The Red Hood is basically what you get when you take Batman and remove the filter. He is a more aggressive, more lethal version of the Dark Knight. And his training needs to reflect that. Like Batman, he is an expert martial artist and has undergone rigorous conditioning. Like Batman, he is an excellent detective. But, unlike Batman, he is willing to use firearms. And while Batman is the superior strategist, Jason may have the edge as a tactician. He is more unpredictable in combat and highly adaptable.  The crucial difference is, that while Batman is calm and collected – able to pick hi ..read more

Our view of muscle is, very often, narrow-sighted. We think of muscle as what we use in order to move our joints. We think of the hip abductors, for example, as being muscles we use to abduct the leg – to move it sideways, away from the centreline. But, in fact, this is just one small part of what muscle is for. You could argue that the far more critical role of the hip abductors, is to prevent hip abduction. That is, to prevent the legs from being pulled together by the adductors.  A certain amount of tension exists in the abductors. A certain amount of tension exists in the adductors. A ..read more

Training physical skills is an overlooked aspect of physical training. What’s the point being strong and explosive if you don’t know how to channel that physicality into anything dynamic? Why be strong if you can’t do anything with that strength.  While squatting will help you run a bit faster, it won’t be any use if you don’t know how to run. And far more of those gains will come from actual running.  Continually learning new skills teaches you greater body awareness. It keeps you in a plastic, learning state. And it makes your training fun and challenging. It’s a concept that the ..read more

Many of us who love training have been inspired, at some point, by Dragonball. Dragonball makes training awesome and exciting, but it also contains a lot of training truths for us to relate to. One particularly interesting example is the dichotomy between Goku and Vegeta. These two rivals have entirely different approaches to their training and this can go a long way to explaining their different results.  And it’s interesting, because these two approaches to training are ones I see in the gym all the time – with similar real-world impact. Whether you relate more to Goku or to Vegeta dur ..read more

Solid Snake is a one-man army and expert in stealth and espionage. Cloned from the greatest soldier who ever lived, he must act alone to take out some of the most powerful weapons ever created – before they change the face of war, forever. In the Metal Gear games, we see how the right skills can allow a single individual to take on seemingly insurmountable odds, through asymmetrical warfare. How stealth and cunning can overcome sheer force. Yet “sheer force” is 99% of what most of us train in the gym. How do we train to move more like Solid Snake? How can we move quietly, carefully, and prec ..read more

The goblet squat (or racked kettlebell squat) is an exercise with tons of unique benefits. It changes the activation of the core to add anti-flexion, more closely mimicking the way we pick things up in real-life (i.e. in front of us). It massively improves ankle mobility, and can help to improve squat mechanics more broadly. Best of all, perhaps, it lets us perform a weighted squat from home; without needing space for a huge barbell and power-rack. The problem? A lot of people dismiss the goblet squat because it doesn’t let them lift as much as the back squat. And this is what I want to addre ..read more

You might be eager to dismiss the side plank as a beginner exercise that you don’t need. But don’t! STOP IT. Side plank is, in fact, the missing piece of the core-training puzzle. It represents a compound symphony of muscle engagement in areas that we so-often overlook. For athletes, this is not just another exercise but a tool to develop core strength for sideways, cutting movements. And to develop balance, stability, and resilience against a number of common injuries. But, of course, as a very accessible exercise, it’s also one that can be used by anyone to develop a better physique and hea ..read more

It’s a cliche, but when it comes to fitness, knowledge ISpower. Your muscle will come and go. You will have good months and bad months. Injuries and setbacks. You’ll try different training styles. That’s all part of the fitness journey. But, when all is said and done, what do we get to keep from all of it? What can’t be taken from us? The knowledge. And, better yet, the self-knowledge. We learn, over time, what makes our bodies tick. What we respond to and what works for us. We learn about different muscles and the best exercises to target them. We learn and refine the perfect form on movemen ..read more

This is what training for mobility usually looks like: you get down into your deep lunge, your straddle stretch, or whatever else. You reach the point where it’s uncomfortable – not painful but certainly not pleasant. Then you hold it for 30-60 seconds. It hurts and it’s boring. I wonder why so few people dedicate any real time to their mobility? Why can’t it just be pleasant and easy? That’s foreshadowing, by the way. There have been other methods, of course. PNF stretching involves contracting your muscles deep in the position. And weighted stretching involves holding a weight at the end ra ..read more

Attention! This is not just a boring post about warming up! I’m about to completely change the way you think about warming up and potentially help you unlock permanently greater performance. This is your comprehensive guide to what actually happens when you warm up. Why you need it. And how to optimise it. Warming up is always treated as an after-thought. You’ll receive a workout program to follow and in small text at the top it will say something like “remember to warm-up!” We all know it’s something we should do. We’re told that it prevents injury and enhances performance. Then we’re shown ..read more