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SOFT
By John Davies

Soft is often defined as “yielding to physical pressure”; but “soft” is what this entire exercise genre has become. A strong echo of a society that has become too soft to understand honor, too soft to show integrity, too soft to turn a blind eye to transgression and finally too soft to actually work hard to get what they want. The softening of the iron game has become a pathetic wasteland where self-proclaimed gurus cut and paste their scientific research and ignore real-world evidence to suit their myopic vision of what constitutes fitness, health and better yet, “strength.”

“Strength” like “soft” has become an odd term. Where once stood a group of physically and spiritually powerful men who worked and played hard, is now a weak-ass group that embarrasses me to be clumped in. The term “Coach,” which once stood for so much to me, has now been devalued and is now just a marketing term that is tossed around by every little wannabe poser with a shopping cart and a few sku’s to whore.

As I look at the iron-game, the exercise industry and the role of the middle-aged male, I realize a number the things. First, some of the best minds in the business are silent to the public and unknown. Coaches, no, I won’t use that to refer to brilliant leaders who actually possess experience and substance, and stay in the shadows while the cut and paste experts keep rolling on. Marketing has become the agenda…it’s a McLuhan reality biting back…“the medium is message”… and in today’s fitness client, the message leads straight into a merchant banking system without an ounce of integrity. And finally ... the history of the rich iron game appears to have been forgotten. “Hard work” is replaced with being careful … not to exert too much or take too much risk. But that’s all beside the point because today, I am neither a coach or whatever, just one hungry SOB to ready take on life head on.

So putting aside all the little chit-chat, work is the elixir in a well fortified concoction to build success. And with a now emancipated ankle from cast it was time to get to it and borrowing upon the recently released “Mark of R”… it’s time to challenge both ankle and shoulder with a good training session. After dynamic warm-up, I moved to the first of the weighted sections—the KB snatch.

-excerpt from “Mark of R”

The Kettlebell Snatch with Xvest

The Kettlebell Snatch taken to the next level with the added stimuli provided by wearing a loaded Xvest. By performing properly you are perfectly adhering to the “Renegade Concepts of Training” where movement is trained and harmony of movement is stressed….

In this situation the KB snatch is executed but while wearing a fully loaded Xvest. By doing such the loading stresses proper movement of the hips and torso and thus the training effect has leapt considerably simply because of wearing an Xvest which is why the Xvest is simply irreplaceable to an athlete.

Copyright 1999. All rights reserved.