Back To The Beginnings

Using a lighter club to feel the movement

 Forging ahead in any modality of exercise is a great accomplishment. Adding weight to a squat or sprinting in a faster time for a new personal record is exciting. This fosters the initiative to keep on training. Then there are the times when the program fails and the scheduled weight, or time, or number of reps falls drastically short of what was to be expected. Now what?

 If the reason for the failure isn't injury or exhaustion, the cause for failure may be the athlete's technique. Many times, when the focus is on a determined goal, little nuances that were learned to get to that particular point fell by the wayside. Too much emphasis may be placed on the goal of heavier, faster, or more, and the attention to detail is forgotten thus creating a vacuum in the athlete's programming.

 For those who aren't familiar with my training, I use clubs exclusively (which I will detail why in another post) in my personal training program. Some of the exercises are complex movements which require not only strength but a certain degree of skill to execute properly. One of these exercises - the inside mill or just the 'mill' is the club trainer's bench press. Club fanatics always compare mill weight or reps. Since I have been experimenting with the heavier clubs I sometimes fall short of an expected P/R or training goal. My answer to that is go back to the beginning. Lighten that load up for the workout and get in some volume training with a manageable weight. For example, if I completed Monday's mill workout of 10X10 with a 35lb club and Friday's mill workout calls for 5X6 with a 40lb club but my form fails on the first set or maybe the first rep, I'll revert back to a 25lb club for a 10X10 light conditioning set but feel each part of the movement relearning small subtleties that make heavier weights possible. The next mill workout will open with that same 25lb club as a warm up for one set to coordinate the feeling throughout my body before attempting the 40lb club again. Then go on the the 40lb 5X6 workout progressing to ultimately the 10X10 workout with that weight.

 I had learned this type of 'assistance' training way back in the 70's from an old school guy who was built like a bodybuilder but moved weight like a powerlifter. This method was used by the older set of strength trainers, the guys that were before me. Here, on this page I can share some of what they left that may have been forgotten or discarded due to style or ego. Apply it to any of your training, being sure to feel the movement, perform some volume then back to your regular programming. It'll work.

Clubwork Front Swing exercise

Trainers, teach newbies to learn the kettlebell front swing quickly by having them practice Clubwork front swings. The clubs are easier for the students to swing and reduce the learning curve.

Clubwork Inside Mill To Outside Mill Transfer

A simple move to develop coordination. Easy to do, just perform an inside mill as normal and at the bottom of the swing pass the club to the opposite hand to begin performing an outside mill. Try it a few times to get the feel. You can see in the video that my first few swings are 'clunky' but by the 3rd one the smoothness comes out.

Weaker People Can Influence Fitness Trends DadBod

 Recently, an article appeared written by Mackenzie Pearson a 19 year old journalist (sic) regarding the 'Dad Bod'. The dad bod is just that, a doughy version of what once was a slightly muscular young man who's succumbed to the more 'relaxed' lifestyle of Americans. Gone are the days of going to the gym or running an obstacle race and forget about eating right. Enter the new daily routine of relaxing for 5 hours in front of the TV with Dominos ringing the doorbell after putting in a hard day sitting at a desk.

 The author states that women like the dad bod because it doesn't intimidate them, that it's more cuddly, and it never matters what's for dinner. This doesn't compute and further more there isn't enough estrogen to make me fathom these concepts. I think that they're a bunch of crap and notice the subtlety of a much more dangerous beast.

 Enter the sloven woman, the woman who puts leisure above all else. When the fit man encounters one of these during a courting ritual he is immediately red flagged and targeted for ostracization     due to his 'insinuation' that the women must be on his fitness level. Instantly, her brain sees herself a year from that moment immersed into a lifestyle of fitness, meal prepping, and hard work. Not a rational choice for the sloven woman because it goes against her lifestyle. Also the appearance of a man with lower testosterone is less threatening to her demands.

 Maybe it is time for some to do an honest evaluation of their own lifestyle and admit to not wanting to work hard to stay healthy instead of easily creating a buzz phrase that says, "he's more acceptable to me because he won't have any expectations that I'll have to work at." Stop trying to create a socially usable excuse to describe your own lack of drive. Instead of telling men that the dad bod is ok, tell the world why you are a couch potato. Why take from men that which is naturally programmed in their hard wiring - to accept challenges, to be strong, to compete, etc and reduce it to conform to, for lack of a better word, lazy?

My 12 Hr a Days/7 Days a Week DadBod
1997