Category: Articles 
April 29, 2021
I believe one of the secrets to thriving in life is seeking out difficult challenges, and then finding the “easy” within them. Let’s think about your diet, for example. Do you want to suffer, deprive yourself, starve, and hate the foods you get to eat in order to improve your body composition and other diet-related […]
April 1, 2021
In the first days of quarantine, when things shut down and the composition of my days changed overnight, I came to a quick realization: I may never again have an opportunity quite like this to train for muscle mass. I was a 43-year-old father of two with a time-consuming day job who had been training […]
March 4, 2021
The one-arm strict barbell press is a challenging press that will build strength and muscle stability. Pavel recommended the side press in Power to the People! and this stricter variation is a valuable addition to your strength training regimen. The prehabilitation and rehabilitation benefits of the strict barbell press are tremendous as the grip and […]
January 28, 2021
Training has always been a passion of mine, actually it’s been more of an obsession. To say that I love to train would be an understatement. I need to train. Despite this obsession, it’s important for me to have a goal or at least an objective. These goals have taken several forms. The specific training […]
January 5, 2021
“If at first you don’t succeed, redefine success.” This caption for a New Yorker cartoon nails the “FOMO” mentality of a “workout of the day.” Then why, might you ask, is StrongFirst jumping on the bandwagon and introducing its own “WOD”? Please read on. The biological law of accommodation states that the response of an […]
April 15, 2021
“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”—Zen Buddhism The Essential Must be Done Regularly After some rare downtime, I was watching the show “Life Below Zero” on the Nat Geo channel. It’s a documentary TV series about the daily challenge of living off the grid in remote areas of the […]
March 18, 2021
The Goal The idea of the Five-Rep Iron Maiden was planted in my head back in 2018 after completing the Iron Maiden Challenge at The Dome in Chicago. Training for something as big as Iron Maiden takes years of practice and after training for something for so long, it’s hard to be “finished.” Ben Eisenmenger […]
February 19, 2021
Strengthen Our Youth I currently teach at one of the best physical education schools in America. Prescott Junior High School was featured in the documentary “The Motivation Factor” which stresses the importance of being physically active. A big part of the documentary is the price American society is paying for not focusing on physical education […]
January 14, 2021
In June 2003, I was injured during my apprenticeship to become a truck driver. An 830kg stone, the size of an oak barrel, fell from my truck and hit me on my lower back as I was standing leaning forward. The result was three broken vertebrae, a broken pelvis, and both legs broken all the […]
December 17, 2020
I would like to share a training method with you that is rarely understood in the realm of fitness but so powerful it completely saved me from persistent hip discomfort and tension within a few days. Over the course of a few months, I saw improved performance while hiking steep hills and a more powerful […]