I woke up this morning, laced up my shoes and set out on a jog. No I wasn’t preparing to run several miles today (sorry I find that boring) but I was heading to a nearby hill.
And at the hill the jog turned into an all out sprint.
After several times walking down and sprinting back up I jogged home. Took much longer this time because I was fatigued.
The hill may have won this time, but soon I’ll be dominating. I’ve just added hill sprints back into my routine and every time I come back to this exercise I’m reminded of how much I love it.
Find out all the reason why and how I do it in this new article on hill sprints.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. I lay out exactly how I train with hill sprints. Follow the plan and you’ll get all the benefits (and there’s plenty of them).
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Mental Training by on May 27th, 2009. 1 Comment. 
What a year’s it been. This video gives you a glimpse of just a few of the things I’ve accomplished along the way.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJjMUH_q5j8]
Let me set this straight. I am not trying to be boastful here. I’m not saying I don’t take pride in my accomplishments, but my purpose here is to educate, inspire and entertain.
You too can accomplish things you would never dreamed of before if you’re willing to put the work in. And in most cases you have to be persistent, waiting years before reaping the real fruits of your labor.
And this video hardly contains everything I’ve done in this year. Putting it together I realized I haven’t filmed a lot of my normal, everyday workouts. Starting next year I’ll try to even out the filming in that regards.
So I hope you enjoy this video. Personally, I can’t wait to see what the Best of 2009 will be.
In Strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Feats of Strength, Hand Strength, Kettlebells, Oldtime Strongmen, Videos by on Dec 12th, 2008. 1 Comment.
After a long time of practicing kettlebell juggling, I wanted to switch it up. I wanted to revisit just the basic kettlebell snatch and see how far I could take it.
Primarily I was interested in doing a 10 minute snatch test with multiple hand switches and seeing what kind of numbers I could get. The kettlebell juggling had helped me out but its still took a little time to get back into the groove of many repetitions.
200 reps with the 53 lb. kettlebell is known as a good standard to hit. And I had hit it before but now I wanted to surpass it.
Right now my best resides at 207 reps. But I haven’t used that weight for the past three weeks. Why?
A little bit of an experiment. Last week I did the test with the 70 lb. kettlebell and scored 136 total reps. This left me sore for a few days. My main goal here was to get use to a bigger weight.
This morning I decided to use the lighter bell, only 35 lbs. Hit 250 without much trouble. My goal here was to improve speed, which I felt I was lacking earlier. And let me tell you this is a very quick pace. Can’t go much faster at all.
Next week I’ll return to the 53 lb. bell and see how it goes. I’ve no doubt that I’ll improve but we will see by just how much.
Sometimes its to your advantage to work with other weights, for higher or lower reps, especially if you’ve hit a plateau.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. And after a couple months of this, I’ll probably be back to the kettlebell juggling. You can get started at with The Definitive Guide to Kettlebell Juggling
Filed under Conditioning, Kettlebells, Strength Training Concepts by on Nov 12th, 2008. Comment.
Let me start of by saying that I only recommend products to you that I use or have used and find to be helpful in my training. You’ll never see me endorsing an ab-zapper or a treadmill or anything like that.
Only the best will make the cut if I’m going to put in the time and work necessary to tell you about it.
And of that cut, what I’m about to share with you has to be right near the top.
The Boys Are Back in Town DVD Set
What is it? When you click the link you’ll find out. But to keep it short it’s a three DVD set of footage from a once in a lifetime seminar taught by four guys at the top of their game. The combined years of knowledge of the instructors has to be over a hundred years.
Have you heard these names before? Steve Maxwell, Mike Mahler, Steve Cotter and Nate Morrison.
All of their knowledge is distilled into seven hours of no-fluff content for you to watch from the comfort of your own home.
The Boys Are Back in Town DVD Set
Though I didn’t attend this seminar I’ve met three of the four instructors at other times. They’re all experienced and the best part about this seminar is you coverage on all different aspects of training.
Everything from joint mobility to chi-kung, kettlebell training for high reps and max endurance to low reps and huge explosive power, maximizing hormones and breathing techniques that are sure to be different from anything you’ve ever seen before.
This is one DVD set you’ll be watching over and over again. Personally, I’ve gone through it twice (and some parts of it more) but I think it’s time to watch it all over again.
The amount of material covered is huge and it’s sure to shock you into new gains.
