What’s the best way to run? Should you run on your heels or toes? What about various shoes and their effect on the way you run? Our feet are designed in a way which makes it possible to run, walk or just support our weight. There was actually a study[¹] done …
Working Up to a Handstand Against the Wall
My newest article on Breaking Muscle will help you work your way up to a handstand against the wall. How to Work Up to a Handstand Against the Wall Doing a handstand against the wall is not a difficult move to do. It doesn’t require much strength, as when you …
PR Report 1-18-14
This one is much the same as last week’s. I’m really only working on three things right now: splits, one arm chins and kettlebell snatches. In the past, I, and many others have written about training the full body, the moves you should do, etc. Like doing an upper body …
The Best Surface to Do Handstands On
What’s the best surface to practice handstands on? Primarily, you’ll want to practice handstands on a solid surface, like these mats you can see in the video above. You want to avoid softer mats or anything else that might give in to what you’re doing. If you try to do …
Vertical and Horizontal Presses and Pulls
I received a question regarding the balance between vertical presses and horizontal presses and pulls, with vertical exercises like pull-ups, overhead barbell press or handstand pushups versus horizontal presses like bench press, dumbbell rows, inverted rows and similar horizontal movements. Do you really need to do all of these to …
PR Report 1-10-14
I’ve been working on my flexibility for the most part this week. I shot this video which shows me doing an isometric stretching variation in both the front splits and the side. You can see me get lower with each tense and release. I can tell I’ve already improved my …
Wrist Flexibility Exercises
I put up a new post at Breaking Muscle on Wrist Flexibility with three exercises to help you strengthen wrists and hands. 3 Drills for Building Wrist Flexibility If you’re going to do handstands or many other gymnastic moves, then your hands and wrists can take a beating. Think about …
Focusing on Flexibility
The holidays tend to throw me off to some degree every year. This year I sort of just went with it for a number of reasons. I certainly scaled back on the amount of work I was doing, although I still managed to get a few important things done. There’s …
How to Combine Bodyweight and Kettlebell Training
How to combine bodyweight exercises and kettlebell training? I published a big article on combining weights and bodyweight training recently, that’s been well received, but this time I’d like to focus on combining a specific form of weight lifting, kettlebells, along with bodyweight training. As I mentioned in the article …
How to Increase Your Vertical Jump Using Two Tools
What’s the best way to increase your vertical jump? It’s worth mentioning that I haven’t worked to increase my vertical jump specifically, but it’s something that just happened over the years. The one thing that has increased my vertical jump the most is kettlebell training, more specifically the kettlebell swing. …
What To Do If You Can’t Squat Without Pain
I received a question from one of my subscribers who simply said that he has problems doing squats, wondering what should he do. Since this is a pretty general question, the best I can do is to give a general answer. This type of problem differs from one individual to …
Curved vs Straight Handstand
Is a straight handstand really the only way to do it? Many would say yes, but I disagree and you can check out why in my latest article on Dragon Door. The Case for Curved Handstands Ask any gymnast or circus performer about doing handstands and they’re likely to tell …
PR Report 11-23-13
A short week of training due to travel, I wanted to make up for lost time by doing a much higher volume of squatting than normal. Front Squats 135 lbs. 10 x 10 And that made me pretty sore for many days so no more squatting besides that. I worked …
PR Report 11-16-13
Lots of solid training this week before I hit the road to Phoenix, Arizona for Energy Medicine training. Several days of squats and lots of PR’s among them. This video includes: Front Squat 185 x 10 Front Squat 245 x 1 (new Max) Half Back Squat 455 x 5 My …
How to Get Out of a Handstand
Something that hasn’t been covered by numerous videos on my YouTube channel is how to get out of a handstand. This step is actually fairly simple, but it’s essential to know how to execute it properly and use it in your handstand training. Two of the most common problems people …