"Do you suppose they will choose to make war against lean, solid dogs rather than against fat and tender sheep?"
What my training was supposed to look like... This year I was forced to train much differently for the Heavy than planned. I suffered an injury to one shoulder and both hands that ruled out some of the very training that I intended to rely on, namely pushups, heavy kettlebells (32 to 40kg), and carrying... Continue Reading →
Part 2 of our series "Tao of the Lazy Badass" The 5x5 is a classic approach because it is a foolproof way to accumulate volume.For liability reasons, however, you should not attempt high-volume midget lifting. Just add more plates. Exercise is a tale of two variables: Volume (how much you do) and Intensity (how hard... Continue Reading →
"Для меня Ригерт — это бог штанги, на него я молился с детства." "For me, Rigert is the god of barbells. I prayed to him from the time I was a child." -Weightlifting BAMF Alexei Petrov
Yesterday we wrote about some Army researchers' finding that, in a long, heavy ruck march, the guys who march fastest are the most muscular ones. Not necessarily the strongest, but the most muscular. How can that be? If you beef up for a long ruck with an extra 20 lbs. of muscle, you're schlepping an... Continue Reading →
Part 6 in our series "20 Years of Pavel Tsatsouline." Complete table of contents here. Before Pavel came along, we did not deadlift. By “we” I mean young ironheads who wanted big muscles and got our (mis)information from dime store bodybuilding magazines. "[T]he deadlift is THE exercise of choice for anyone." In 1999 Pavel sounded... Continue Reading →
Part 5 in our series "20 Years of Pavel Tsatsouline." See Table of Contents here. Pavel Tsatsouline likens his programs to Kalashnikov rifles, which have just a few simple moving parts. You can strip the "Kalash" one-handed in the dark: pop off the top cover, pull out a spring and bolt carrier, and you’re left with one huge, solid main assembly. A rare but... Continue Reading →
The third installment in our series, "20 Years of Pavel Tsatsouline." “Nothing is more practical than a good theory,” and Pavel Tsatsouline has always excelled at distilling exercise science into something immediately useful and dummy-proof. In his short, entertaining 1999 book, Power to the People, he changed popular strength training by drawing consequences that... Continue Reading →
The second installment in our series on the training doctrines of Pavel Tsatsouline. Pavel Tsatsouline changed strength training so much—and so relatively quietly—that unless you are a middle-aged meathead, you probably cannot remember what it was like before "the Evil Russian" subverted our country's established order with his 1999 book Power to the People. It was... Continue Reading →
This is the first installment in our series on the training doctrines of Pavel Tsatsouline. Pavel Tsatsouline entered my life through a side door. In 1998, on an internet forum hosted by the first man to squat 1000 lbs., “Dr. Squat” Fred Hatfield, I read a terse post by a polite Russian émigré. He introduced... Continue Reading →
20 Years of Pavel Tsastouline: IntroductionBefore the Russian Revolution: The Ancien Regime of 1999 Strength Is a SkillMinimalism: When All You Have Is a HammerOne Pull, One PressEnter the DeadliftPower to the People!