Bodytribe Fitness

Today’s workout is as simple as can be:

Max out on deadlifts

Heavy sandbag clean and carry. Pick it up, carry it 50 feet, put it down, repeat. A lot. 20 times. For time. Not unlike what we do about half way through this video.

How a Tribe Grows
This internet can feed into my concept of Tribe nicely when used as an effective tool of communication, which may or may not include porn…I’m not here to judge. Friendships are made through a common ground that isn’t geographical, rather situational or of similar interests or passions. I’ve met dozens of people from all over the world who embrace strength and self empowerment through movement, and this network has become an information exchange unlike anything I thought possible.

I’d like to share my network by offering a few links from my web that I’ve been blessed with recently.

My new friend Kevin plays with some heavy iron and has been taping a few instructional videos for folks. These small video clips show a man full of power, but some of them also feature something very surreal, at least in the setting of his ‘gym.’ He trains (and records) in his very-American backyard, but in some of his videos you’ll notice a figure dressed in orange, unassumingly standing behind him. That’s a highly venerated Buddhist Monk! I don’t have the complete details yet on why he’s there, but Kevin assured me he’s the real deal, from overseas, visiting for a while. Enviable yet sort of humorous, but damn it if i don’t want my own monk now.

Thanks to Elite Fitness Systems publishing my recent article, I’ve met a whole bunch of great ironheads with similar ideas of what strength might be. One of them is a vegan strongman competitor who has introduced me to a whole subculture of meat-free lifters. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 19 (yes, a long time ago) so apparently I’m not the only one who skips any article about the correlation of beef and muscle size.

The women’s strength movement continues to impress me. My list of favorite fitness writers has more women than men, and of course they’ll win the ‘preferable to look at’ award, but, with more propaganda to fight against, women who truly embrace the strength culture often have a bigger battle to fight. That’s just one of the ways they are far from the ‘weaker’ sex. In the US we have the Mighty Kat Ricker, while the infamous Canadian Strength messenger, Mistress Krista, still dominates the internet, while a representative from the UK, Gubernatrix, has joined the network as well. All three of their sites are so packed full of insight and info that I’ll warn you that you might spend a great deal of time on any of them.

Speaking of websites that are worth spending large chunks of your day visiting, Straight to the Bar is the king of video clips, links and articles about ALL aspects of strength training (except the stupid ones). Scott Bird collects some of the world’s best training info and a handful of writers who understand what playtime really is and assembles it all on a massive website/blog, well worth taking a week off work to check out.

There are a handful of the people in my internet neighborhood. Whether they like it or not, I consider them part of my Tribe, and I thank them for the constant inspiration they release to me and the world.