Starting Strength Series — Kirk Karwoski from stef bradford on Vimeo.

1,000 x 2 WOW!

Not sure if I ever posted these videos so here they are again (maybe). ~IB138

The 3 Month Challenge ~Jim Wendler

You Will Spend Money on Health Maintenance ~Mike Boyle

Maxing Out, Day 1 ~Sean Hyson

Mass Made Simple…Lite ~Dan John 

Get Stronger, Bigger Legs With Squats ~Charles Poliquin

For the Love of Group Fitness ~Kellie Davis

The Tao of the Silver Bullet ~Martin Rooney

How to Run a 4.2 Second 40 Yard Dash ~Joe Defranco 

Building a Better Coach: Next Level Thinking ~Smitty Diesel

A Few Words About Discipline and Sacrifice ~Matt Kroc

How to Modulate Intensity ~Mike Tuchscherer

The Sexy Challenge ~Bret Contreras

12 Reasons You’re Not Losing Fat ~Jason Ferruggia

Palmar Fascia Soft Tissue ~Eric Cressey

To Do or Not to Do ~Martin Rooney

Tips For a Supreme Overhead Press ~Todd Bumgardner

Steve Jobs and Coaching ~Kevin Carr

Arm Hypertrophy For Fast-Twitch Individuals ~Charles Poliquin

10 Reasons Why Runners Should Include Weight Training ~Charles Poliquin

Get Enough Sleep to Lose Weight ~ Charles Poliquin

Eat Meat to Build Muscle ~Charles Poliquin

Back to A Pain Free Bench ~Eirik Sandvik

The Best Exercise You Probably Aren’t Doing ~Mike Baltren

What Planning For a Dinner Party Can Tell You About Program Design ~Tony Gentilcore

Intermittent Fasting 201 ~John Romaniello

Heart Rate Variability Training ~Jonathon Pope and Craig Weller

Do This to Feel Better Fast ~Nia Shanks

4 Factors That Make or Break a Baseball Strength and Conditioning Program ~Eric Cressey

Vary Tempo to Overcome a Plateau ~Charles Poliquin

Naturally Fit ~Jen Sinkler

Survival Challenge 2 ~Jen Sinkler

Sleep: How Much Is Enough? ~Dean Somerset

Here’s a Male Perspective on High Heels ~Dean Somerset

Should You Stick to the Recipe? ~Mike Boyle

Hockey Development: The Catapult Or the Wall ~Kevin Neeld

A Letter to Parents of Undersized Hockey Players ~Kevin Neeld

Body Weight Interval Training ~Marianne Kane

Food Education for Kids ~Neghar Fonooni

Cardio Is Bad For You?  ~Mark Young

Push > Pull ~Harold Gibbons

4 Exercises Athletes Should Avoid ~Joe Meglio

Moving Better Equals Moving More ~Emily Socolinsky

10 Gluten Free Superbowl Recipes ~Sirena Bernal

Revving Your Engine With This Simple Spinal Drill ~John Izzo

The Deload Week and Why You Should Use It ~Jeff Barnett

Improve Your Coaching Cues ~Jon Goodman

5/3/1 and the Hook Grip ~Jim Wendler

What to Eat On An Upset Stomach ~Mark Sisson

Why You Should Eat Leafy Greens ~Mark Sisson

Med Ball Drop Drill ~John Izzo

6 Principles from Westside-Barbell and Cressey Performance ~Jordan Syatt

Tales of a Fit Mom ~Julia Ladewski

Logic Does Not Apply IV ~Jon Kiefer

Mobile Shoulders Push Big Benches ~Mike Hedlesky

Go GIANTS!

I have chosen a mountain to define my limits. In 1989 (I was just over 40yrs and I had already published The Alchemist and The Pilgrimage in Brasil), I was on my second sacred pilgrimage in the Pyrenees. And I saw a mountain in the distance called Pic du Gez and I said, ‘okay, I have nothing to do today, so I’m going to climb that peak’.

First, it was very difficult to get close to the base – from a distance it looked so easy. When I finally arrived at the bottom, I had about five hours to climb about 2,000m. Not a big deal. So I started climbing, and I got lost. I knew the peak, but I had no water, no food, I had nothing. Eventually, I made it to the top and looked around. It was summer. There was no snow, it was barren.
It looked like the moon and I seriously thought, ‘I don’t know my way back. I can’t take the same route that I took to get here’. I spent nearly four hours climbing and I had no energy for the descent (which is more difficult than the ascent). So I sat down, and my first decision was that I wasn’t going to smoke – I needed to preserve all my energy.
As I looked around, I saw a city in the distance and I said ‘I’m going to that city’.
And again, it seems easy to navigate when you see something like that in the distance. So I started my descent, heading towards the city, but soon after I began I could no longer see the city anymore. I said, ‘my God, I may die here’. And then I thought ‘well, that’s not so bad. I die on a mountain. Winter will come, my body will disappear and I will become a legend’.

Read the rest at Paulo’s excellent blog.

