Reassess your lat strength and rear delt strength.  Often, when first overhead pressing many lack the stability to really drive through it off their shoulders never fully engaging their delts.  Also make sure you’re getting full scapulae retraction.  Assess your bar path and find out if you’re getting too far in front of you (video analysis from the side helps with this).  

Where specifically are you failing?  Bottom end?  Lockout?  A good accessory movement to help with OHP is pressing to the center of your head.  You have to be controlled with it or you’ll crack your skull thus making your triceps having to work that much harder.  Failing off the bottom?  Get some front delt raises in (DB) and again learn to maintain tension throughout.  

Well the first thing to take care of when trying to gain weight is to make sure you’re in a caloric surplus.  As someone who works with a lot of high school athletes, I’ve found most teenage athletes do not eat enough to gain weight.  ”But Coach, I eat all the time!” is a very common phrase.  When it comes down to it, they’re not eating enough or they’d be gaining.

Now, once you’ve determined how much food it takes to simply maintain - basically your weight week over week is relatively the same (your daily weight will fluctuate based on fluid and food intake) - then it’s time to start upping the calories.  Start small and up it by 500 calories per day.  So if you were needing 3500 calories to maintain your weight, you’ll now eat 4000 calories per day.  Do this for 2 weeks.  Still no change in the scale?  Up it again by 500 calories and do this for another 2 weeks.  Find a caloric level that allows you to gain weight at a steady and constant pace - around 1-2 lbs per week.  

Nutrient choices - to mitigate fat gain, get your calories from quality sources.  If it poops or grows, it is usually a good source of food.  This means animal products, veggies, fruits, nuts, etc.  

Nutrient timing - I’ve found the biggest thing for me and many of my clients, is keeping as much of my calories as I can around my workout.  I take in approximately 70% of my calories in a day around my workout (hour before, during training, and the hour to two hours after training).  Doing so gives the body calories when you actually need them.  So going back to my 4000 calories a day example, that means you’d take in 2800 of the 4000 calories in that hour before, during training, and hour or two after training.  As said this has been the best help for me keeping bodyfat in check while gaining weight.  Some say don’t overload the calories like this but in all my clients it has been beneficial and research shows that it also is very beneficial.  Logically it makes sense - use calories when you NEED them.  From a sciency standpoint your training increases the MTOR and Glut4 translocation responses allowing for maximal nutrient uptake in muscle fiber in conjunction with a very high insulin response.  Insulin being the most anabolic hormone in our body, is best used after you just placed a huge demand on your muscles signaling your body to repair muscle/grow muscle instead of storing nutrients as fat.

Lastly, but definitely not the least important, is training.  Lift heavy stuff.  Require your body to grow.  If you’re doing endless reps, and tons of cardio you’re really not giving your body a reason to grow.  Be a viking, lift heavy stuff.

Absolutely a combination of both.  Let’s first look at the lifting portion of this with an example.

Let’s say you’re max split (lowest you can get, and I’m just making numbers up here mind you) is 1:30/500 meters.  To hit your 6:56(going to use 6:56 for even math) you need a 1:44 split which is 64.79% of your maximum output.  If, through lifting (which is going to affect your maximum output the most) are able to get your maximum output split to 1:27, to hit that same 1:44 you now operating at 58.53% of your maximum output.  You’ve essentially made that 1:44 7.26% easier to handle.  

From a steady state standpoint you can train your VO2 max, to improve your performance (essentially more steady state is going to allow you to use more oxygen during a test).  If you are used to doing steady state at say a 2:05 for an hour, through erging and training, you are able to then hold a 2:02 for an hour of steady state (and still stay in the appropriate heart rate ranges) you have improved your ability to hold lower splits by improving your efficiency.  Again, you essentially make that 1:44 more obtainable by being more efficient with your oxygen usage.

Long story short - lift, erg, win.

This is something I happen to have quite a bit of experience with (5 of my online clients are either ultra-distance runners or competitive marathon runners).  A big problem with most distance runners is their rate of force development and amount of power per step.  Furthermore, most distance runners have some of the weakest bone structures out of any athlete so lifting is extremely important to them (yet most don’t do it).

