In the halcyon days of my PhD I wrote a short history of the ‘bro split’ for Barbend and it was largely fine, which is arguably the worst description you can give. Was it good? Was it bad? No no… it was fine. Basically, I did what everyone online tends to say. Lifters did full… Continue reading The Bro Split Was Not Invented
This month I spent €57 on a Squatober T-shirt. That is objectively too much to spend on a T-shirt with a squatting pumpkin on it. Annoyingly, I have spent years looking at these T-shirts, convincing myself that I needed to buy one. I eventually bit the bullet and paid for international postage and duties… all… Continue reading The Strange Comfort of Squatober
In 2017 Eddie Hall won the World’s Strongest Man contest. Thor ‘The Mountain’ Björnsson came second, and a good chunk of the online and offline strength community debated about whether or not Thor had been robbed. The question, which a decade after the fact seemed unfair, was whether or not the organisers had picked events… Continue reading When Is the Strongest Man in the World Not the World’s Strongest Man?
Every so often you find a piece of lifting history that makes the modern gym look like it has lost its imagination. And, in my view, the bench press is one of those pieces. The rack is so structurally central to the contemporary gym that its absence barely registers as a historical possibility. It is… Continue reading Before the Rack: How Did People Bench Press Without One?
Every so often you find a fitness booklet that makes the modern gym look like it has lost its nerve. This one is Sig Klein’s Super Physique: Body-Building Bar-bell Course, sixth English edition (c.1943), a small paper artefact from the old physical culture world where men in trunks demonstrated exercises with the confidence of minor… Continue reading A Sig Klein Workout for People Who Like Their Fitness Slightly Ridiculous
For more than four years, Jim Wendler’s 5/3/1 program has been the quiet machinery inside my training week. I have run it while writing books, chasing deadlines, travelling too much, sleeping too little, parenting (results undetermined), teaching, and occasionally lifting Irish stones that seem to have been designed by rural Ireland to embarrass city… Continue reading On Starting too Light: How 5/3/1 Made Strength Training Grow Up
< div id="entry"> < div id="main" class="main typography use-theme-bg"> < div> < div class="single-post-container" role="main" aria-label="Post"> < div class="container"> < div class="single-post"> < div class="pencraft pc-display-contents pc-reset pubTheme-yiXxQA"> < article class="typography newsletter-post post"> < div> < div class="dropCap-hcUVpW"> < div class="available-content"> < div class="body markup" dir="auto"> Walk into most gyms today and the experience is… Continue reading Have We Been Doing Gyms Wrong?
Gironda is undoubtedly a site favourite. Known for his unique style of training and nutritional approach, Gironda didn't pull any punches when it came to giving his opinion. The below errors, 35 in total, may raise a few eyebrows. Nevertheless they demonstrated Gironda's willingness to give his opinion! Over training! (Anything over 45 minutes is… Continue reading Vince Gironda, ‘Common Errors in Bodybuilding’, The Master Series of Nutritional Bodybuilding (Iron Guru Publishing, 1983), 5-7
Let me set the scene. Four days. A cascade of terrible decisions, each one made with the quiet confidence of someone who absolutely should have known better. Day one…walking lunges to failure with dumbbells. Not a few sets. Failure. As in, the point at which my legs simply declined to continue being legs. Who does… Continue reading I Walked Like John Wayne for Four Days
Who remembers P90X? As a teen growing up, P90X advertisements always seemed to promise the simplest and most effective way of getting lean. Honestly, it was marketed as a cheat code. Follow this program for a couple of weeks, at home no less, and suddenly you would have a six pack. Easy! Now forgive me,… Continue reading How P90X Turned Romanian Sports Science into a $120 Fitness Catchphrase
