A Three-Year Journey with ETK

The year is 2006, and one of my personal training students was inquiring about my next training plan. Student: So, what’s your next routine, Os? Me: I’m doing a program called Enter the Kettlebell (ETK). Student: What is that? Me: I’ll be doing kettlebell clean & press three times a week, snatches once a week, […]

Defeating Limited Training Time: A Modified Built Strong Program

I usually say, “I’ve never gotten to see Game of Thrones,” to highlight how busy my life is. For the past nineteen years, I’ve worked full-time in Emergency Services, doing shift work. Additionally, I’ve owned and operated Access Health and Fitness in Dublin with employees for twelve years. I’m also married with three level-headed, non-stress […]

Spreading the Load

StrongFirst is built upon universal strength principles that are applied to the three modalities we teach: kettlebell, barbell, and bodyweight. Although our focus is on these specific modalities, our principles can be applied to any training tool. StrongFirst principles translate complicated, scientific methods into simple, applicable programs that can be immediately applied to training. Our […]

Simple and Sinister—Help, I’m Stuck

“Dedication, absolute dedication, is what keeps one ahead.”—Bruce Lee Simple & Sinister embodies the quote above. Dedication to achieving Simple and continuing to Sinister has led students on multiple-month and multiple-year journeys. A rarity in today’s scrolling-based attention-span world, the dedicated pursuit of the S&S goal is a worthy endeavor. However, dedication can and will […]

Clean and Jerk A+A Training for the Minimalist

Introduction After reaching timeless Simple in March of 2020, I decided to try out The Quick and the Dead (Q&D), while maintaining sport-specific training on the pushup which is part of my military testing. Pleased with the results of Q&D, I decided to continue with the program, but I had a problem. The book suggests […]

Pressing Strength Carryovers

In our StrongFirst system, there are many “a-ha” or “what the heck” moments that are identified as carryover effects. These carryovers translate into unexpected strength gains, better movement, and endurance in other lifts you haven’t specifically been training. This is an exciting part of the training process, when your lifts become easier, and you find […]

My Minimalist Training

My journey to StrongFirst started with questions that were always on my mind, “What is strength? What does it mean to be strong?” I pursued this question through fighting, training, studying, and researching how to become strong, both physically and mentally, and obviously the name StrongFirst came up. Everything I read was intriguing, so real […]

The Iron Monkey Deep Six Challenge

Many years ago, StrongFirst Certified Master Instructor Jon Engum published an article using his Deep Six practice that tested an instructor candidate’s readiness to pass the SFG Level I Certification. The plan is simple: 3-5 rounds of a complex composed of the six fundamental kettlebell skills: swing, snatch, clean, military press, squat, and get-up. The […]

The Art of Appreciating One Thing

(An Excerpt from Kettlebell Axe) “Do you know what the difference between great people and regular people is?” says a coach to an athlete in Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s novel Don’t Die Before Death. “A great person is a gardener of self. He cuts off the unnecessary branches.” In AXE, as in other types of training, pros […]

Alice in Kettlebell Wonderland and the Cruiser—a Perfect Kettlebell Plan for a Busy Person

You want to build strength and rock-hard muscles, but your busy schedule hasn’t allowed you to train regularly, you are under time constraints, and your sessions need to be time efficient, flexible, and engaging? Keep reading, I’ve got something for you. The plan I’m about to share is something I designed for my wife Alice, […]