"Do you suppose they will choose to make war against lean, solid dogs rather than against fat and tender sheep?"
So it feels like an ever-new mystery to get overpowered in fight training by short, thin, or otherwise gracile people who, it seems to me, can’t possibly have as much power. Not just outmaneuvered and outskilled, but manhandled or just plain pounded. I’m talking thin teenagers, featherweight women, even a girl who’s too young for PG-13 and weighs less than my checked luggage. What gives?
Good news: The “core” isn’t the all-important missing link anymore. The cool kids have moved on. Now feet are the new core. Thank heaven, because I got bored of direct midsection work long before the fools in marketing renamed it the “core.” When did they coin that phrase anyway? I missed the Nineties, living in... Continue Reading →
Ever look at old-time photos showing their era's paragons of manliness? Ever notice how many of those turn-of-the-century sex symbols are proudly repping dad bods? It actually gets stranger: other models from the period look every bit as sculpted and Grecian as Brad Pitt in Troy, but no one seems to care. There's no indication that anyone in 1900--the photographers, the models, or the audiences--preferred the buff guys to the dad bods. What changed?
In the snatch, if you’re going to last the full 10 minutes, you must spare your grip. How? Use your legs. After you “pull” the bell up, bend at the knees and dip down. That way you won’t have to pull as high. Even more importantly, when you drop the bell back down, rise up... Continue Reading →
Guest author "Dr. Smet" finishes his insider's tour of the Russian sports science underlying Pavel Tsatsouline's long-awaited endurance training manifesto, The Quick and the Dead. I follow Dr. Smet's blog Girevoy Sport After 40 to read about top-dog Russian coaching and research from a medical scientist who also practices what he reports on. Before we... 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 →
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 →
“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 →
This morning's game was called "Loopsided": three mismatched weights all carried off-center, starring the Leaden Loop. People don't like one-arm or one-legged lifts very much, including me, because they take more time and tire the core muscles. But you need to work in the transverse (side-to-side) somehow, and you can check that box with weighted... Continue Reading →