There is plenty more to be said about it. Just click the link to read more including what other people have gained from this presentation.
The Boys Are Back in Town DVD Set
If you only buy one thing on strength training and physical culture this year this is it.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
P.S. The attendees paid $1595.00 to attend the seminar. While it’s usually better to absorb information live, you won’t need to pay anything close to that price now – The Boys Are Back in Town DVD Set.
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Flexibility/Mobility, Health, Kettlebells, Lifting Technique, Recovery, Strength Training Concepts by on Sep 13th, 2008. Comment.
I’ve been reading the Purposeful Primitive, a newly released book by Marty Gallagher.
Now before I go on, this book isn’t for everyone. Mainly it’s for power lifters and those people who want to follow a power lifting template to get strong and in shape.
That being said, there is much of interest to someone like me who hasn’t benched pressed in years. From the mini-biographies of some very strong men to the articles on mind power there is lots of gems in this 400+ page tome.
One thing I found very interesting was in the section on cardio exercise.
Of course I do anything but your conventional cardio. I haven’t stepped on a treadmill in even more years than since the last bench press.
But this confirmed a bit of my experience. In essence, anything that involves the use of four limbs rather than just two is going to make your heart work all the faster.
This is common sense if you think about it, but you know that common sense ain’t always so common.
Not that it just makes the heart work faster, but it’s easier to raise your heart rate higher. It feels like less of an effort overall to attain the same rate with two limbs as opposed to four.
If you take something like running, it takes a lot of work to jack the heart rate through the roof. Like sprinting all out for a distance or running up a hill.
Just a normal jog or run, if you are in good shape, isn’t enough to really test your heart.
But take something like a burpee. Something that uses the whole body. Even if you go at a relatively slow pace, you’re going to get out of breath faster.
Simply because your heart needs to pump oxygenated blood to all the limbs rather than just two (for the most part).
And if you add in a bigger muscular component you’re going to be even more out of breath.
Just something to think about. And if you want some more check out the Purposeful Primitive.
In strength,
Logan Christophe
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Strength Training Concepts by on Aug 1st, 2008. Comment.
I have practiced some GS (girevoy sport) techniques previously. Some of the basic stuff like corkscrewing your arm downward. Although my swings and snatches were rarely done with maximum tension, I now know that what I was doing was pretty far from the real techniques used in kettlebell lifting competitions. Previously, I talked about how I was approaching this whole event. You know, with an open mind and all. So that was not hard. A little more difficult was making my body do things differently then I had been doing all this time.
One of the main things is breathing naturally. Also called anatomical breathing. Basically when you are in a downswing your torso is collapsing so you will breath out. As you come back up you naturally breathe in.
This is fine when you are not under a heavy load. Breathing out as you descend in a squat with 500 pounds on your back would be a bad idea. Kettlebells are relatively light (assuming you use weights you are capable of) so this is not a problem.
The whole idea of bracing for a kettlebell swing (snatch or clean too) is not wrong but a different application. Breathing in one method is optimal for strength and the other for endurance.
So I had to consciously think to breathe out on the way down and round my back. There were many other points like this that I need to work on.
Why would you choose one way of doing things over the other?
Let’s talk about the whole philosophy of the AKC. Valery Federenko is frighteningly strong and enduring. He is a world champion at this stuff. Right there is proof that he knows what he is doing. Many of the techniques he taught us where things he taught himself or learned on the road to doing over 130 Jerks and over 90 Snatches with each hand using 32kg (70 lb.) kettlebells.
Kettlebells are made for these lifts. And high repetitions. These techniques are the optimal way to do that. If you want to reach the highest numbers in these lifts then you should use these techniques. Using kettlebells in other ways can be done. They can be used, and effectively, for bodybuilding or weightlifting, but that is not what they are made for.
Now if you are not competing with kettlebells, would you still want to use these techniques? There is no doubt that properly training in this manner or any other can be very beneficial for health and fitness.
So is training this way better than the Hard-Style method of training? Assuming that the only goal was health and fitness, so that we avoid the argument of different training for different reasons. Or perhaps just martial artists or athletes who want to be in the best shape for their sport. I don’t know for sure. The only thing I can say here is that it would be a fun thing to do a study on.
More coming soon.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Conditioning, Kettlebells, Lifting Technique by on Sep 30th, 2007. Comment.
