I’ve had some useful comments on my deadlift form, on this blog and elsewhere. Today was another deadlift day and I tried to put this advice into practice.
Here’s a clip of my first set today, lifting 60kg.
The issues I am addressing are:

Back angle - i.e. the angle my back makes with the floor. In previous […]

The dumbell snatch is not an exercise you will see in most gyms, but it develops great explosive strength and speed. It is one of the few genuine full body exercises.
What is the dumbbell snatch?
The dumbbell snatch is a version of the Olympic lift, the snatch, performed with a dumbbell in one hand. You […]

You will often hear or read people debating the merits of training with free weights or machines. Most people seem to fall into one camp or the other. A lot of it comes down to individual circumstances: the purpose of one’s training, a bad experience with one method, or simply a personal preference.
I am a […]

I admit I am sometimes guilty of ‘ego lifting’, i.e. lifting more than I can manage with perfect form just to be lifting heavier. You see it in every gym in the land but it’s a bad thing to do in the long run. After all, how cool is it to pop a disc in […]

The girl in the video clip below has excellent pull-up form, doing full range of motion every time. I can’t always say the same for myself!
Pull-up clip
A popular method to train pull-ups is to use negative reps, i.e. you are only completing the negative portion of the exercise, the down phase. Use a chair […]

There is absolutely no reason why you, dear reader, can’t train to do a pull-up. It’s not easy, but it is achievable.
Men are usually slightly better equipped for pull-ups as they naturally have more muscle mass and upper body strength but most of them find pull-ups one of the toughest exercises as well. Although women […]