitness coach for over 12 years, and still nerds out on discovering new movement modalities as much as she did on day one. 

She holds certifications through NASM, FRC, and StrongFirst Kettlebells Level 1, along with mentorships in biomechanics and posture training that shows up in how she approaches everyone she works with.

At the core of Molly's approach is the belief that taking care of your future self starts with movement. 

She's passionate about helping people build real confidence in what their bodies are capable of, not just how they look, but how they move, feel, and function in everyday life for the long haul.

Outside the gym, you'll find Molly at a concert, planning her next trip, or learning a new jump rope trick.

DJ Murakami is a strength coach and founder of Human Strong Training based out of Southern California. 

He has over two decades of experience training everyone from professional athletes to grandmothers.

He's explored bodybuilding, powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting, bodyweight training, unconventional and old-time training methods. 

He is the creator of Chi Torque (with Chris Chamberlin of the Weck Method), the Predator Protocol jaw and neck program, Quads of Death, and co-founder of the MEC System.

Known for his no-nonsense approach to flexibility, strength and rehabilitation, Garrett has built a reputation for helping athletes become strong, mobile and pain-free without falling into the traps of gimmicky “mobility culture.” Blending physical therapy, loaded flexibility work and high-level strength training, his coaching focuses on creating bodies that are both resilient and capable.

Through years of coaching, research and hands-on experience, he’s become widely respected for simplifying complex movement concepts into practical systems that actually produce results.

Garrett is known for combining technical depth with brutally honest coaching. He has taught workshops all over the globe and his sessions & challenge students to stop relying on shortcuts and instead build true physical freedom through consistency, intelligent programming and hard work.

Dave Whitley is an internationally recognized kettlebell coach, performing strongman, and teacher of strength, dedicated to helping people awaken the power already living inside them.

A lifelong student of old-time strength culture, Dave is the President of Oldtime Strongman University, where he carries forward the lineage and lessons of legendary figures like Dennis Rogers, Slim “The Hammer Man” Farman, Arthur Saxon, The Mighty Atom, and other giants of physical culture. 

His coaching blends classic feats of strength with modern training principles, mindset work, and comfort-zone expansion.

Dave is a former Master RKC & SFG Instructor, having taught kettlebell instructors around the world and helping shape the modern resurgence of kettlebell training. 

As a performing strongman, Dave has bent steel, ripped decks of cards, driven nails by hand, broken chains and other feats all to demonstrate one core truth:

Strength is not just physical. Strength is who you decide to become.

Zack and Tracy are your Lift-A-Palooza coordinators.

Zack is a strength coach and Nashville local with a passion for helping people realize their strongest selves.

Tracy is a strength coach in Savannah and is a current 4x USAPL National Champion, referee, and meet director.

Together, they organize and facilitate unique training seminars for gyms, coaches, and strength enthusiasts.

We believe strength training is for everyone and should be a fun, life-long pursuit.  

You deserve all the benefits from a strength practice and we are here to make sure you maximize your results and have a great time doing it.

We can't wait to lift and learn with you in April! 

To Your Strength,

Tracy and Zack

P.S. - If you're interested but you have any doubts at all about coming, just send a quick note by clicking here and we'll chat about it.

Lift-A-Palooza 2026

Lift-A-Palooza 2025

Lift-A-Palooza 2025 w/ Eddy Coan

Lift-A-Palooza 2024 w/ Jordan Syatt

Lift-A-Palooza 2023 w/ Dan John

Lift-A-Palooza 2021 w/ Jeff Sokol

Lift-A-Palooza 2019 w/ David Dellanave

Lift-A-Palooza 2018 w/ Jen Millican

"Hi Zack and Tracy!

Thank you both for planning, coordinating, and making Lift-A-Palooza a success!

I met top-notch quality folks, learned a lot, gained new perspectives, and had fun!  It was an enjoyable experience to be surrounded and encouraged by like-minded people.  It felt like finding my tribe.

This industry needs more people like yourselves: the people you are, the content you create, the doors you open and the people you welcome.  It's refreshing, encouraging, and inspiring.

Thank you both, again! I am looking forward to next year!"  -- Kate