"Do you suppose they will choose to make war against lean, solid dogs rather than against fat and tender sheep?"
D-Day Heavy Challenge AAR, part 2 Leadership Cadre Clark. Think "muscular, tough-love Mr. Rogers with Marine Corps ideas about character building." During the whole event we only had 4 team leaders (TLs). I had the shortest, most intense (though not the hardest) tenure, during beach fun. As we approached the beach from the Conservatory of... Continue Reading →
It's always some heavily muscled personal trainer. My toughest moments at Goruck challenges are when I must fireman's carry a teammate, and it's never the vegetarian triathlete who works for a socially conscious startup. I always get the dense, hypertrophied Paleo stevedore-type who runs a gym. It's amazingly easy to fireman's carry someone, but it's... Continue Reading →
Goruck Heavy (May 31 - June 1) commemorating D-Day. San Francisco. Thirteen entered (eight men, five women), ten finished. These are the lessons I learned, first about individual performance (part 1), then about us as a team (part 2), then about my gear choices (part 3). Absolute Strength and Strength-Endurance Absolute strength is essentially one-rep... Continue Reading →
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 →
Today's the day, friends. 24 hours, 40+ miles, with logs, sandbags, PT beatdowns, and surf torture along the way. Wherever you are today, get after it! Hammer along with me and (I'm completely serious about this), please remember my team and me in your thoughts and prayers. I may be Buddhist, but I'm not choosy... Continue Reading →
Here at Lean Solid Dog HQ, we heard from an infantry reservist and Afghan veteran with a job, a grad program, and a young child to raise by himself, and he asked me to post my thoughts about getting lean again. I have definite thoughts on the subject, but my only qualifications for holding them... Continue Reading →
I am 20 days out from the “GORUCK Heavy” event. Normally I reserve this blog for content that I think will have general interest, not “training log” entries. But this month will be a little different, as I leave a sort of memo for my future self, and this post is a snapshot of my... Continue Reading →
We’ve all had friends who exerted unhealthy influence over us. They were charismatic and had qualities we wanted to emulate, but in the exuberance of growth we also idealized them for a time and didn’t want to accept that they too were just fragile, finite people with foibles, not all-purpose role models. And so we... 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 →
“Like water, volume is soft and yielding. But volume will wear away rock, and it beats the crap out of excess fatigue. As a rule, volume wins over fatigue. This is another paradox: what is soft and voluminous is strong.”from the lost training manual of Laozi (Lao-Tzu) A difficult book, but the most important one... Continue Reading →