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Showing posts from November, 2019

You Don't Know How To Swing! (Kettlebell Swing, I Mean)

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by Alec Enkiri On my web site: https://www.enkirielitefitness.com/articles/dont-know-how-to-swing Introduction The kettlebell swing is an amazing yet misunderstood and overall very poorly utilized exercise whose full potential for bringing on the sweet, sweet gains is seldom ever reached. It's a rare sight these days to see someone perform a kettlebell swing for a purpose other than as part of some sort of "metabolic conditioning" circuit or Crossfit style workout. This is a shame because it leads to a very myopic view of the exercise. Yes, it can be beneficial in this regard and we can all thank Crossfit for pulling it out from total obscurity and into the more mainstream fitness culture, but the real benefits of the exercise do not pertain to fat loss, or conditioning, or anything of that ilk. No, the real benefits of the exercise are as a damn near unparalleled builder of hip extension power, explosiveness, and resilience. The kettlebell swing, when seen in

Just Because You CAN Doesn't Mean You SHOULD

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by Alec Enkiri On my web site: https://www.enkirielitefitness.com/articles/just-because-you-can Story Time! Let me tell you a story that is 100% true. I had these two clients last year (one is still with me, the other isn't and you'll see why soon enough) who came to me with roughly equal strength levels on the squat. Both guys had PR's in the mid 300's and both shared the same goal of breaking the 400lbs barrier. Client A is happily continuing to make progress under my tutelage to this day and has, to date, squatted 440lbs. That represents a gain of roughly 90lbs in about a year and a half now. I'll take that any day. Client B, the client who is no longer with me, came to me frustrated due to being stuck in a long plateau where he had been unable to make progress for quite some time. Continuing that narrative, he left me after 12 weeks with the same PR that he came to me with. Client A, from the moment he hired me to this very day, has never done a singl

Blog #4: Do Your Damn Farmer's Walks (Seriously)

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by Alec Enkiri If you happened to stumble across this post through Blogger, please follow this link to view the corresponding article on my web site: https://www.enkirielitefitness.com/blog/do-farmers-walks The formatting is better there. Yes, the pictures in this post will most likely all be blurry. Thank you for asking. The farmer's walk is the quintessential loaded carry. You pick up something heavy in your hands and you walk with it. It's elegance lies in its simplicity. Not only is this one of the easiest weight room movements to learn it is also arguably the most functional strength training exercise in existence (Note: I'm not really a fan of that word due to the connotations that have recently been attached to it, but it does get the point across. However, most people have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of carryover from the weight room into real life, but I'll touch on that in a future article). In a bare bones sense, the luxuries of m