"Do you suppose they will choose to make war against lean, solid dogs rather than against fat and tender sheep?"
What I've been busy with Lean, solid dogs, it's been entirely too long. I've missed you! Since I last posted, I went "operational" on the county Search & Rescue team and started climbing a steep learning curve in any number of training courses--K9 search operations, swift water rescue, rope rescue, emergency medical response--and a handful... Continue Reading →
Russian training methods and Russian sports science. Raise your hand if you (a) love these things but (b) don't read Russian. Then you probably owe almost everything you know to Pavel Tsatsouline, THE great interpreter of that subject and almost the most influential voice in American exercise. Pavel created an appetite for English-language popularizations of... Continue Reading →
Feeling fat, looking fat, and being fat are three separate things. You can “feel fat” without looking or being fat. I’ll hazard a guess that it's mostly emotional, but even when you’re not being particularly neurotic, you can feel fatter or leaner depending on the fit of your clothes and your posture. You can also look... Continue Reading →
To prep for the (in)famous Star Course, I tried a 42-mile ruck march. I'd read one man's AAR suggesting that in training you aim for 40 miles (64km) in something close to 10 hours, and on paper that sounded almost reasonable. It's only 15 minutes per mile, right? Heck, I've motored along at that speed... Continue Reading →
Final installment in my after-action report from the GORUCK D-Day Heavy Challenge. The faithful, indomitable, light, nimble "Moose Head" rucksack. I love this thing. Made in the 1930s, it was intended by the Swedes as a cheap mass-production item for hurriedly equipping a big army that Germany would choose not to tangle with. Eighty years... 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 →
“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 →
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 →
New cardio hack! You've heard runners say, "An ounce on the foot is like a pound in the pack?" Well according to some researchers the ratio is more like 1:5, but that's still useful. So to work around some shoulder and hand injuries, today's game was to hike the Faeriemount with ankle weights. That way,... 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 →