Tag: One-Arm Swing
Lifting the Dinnie Stones is a challenge for which strength enthusiasts from all over the world travel to Scotland. Donald Dinnie not only lifted but carried the “Steens” across the Potarch Bridge in 1860—a feat that would not be replicated for more than a century. In 1972, somebody was finally able to do what he […]
“Each time [the waves] fall, they never fail to rise again.”—Josh Billings You earned the stripes of “Timed Simple.” You took the time and mastered the weights between Simple and Sinister (40kg for gents both in the swing and the get-up, 28kg in the swing and 20kg in the get-up for the ladies). Now, you […]
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 […]
Kettlebell snatches are one of my personal favorite lifts. They are athletic and explosive. They can be done with a variety of weights, tempos, rep schemes, and in my experience, give more “what the heck” (WTH) effects than anything else. There is a unique and gratifying sense of completion when you lock out each rep […]
I think it was Dan John who said something to the effect that “the majority of your training will be a ‘punch the clock’ kind of session.” The younger generation might not be familiar with the expression “punch the clock”—it refers to a time clock where employees had to punch holes into a paper timecard […]
I exist in a dilemma. One of my favorite pastimes is Western hunting, usually in the mountains. I love the animals, love the physical beauty of the terrain, and I love the challenge. The problem is that I live, work, and train on a coastal plain—low and flat. For two decades, I struggled to find […]
“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 […]
There is an old Italian proverb that reads “One apple a day keeps the doctor away.” I took the liberty to substitute the apple with 160 seconds. Let me tell you why I did so. The Upsides and the Downsides of Technology Over the past decades the continuous technology innovations have gradually and constantly made […]
