Reverse Band Deadlifts

Hand Jumps

Reverse Band Deadlifts
8x2

3 Rounds
50 Double Unders
15 Ring Dips

Valery Federenko Sets World Record

Valery Fedorenko, the man who brought Kettlebells to America, beat his own World Record with a 132 pound kettlebell Saturday live on JustIn.TV. A kettlebell is a special handled weight adapted for fitness and developed into its own sport in Russia from its original use as a precise counter-balance on a scale. This retired Champion is now Chief Advisor for World Kettlebell Club®, and is still making gains in strength and conditioning beyond his professional sport days more than 20 years ago.

Fedorenko, now 37 years old, began lifting kettlebells at the age of 12. It wasn’t until he was 16 that he began getting serious about the Sport, much like youth in America take to Basketball, Baseball and Football. Born in Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet Republic located in Asia, Valery set several Official World and USSR Records and made many firsts, most notably breaking the Men’s Adult Absolute Snatch Record at a body-weight of just 163 pounds as a Junior Lifter.

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Speaking of new records...

PR Overhead Squat from StCloudStrength on Vimeo.

Band Assisted Jumps

Turkish Get Ups

5 Rounds

3 Muscle Ups

6 Hang Power Snatches (Men use 105/Women use 73)

Folding A Frying Pan

One Arm Push Up Practice

M/E Overhead Squat

Quality Time With "Judy"

Muscle Imbalances

Symmetry is a beautiful thing. It seems to be nature’s preferred state, at least in the structure of organisms: two eyes for stereoscopic vision (the better to hunt you with), two legs of equal length for injury-free traversal of the environment, two hands, two arms. For all intents and purposes, the two sides of the body are approximate mirror images of each other, with corresponding muscles and ligaments and tendons. Our anatomical symmetry is obviously a product of evolution, because a balanced body simply works better. Kids born with right legs an inch or two shorter than the left are more prone to injury, just as cars with bigger wheels on the left will be more prone to disrepair. Objective human beauty is determined by symmetry of the facial structure, as if we’re innately drawn to balance. A balanced body structure, too, is objectively attractive, because it connotes strength and competence in matters of survival (war, hunting, protection). It becomes clear that if symmetry weren’t important for survival in this environment, it wouldn’t have been selected for, we wouldn’t be drawn to it, and plants and animals would have assumed entirely different forms. Maybe we’d be amorphous blobs just kind of oozing around (as opposed to the amorphous blobs with legs and arms that presently populate our planet).

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Goblet Squats

1 Minute of Deadlifts

Prowler Push

AMPED Warm Ups

Illinois Agilty Test

I go/you go fashion for 3 rounds

Double Kettlebell Press
2-3-5-10

Flying Through The Air

"This looks like a gym" - Dan John upon seeing our gym


Working on explosiveness with knee cleans


Depth Jumps

Safety Bar Squats
8x2 @ 70%

4 Rounds
20 Hindu Push Ups
10 Pull Ups
5 Tire Flips

Paleo Solution

Chris Double Pressing during his RKC technique test

Knee Cleans

Weighted Dips 5x5

3 Rounds
8 Swings
Sled sprint

Butt Wink

Periodically I get questions on whether or not the “butt wink” is an issue. The first thought that comes to mind is “who the hell thought of the term ‘butt wink’?” Winking requires the closing of an orifice, and everybody knows that in order to close your outer sphincter, you have to clench your butt cheeks together. You can’t do this while squatting, and if you do, you’re doing a half squat. So stop, god dammit.
Editor’s Note: Yes, there’s more than one sphincter. What?
2nd Editor’s Note: I don’t recommend Google image searching “butt wink” with the safe search “off”.

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Line Stop Deceleration Drill


T-Spine Mobility



5 Minute Snatch Test
(Sharing the pain ;))

SMR With Eric Cressey

Yoga Downward Dogs
Overhead Barbell Jumps

Kettlebell Press
10x2

3 Rounds
1 Atlas Stone Lift
3 Muscle Ups

Safety Squat Bar

My First Safety Squat Bar Workout

I used to think this bar was a total waste of time and money before I used it for the first time at Westside Barbell Club in the early 1990’s. I came to Westside from a very intense progressive overload background. For those who are not familiar with this style of training, progressive overload begins by performing sets of 10 repetitions for several weeks and over two to three months, one would gradually decrease the reps until you perform singles. This style of training worked well for me when I first began training. As I got more experienced, I needed something more advanced and started training at Westside Barbell. I had to find something new or I was never going to get better. While at Westside, I was introduced to a whole new style of training. It was completely different and I had never seen or read about this kind of training before. I was hesitant at first but since I had not made any progress in many years I figured I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

I had seen the Safety Squat bar before and thought it was a total joke. I always thought that if you wanted to squat more, you simply squatted. And if you wanted to deadlift more, all you had to do is deadlift. To me everything else was just to get bigger, not stronger.

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T-Test

5-10-5 Drill

5 Minute Farmer's Walk

Crucible Gym

Check out the Crucible Gym. They have felt that we are "a real place to go".


24 kilos soon feels like 32 kilos

Band Assisted Jumps

Snatch Pulls
8x2 @90%

Pistol Practice

25-20-15-10-5
Jumping Squats
Clapping Push Ups

Leg Press vs Squat

The one thing I've grown to love about commercial gyms is their consistency. What I mean is, just as how a Big Mac at McDonald's is the same offensive product no matter what part of the country you're in, it's nice to know that Monday at 5:30 PM is "National Bench Press time" at every 24-Hour Fitness abomination from Azusa, California to Anchorage, Alaska.

Why do I like this consistency? Because it allows me to structure other important workouts, like leg training, around days that the douchebag crowd is occupying the various glam exercise stations.

And even when I'm still forced to wait a bit, the line-up for my beloved squat rack is always far shorter than the leg press queue (arm curls in the squat rack crew notwithstanding).

Silly weekend warriors. Everybody knows that squats are superior to leg presses right? They're harder to do, require more coordination, and just rate higher on the exercise badass scale than something that resembles a plate-loaded La-Z-Boy recliner.

Don't these douchebags read Testosterone?

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PR Front Squat


Our new muscle up rig

Sled Drag

Kettlebell Press

Litvi-Sprints
8 Hang Power Cleans
Sprint 330m