The Kettlebell Swing Why the kettlebell? The past 10 years or so the kettlebell has been advertised in every magazine, ad, or gym. It is not like kettlebells are new, they actually have been around for at least 300 years. The Russian military adopted the kettlebell because of it’s effectiveness in building strength in shorter …
Exhalation is king! Being an ex military diver, both Army and Navy, for nearly 13 years I thought I knew a thing or two about breathing. I couldn’t have been more wrong. I was from the school of thought that Oxygen (O2) was good and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) was bad, meaning that the focus for …
I was on the studio floor the other day giving some tips to a deadlifter who had just recently learnt how to deadlift, and I was trying to explain some of the psychological aspects involved. So said lifter had just failed at a relatively moderate weight. We went for a walk outside and I explained what …
Back strong and beltless. As many of you may already know, I am an advocate for deadlifting beltless. Recently though however I was lifting in a close friends gym in South Africa, The Yard Athletic, when one of the strength coaches there asked me why I lifted beltless considering the fact that I compete. “You …
Save yourself from fall related injuries. We had a very inspirational man train with us a while back, and he was 81 years old. He walked in after being at the golf shop nearby, and asked me if I could help him get mobile enough to put his golf tee in the ground without having …
Unless you have been living under rock recently you would’ve heard a fair amount of hype about the impact prolonged sitting has on your body. But how bad can it be? Well it’s pretty bad. The body is very good at doing what you ask of it. Therefore if you spend your entire day sitting …
Moment to moment survivability is your nervous system’s primary goal. It doesn’t care if you pull a 250kg deadlift or if you can run a sub 3hr marathon, it just wants to survive the attempt. The three main systems at play here that send the relevant information to the brain about both internal and external environments are …
I’m going to share with you a story that led to one of the most embarrassing days of my life, causing me to re-evaluate how I trained pull-ups. It happened about 13 years ago, when I decided to transfer from the Army to the Navy as a Clearance Diver. To be accepted, I had to …
4 Progressions to Increase Your Maximum Pull-ups Read More »
When I first started training with weights about 10 years ago, I remember walking into the gym thinking “okay, what’ll it be today, legs and shoulders or chest and arms”? This is a relatively common view on how to train, and it’s generally associated with bodybuilding or physique training. After many years of trial and error …
One of the greatest benefits of being a trainer would have to be the lifestyle. I train throughout the day, and I eat the food I want when I want. I get to bed early so I’m fresh for the next day. But my life hasn’t always been like this, and for a lot of …
