Bear’s-Eye View
Today's game was to climb to the summit on hands and knees: For every step, I had either to "bear walk" or lunge. Though that may sound wretched, it was a huge endorphin fest. The golden recipe for training is to do as much work as possible while staying as fresh as possible. That's the... Continue Reading →
The Steel Snake Eats Its Tail
Today's game was to sew straps onto both ends of the Steel Snake and take it out for a slither. Over 4 miles (6.4km), the Snake and I agreed on a few things: With straps added on, it slips and flops around less. That way it's much easier to carry.Since it's pretty slender, you can... Continue Reading →
Field-Testing the Steel Snake
The problem here isn't so much the weight as the SHAPE of the weight. Good luck resting this above your center of gravity. In the real world, when we need to lift or haul something challenging, it's less often because it's terribly heavy and usually because it's awkwardly shaped. Stones are bad. A half-filled keg... Continue Reading →
The Famous Telnyashka
Rigert is said to have inspired the sport's governing body to change their rule requiring a uniform of a single color so that he could wear the striped t-shirt on the platform. Soviet weightlifter David Rigert was famous for his signature telnyashka, the blue and white striped t-shirt. Originally part of the Russian naval uniform in... Continue Reading →
Big Jumps: Fewer Bells Are Better
As Julien says, I recommend Pavel Tsatouline’s original primer on kettlebells, The Russian Kettlebell Challenge (2001), and the open-ended, unscripted training guidelines he gives there: Train 2-7 times per week.You can vary this week to week. You benefit from a certain amount of randomness in loading.Keep it to 45 minutes or less. Sometimes a lot less.... Continue Reading →
Stretching for kettlebell lifters who hate to stretch
https://www.yogajournal.com/poses/side-stretch-satisfaction Anti-rotation. Al Kavadlo doesn't twist and fall here because his QL is keeping his waist rigid. The poor quadratus lumborum (QL). It does much more than its share during one-arm movements like kettlebell swings and presses, where it keeps your torso rigid and facing forward. It needs to be stretched, but if you are... Continue Reading →
Bells in the Baltics
Speaking of Baltic hardmen like Hackenschmidt and Pavel, our Vilnius correspondent Sgt. Šileika has been trying kettlebells. He reports: "Kettlebells are so cool because they have their own idea of where they have to go. It takes my whole body to control them. Just handling them is an exercise in itself." http://www.usgsf.com So true! Many... Continue Reading →
David Rigert: even now one of the most popular Soviet sportsmen ever. But what the hell kind of name is "David Rigert" for a Russian weightlifter?! It's a trick question: Rigert isn't ethnically Russian, he's German. Rigert was born in 1947 to a family of "Volga Germans" who immigrated to Russia in czarist times and... Continue Reading →
The Barbell God
"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