With my runners I have them lift twice a week, 5 utilization runs (longer distance) focusing on building their aerobic base, and 1 Anaerobic Theshold workout building their ability to handle lactate byproducts from running during longer races near maximal heart rates.  This is for people who are working full time jobs and really all they can dedicate towards their training.  My ultra-marathon runner gets 3 lifts a week, 8 runs, and 1 AT session (on average during the off-season) as he is a bit more competitive and has a bit more time to dedicate (sponsored runner).

I generally like to have them lift Mon/Thurs with a solid tempo run afterwards to help promote recovery.  Most of their lifting is on increasing their power production and is dependent upon where they are in their training cycle and season.  In general though they’re really hammering the posterior chain and focusing on fixing imbalances with their accessory work.  

One of their aerobic runs a week is done on a treadmill and we do video analysis for their gait and stride.

So that’s the general breakdown of how I train most of my competitive running clients.

Again focus on your weaknesses with your lift, fixing imbalances, and improving your posterior chain strength.

Hope this helped!

Work on maximal holds. This grip cycle brought me from being able to handle holding 600 lbs to being able to hold onto 950 lbs. Grip is never an issue now. A1 = Barbell holds (heavy as you can hold for 10 seconds), A2 = pinch plate holds - pinch the plate between your thumb and 4 other fingers. Once you can do say a 10 lb plate, add a 5 lb plate, once you can get up to 25 lbs (don’t use a 25 lb plate, use more smaller plates to make it thicker which makes it harder and develops grip better)

Lastly, if you want a strong deadlift - a true deadlift then you need to develop your grip. Lose the gloves (makes the surface area greater thus making it harder on your grip). Use chalk (carbonate based works best). No straps for now. I had this same problem when I was stuck around 500 on my deadlift and I took the time to reset, fix my grip issue, and I’ve never had a grip issue since. A benefit of a strong grip is that it makes EVERY LIFT STRONGER. Your hands are your point of contact

I have tested and tested and tested to find what works for me.  I’ve found various protocols that work, some better than others, and I’ve found what my body doesn’t react to well.  Even when I find what works, I still have another project in the works where I’m trying to find out if there is something more optimal for me.  That being said there are specific guidelines I generally always follow.

Protein with every meal, try and keep it to whole food as much as possible, limit carbs to when you need them (around a workout, more after than before), and if it poops or grows it’s probably not bad for you to eat.  These are general guidelines that fit into almost every nutritional protocol.  There are things I tweak such as glycemic load, nutrient timing, timed fasts, processed vs unprocessed and a myriad of other issues.

When I work with my clients, I have an extensive questionnaire process and on-going dialogue to see how clients react to various things constantly tweaking to better suit their goals, and their body types.  I could go write a diet for someone, but it would just be a diet, one that may work one that may not, ultimately it’s the continuing dialogue and tweaking that helps really fine tune it to the client.  I have a long foundation of watching results and examining reactions but even then I’m not going to get it all right in the first go, there’s always changes that can be made to make it more efficient and better suited to someone.

As far as my busy lifestyle goes -I’m a big fan of preparing food ahead of time, and using fasting periods.  I work 15 hour days most days and my first meal is around 2 PM or so - something I’ve usually cooked up earlier in the week or the night before.  If I had a bit more time I’d probably bump this up as I don’t care for fasting that long as I feel my energy levels waver a tad in the noon-2 timeframe or if I push it out to 4 PM I start feeling a bit groggy too.  This is what I currently do, because it fits my schedule.  I get most of my calories post workout (about 2500-3k or so).  I’m also trying to make weight for a meet right now, if I were in more off-season mode and able to let my weight travel up slightly, I’d eat more often and get more calories in.  This is just what is working for me and my schedule currently.

Preparation is key both mentally and physically.  Physically prepare your meals and have them, mentally know you’re going to eat it when you need to, not necessarily when you want to.  I WANT to eat all the time.  I’m a glutonous fool that loves food, but I don’t NEED to eat all the time.  It’s a matter of mental toughness and preparation.