What does it mean when you hear strength is a skill? This quote, originally from Pavel Tsatsouline, changed how I viewed strength. I read through his book, The Naked Warrior, applied some of the techniques and was instantly stronger. That had never happened before, and it instantly opened my eyes …
Fixing Osteoarthritis
Charles asked about fixing osteoarthritis: “What about osteoarthritis of the knee? Your healthy your whole life, then all of a sudden this comes upon you and knocks you for a loop! The lovely thing about it is you don’t even know your developing it until it’s at an advanced stage …
Getting Woo-Woo…
Have you heard this term, woo-woo, before? Wiktionary defines it as: Describing a person readily accepting supernatural, paranormal, occult, or pseudoscientific phenomena, or emotion-based beliefs and explanations. (What does this have to do with strength? Be patient, I’ll get there…) Generally, this term is used derogatorily. It’s used as a …
The Recovery Mat
This is something I have personally been using for quite some time, but haven’t let anyone know about, until now. That is laying on top of an acupressure mat after working out. After hearing about these mats I started doing this. Then, I read in Tim Ferriss’ Tools of Titans …
5 Minute Intuitive Mobility Routine
I figured it might be helpful to share an example of me doing an “intuitive mobility” routine. By intuitive, I mean that I’m not just doing the 3 circles per joint, then move onto the next. I start with a movement, feel into my body, and let that guide what …
Twisting Cross Leg Squat
I was flowing around with some of the stand up exercises, and stumbled across this one that I particularly liked. First is a cross leg squat until sitting. If you’re not familiar with this move, it is also the method used in the sitting-raising test. This is then done in …
Total vs Free T (and the Role of SHBG)
On the topic of the recent testosterone articles, Ken asks: “I had blood work done two months ago, and my free testosterone wasn’t bad: 794 ng/dl. But my free testosterone, which I understand is what really counts, was quite low – 9.5 pg/ml. They suggested that might be because of …
Box Breathing
Box breathing is a specific form of cadenced breath. It is called box breathing because each leg of the breath, inhale, hold, exhale, hold, is the same length. Thus, if you drew it out in the number of seconds for each one turning 90 degrees for each transition, it would …
Hanging Body Whip Drill
shoulderIt is great to move your body in many different ways. As such, I often play with movements. And so it was that I found myself going from some hanging drills into the following: The Hanging Body Whip Hang from a bar where you can keep your feet on …
992 Total Testosterone
Recently, I got my latest blood work back. And I was happy to find I hit a new PR in both total and free testosterone! 992 ng/dL Total Testosterone And my Free Testosterone came in at 17.2 ng/dL. I have a post going into more detail about the results over …
Workouts that Build Your Brain
I love science…but it’s not without it’s problems. One of which is that we often have theories that are just plan wrong. Remember the idea that the brain didn’t grow new neurons as an adult, and wasn’t capable of change? Couldn’t be more wrong. Jim wrote in response to the …
Death by All Causes
Are you familiar with the term “death from all causes,” sometimes also called “all-cause mortality?” In longitudinal research, that is studies where the same data is collected from the same people over long periods of time, this is something that can often be found. For example, one group of people …
How to Plan for a Big Training Goal
I’m settled into my new house, and things are mostly back to normal. However, much that I want to go off in a new training direction, I still have a big goal I need to hit before I can do that. The Beast Snatch Test. I was closing in on …
Diversity of Fitness
Jim sent this in (along with a question for another day): “BTW, a really impressive thing about you and your web site. It is amazing how many different things you have studied. Handstands, heavy partials, old time stuff, bending steel, etc. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else with such …
How Long does Mobility take?
Paul asked the following question inside the private group for Strength Health Mind Power Inner Circle members: “My naive question would be how to get good mobility work done in the shortest time possible. I was doing Pavel Tsatsouline’s routine from Super Joints (the easy one!) and it was taking …