Movement
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Where the Strength Work Sits in a Session
We put the lifting before the workout. Warm-up, then strength, then the metcon, and that's been the order all summer. From November it changes, and the strength work moves to the back end of the hour.
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Touch-and-Go or Singles
Twenty-one deadlifts at a moderate weight, somewhere in a workout. The clock starts and within three reps you've made a decision that determines the next four minutes, and you probably made it without thinking.
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You've Entered a 10k. Now What?
You signed up in a moment of optimism, probably out for dinner one night, and it's in six or eight weeks. You train two or three times a week already and you're reasonably fit, so the assumption is that you'll be fine.
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Farmer's Carries and the Shopping
Four bags of shopping and fifteen metres from the boot to the front door. Two trips or one? Everyone goes for one, and what gives out is the hands, then the shoulders.
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The Front Rack: Why Your Elbows Drop
Front squat, halfway through the set. The elbows come down, the bar rolls forward onto your fingers, and the next thing you know you're squatting like a pooping dog. Everybody has had this. It's usually blamed on wrist mobility, and that's often not the full picture.
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Toes-to-Bar and the Missing Midline Training
You hang off the bar, the legs come up to about hip height, and stop. It feels like your abs have run out. So you go home and do sit-ups, and next week the same thing happens.
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Why Lunges Leave You Sore for Three Days
Wednesday's session had sixty walking lunges in it. Thursday you feel fine. Friday you're going down the stairs at Amersham station sideways, hanging on to the handrail.
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Balance in Your Forties, Not Your Seventies
Watch someone put a sock on. Some stand there and do it. Others sit down on the bed or reach for the wall, and have stopped noticing that they do.
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Wall Balls: The Simplest Movement Nobody Paces
A 9kg ball, a target ten feet up the wall, and a movement you can teach in ninety seconds. Squat down, stand up, throw. Catch it and go again. Nothing technical about it.
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Overhead: Why Most Adults Can't, and How We Get You There
Stand with your back against a wall — heels, backside, upper back and head all touching it. Now put your arms straight overhead and try to touch the wall with your
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The Kettlebell Swing: The Hinge Everyone Gets Wrong
The kettlebell swing is the most misunderstood movement in the building, and the way most people do it is a squat with a bell in their hands. Watch a class
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The Squat: Why Everything Starts Here
If you only ever trained one movement for the rest of your life, it would be the squat, and it wouldn't be close. The squat is how you