Wild Geese
Fitness Training

Baltic Fitness and Physio is a great little gym that aims to bridge the gap between the treatment table and the gym. Many of their clients are in the “older” category. So as part of the workshop over the weekend, we looked at various ways to use the squat safely with those clients. How can we get them sitting back into their posterior chain? How can we have them move with confidence, safe that they won’t lose balance? The Landmine Squat ticks all those boxes. The bar itself

“It’s all about movement isn’t it!” exclaimed my client yesterday morning. I looked at him a little perplexed thinking maybe I’d missed something. He sees this and expands, “I’m probably the weakest I’ve ever been, but the power I’m putting through the pedals is the best I’ve ever done” You see, he rides mountain bikes like a mad man. Races them. He’s always trained, always been strong but never been “strong enough” to ride like he knew he could. He continues, “I used to war

“Dave, when can I start training properly?” Asked a new client as he came in and started warming up, “I mean, I definitely feel stronger, and I don’t get out of breath so easily, even though all I’m doing is a bit of stretching” As he said this to me, it was clear that he was missing the irony in his question. “When can i start training properly?” Followed by: “I’m stronger and fitter” I guess the problem was that when he looked around the room, everyone else was lifting kett

I was just asked a very interesting question. One of my members just won a silver medal in the Irish Nationals for Kettlebell sport. Three medal winning Kettleheads taking events oh so seriously Today we were discussing future training goals now that this event is over. She listed out a few things, including further participation in Kettlebell Sport, but then went on to try to justify her unwillingless to specialise in the sport, as that may not be a healthy way to progress.

Facebook pops up some gems sometimes. I have to say I’m spending less and less time on there. I’m part of so many “secret” and “hidden” groups that when I am on I rarely look at anything outside of the activity within these groups. To be fair, the content and people using said groups are the reason I began using facebook in the first place. To connect with and learn from people that are at the top of their fields. I was never interested in the “social” side of social media. I

Recently I shared an Instagram video of me doing the Lizard crawl as part of my warm up routine. A video posted by Dave Hedges (@dave_hedges) on Jul 29, 2015 at 8:46am PDT This has generated a good bit of feedback across social media, including people asking how to work up to doing this movement. What I’m going to show you is the teaching progressions I received from Ido Portal last year. If you haven’t heard of Ido, he’s probably the most well known person in the “movement”

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Donec pretium, tortor vitae porttitor suscipit, sapien purus aliquet risus, eu finibus arcu ante nec risus. Mauris porta a massa sed consectetur. Fusce porta, quam sit amet tincidunt facilisis, ipsum enim semper nunc, ut sodales ipsum lectus eget dolor. Duis non dapibus elit. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Donec vel leo egestas, finibus felis ac, luctus feli

It’s Monday again, so it’s time for a dose of Monday Mobility. In case you missed it, last week we looked at opening the hips, you can read that HERE. Today’s mobility drill is a corker. It is a combination exercise that ticks a lot of boxes, check this out: Hamstring Length Core Stability Scapula Function It’s big drill, perfect for warming up with. Here’s how it goes: Have fun with it. Regards Dave Hedges www.WG-Fit.com Don’t forget to hit the share buttons if you find thi

What do you do when you’ve a limited window of opportunity in which to make strength and conditioning gains before an event? I know this sounds like poor planning and preparation but this is exactly what happened to a Bjj fighter recently. He’s been training pretty hard at his Bjj for the upcoming event and also using taking advice from the Guy who runs the “functional fitness” out of the place he trains. This coach had the fighter swinging light kettles badly but seems to ce

Today I’ve a few things on my mind. As per normal, my little grey cells are banging on overtime and I’m struggling to tame them into a single coherent article. So I’ll not bother. Instead we’re going to talk about: The Knee The Upper Back How Strength Makes Problems Go Away Wolverine. So lets begin: 1 – The Knee. The knee is blamed for a lot of problems, but unfairly so. On it’s own it’s a complicated beast, essentially working as a hinge but also allowing for a limited amou

Yet how many guys do you know who are monsters in the gym yet can’t seem to apply this strength in the outside world, be it during a rugby match, a fight or any other physical endeavour? I’ve known plenty. During the years I worked as a nightclub doorman I stood beside many huge monsters. I’d listen to them telling stories of their gym prowess, how big then benched that afternoon, numbers that I could only dream of hitting. Yet whenever it kicked off, it was me, the smallest

Bodyweight Training workshop 8/9/12 – Tramore Kettlebell Fitness Due to popular demand I’ll be running a Bodyweight Training workshop. This will be held at my friend Gan Power’s gym, Tramore Kettlebell Fitness. You may have noticed over the last while I’ve been training almost exclusively with bodyweight exercises (read my training log here). Now while there’s been a massive emphasis on high rep squats, but there’s a lot of other exercises and drills I’ve been using that you

This topic came up yesterday while chatting to one of my Lunchtime Fitness regulars. He has recently started using the 24kg kettles for much of his double work and was asking about how he could add some barbell  work into his home routine. This highlighted an issue. A barbell can be loaded in tiny increments. The smallest I have here at WG are 1.25kg plates, but you can get smaller. So if this week I deadlift 130kg for sets of 3, next week I’ll add the small plates and lift 1

Is it over? Tell me it's over! I just threw up a facebook message following this mornings Boot Camp performance. I stated that the guys Speed was increasing while their recovery times were dropping. It got me thinking about today’s blog post, the importance of recovery time. Most of my guys, and indeed most of the people reading this blog are more interested in improving their performance than they are in improving their aesthetic appearance. Which is good, I’ve little inter

Today was very nearly a disaster. I went out to collect my Laptop from the PC Guys, and found out it wasn’t ready as it was not just clogged with dust and overheating, but it was also infected with viruses. So I’m stuck using this old backup laptop that only two steps up from an abacus. Then to the bank, not open. When it did open 20 minutes later, I had to wait for another 15 minutes while the cashier shuffled papers around. I was very nearly late down to Wild Geese HQ to