Get Tough: The Workout

By Tom Furman

Toughness is a vague concept.

We have seen the running back, seemingly immune to tackles from players double his size. The boxer who has a slight build yet marches forward to knock out a carefully sculpted challenger.

As well, the manual laborer, at the autumn of his career, who is outworking the college athletes during summer break, on the construction job.

Is this ability born or made? I think a little bit of both. I certainly can’t help you with your gene pool, but let’s give the training a shot.

There are several factors here that could be argued about forever. However I’ll try this summary.

• Work capacity
• Durability or injury resistance
• Power to weight ratio

Hopefully we can address all three with this program.

Day One — One Arm Long Cycle Clean and Push Press.
This is simply a basic version of Girevik training. It’s a drill for work capacity, efficiency and total body work. Girevoy Sport or GS for short, is about strength-endurance. It’s working in duress, with breathing and technique to find an island of tolerance…