Paulo Coelho is an awesome writer from Brazil. Way too many allow themselves to age faster then they should. ~IB138

In the spirit of Dan John’s quadrants, let’s look at what snatching 166kg takes. Power, mobility, technique, and focus are just a few of the qualities required for this feat. But those are only the qualities that are needed at the moment you step on the platform; the skills that are the outcome of practice. Go out another level. What’s it take to snatch 166kg? What’s the habit of John North’s strength? Jon North shows up to California Strength and snatches every day. He squats every day. He spends hours in the positions, every day. He is successfully snatching weight every day. He has consistently and progressively accumulated the qualities necessary to snatch 166kg by successfully snatching weights from 20kg-165kg and allowing his body to recover. He has made success a habit just as he has made snatching a habit. He has not only trained his body to handle the stress of snatching 166kg, he has trained his mind to have the confidence that he can actually do it. The habit has become skill.

Read the article in full here.

A lot of internet trainers write a lot of articles about strength training, but really have no personal success in the strength world, or any athlete success stories to back-up the stuff they write. Iron Sport historically has churned out great strongmen and lifters for over 15 years now. Although I don’t consider myself a full-time coach, I do consider myself somewhat of a mentor to all these guys and women that train here. I think that it’s more important to guide athletes in the mental aspect of “getting strong” than it is at the “X’s and O’s” type-stuff. Most of the training these strongmen are all doing in here, is all stuff that was experimented and done by me years ago with my training partners. It was tweaked through the years into the program that you see here.

The Iron Sport Truth

Since the inception of Iron Sport Gym in the early 90’s, we had a great track record of serious strongman competitors. These are not guys that were good strongman before and then came here; they were home-grown out of the Iron Sport Gym training environment. Some of the strongmen that earned pro cards while training here include: Walt Gogola, Kirk Nowack, Kevin Nowack, Adam Keep, Cameron Gardner, Reggie Barton and I. There are also some great up-and-coming amateur strongmen that train here: Doug Kirby, Jim Dart, Craig Strohmeier, Dan Falcone, Maya Winters and quite a few more. It’s not uncommon for Team Iron Sport strongmen to go to a NASS contest and sweep all the weight classes.

A lot of “experts” will constantly warn you of the dangers of over-training, meanwhile, most of what I see is people trying to get strong by babying themselves and UNDER training. The sport of strongman is an extremely taxing sport. On the day of your contest, you will (hopefully), expend every ounce of strength and energy in your body trying to win. There are few sports that are as taxing on the muscles and central nervous system than a heavy strongman contest. Therefore, your training must mimic this taxing environment. This style of training is certainly not for a beginner, but then again, either are heavy strongman contests. So if you’re a total beginner, this may not be the style of training for you. It requires years of heavy lifting and adaptation before you can tackle a heavy routine with this much heavy volume. Yes, there are weeks when you feel beat down and don’t think you can push through, but that is when you dig deep and keep going. Your body will keep responding in a positive way if you force it to. Trust me, I’ve seen it done a lot, and yes, by drug-free lifters.

The Method

The basic function of this routine is two things: to make your muscles stronger, and to temper your body and mind to the stresses of competition. The Iron Sport Method rotates your main exercises every week in three-week intervals. Week one will be your heavy load week. You really want to stay at a high percentage weight this week and push your limits, between 92-97 percent works best, this is where the real tempering happens. If it sounds harsh, that’s because it really is. You should notice that by your fifth or sixth single, they’ll actually get easier to perform.

During week two, you’ll be just working up to a max single on your lifts and then doing one heavy assistance exercise.

However, week three will be your “easy,” or as close to a “deload,” as you’ll get from this routine. This week should be about lifting comfortably, getting a blood pump and not as much intensity. But, if you’re feeling strong and fresh, you could bump up the weight and go a little harder on your work sets. It wouldn’t kill you. The assistance work on this week is usually some bodybuilding movements.

Read the article in full ..

The Iron Sport Method!

Not pulling heavy enough.

I think pulling for reps is fine, but from all of my experience the deadlift builds itself backwards from the squat and the bench press.  Sort of.  Let me explain.

You can go from benching 315×8 to 315×12 and you are GOING to have a new 1RM.  I have found that adding reps on the deadlift, doesn’t always translate to a bigger 1RM.  It’s hit or miss.

If you want to pull big, pull singles and triples in the deadlift.  If you want to do some reps, do stiff legs for sets of 8-10.

Yes I am aware that strongmen pull for reps.  But there seems to be a bigger carryover for doing repping on deadlifts if you build the 1 rep max.  But not the other way around.  Or at least not for a lot of people.

Paul’s Blog

 
In recent years, the term “combination lifts” has been used more frequently in sports conditioning circles. Armstrong discussed the use of combination lifts for in-season training.

[Armstrong, D.F. "Combination Lifts for in-season training."Strength and Conditioning 16(4): 14-16. 1994].

The purpose of this article is to share ideas on combination lifts, incorporating them with earlier publications.

[Javorek, I. "General condition with Complex I and II."NSCA Journal 10(1):34-37. 1988.]

[O'Connel, J. "Triple Threat." Muscle & Fitness pp. 90-97. Jan. 1998.]

By definition, combination lifts consist of two or more free weight exercises that are combined in a nonstop, continuous movement. Although some conditioning specialists believe these lifts consist of just a few exercise combinations, frequently a power clean and another exercise, in reality the list is much larger.

The main purpose of combination lifts is to:

1) Improve and stimulate neuro-muscular coordination.
2) Increase the workout load and intensity.
3) Stimulate the skeletal muscular system.
4) Increase the cardiovascular benefits of the free-weight program.
5) Make the program more dynamic and efficient.

The number of combination exercises is unlimited, depending on a coach or trainer’s knowledge and creativity, the availability of equipment, and the goals of the coach and/or athlete.

Read the entire Article!