Thursday, January 22, 2026

Another One From Tom Furman

This One Goes Out To Our Old Buddy Steve Forester!

“It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.”

by Tom Furman

This line is spoken by Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford, in the film Raiders of the Lost Ark, directed by Steven Spielberg (1981).

When Marion (Karen Allen) says to Indiana Jones, “You’re not the man I knew ten years ago,” he responds with his iconic charming/patronizing way of speaking to women: “It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.” — Shmoop.com

Indeed, wear and tear may not stay neck and neck with the clock and calendar. Certainly physicians, particularly orthopedic surgeons would love us to die with pristine joints, but except for living in a laboratory, it’s not going to happen. If one chooses an active life, it involves calculated and uncalculated risks. To “mansplain”, let’s just say at times, “hold my beer” carries more weight than peer review.

While the disease known as aging steals strength, speed, size and mobility, mistakes and accidents can really throw up a road block. Remember aging injures, but injury also ages. Cardiovascular fitness, what we used to call, “wind”, drops off with neglect, weight gain and certainly smoking. We can’t do a lot about the passage of time and the biological clock, but we can avoid accidents, train with brains and not get sloppy about our health.

To Read The Rest Of This Article, Click The link Below:

https://physicalstrategies.medium.com/its-not-the-years-honey-it-s-the-mileage-d211ab229c68

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

Anoter Piece Of Wisdom From Tom Furman

Every Day

4 min readDec 3, 2020

by Tom Furman

The idea of doing something regularly to achieve success is often frowned upon. Most advertising taps into our need for quick pleasure. It’s like offering magic, yet the information inundated consumer is willing to purchase smoke and mirrors before reality. The reality is that short cuts do not exist. However short term actions lead to long term success or what appears to be magic.

“I’m not doing the time. The time is doing me.” — Nicholas Hathaway (Chris Hemsworth) in the movie, Blackhat

While many say that, “Time is Money”, few view it as currency. Like money, we always think we don’t get enough. However when an objective analysis comes into play, we may find that our organizational skills are more emotionally driven than logically driven. That is not to say that humans should be worker drones or mindless task masters. It means that by having a consistent group of habits or tasks, given time, the outcome is quite demonstrable.

The application of a simple daily habit was made vivid in a largely unknown TV movie from the eighties, “Two Father’s Vengeance”. It starred Robert Conrad as a retired steelworker from the south side of Chicago and George Hamilton as a high end executive. The story is basically that after the murder of their children and not getting adequate justice, the fathers go after the killers. There is a telling scene in which the actors are running together and Robert Conrad’s character is getting tired. He wonders how George Hamilton’s character, who is not a tough guy like him, is able to continue. Hamilton’s character replies, “While you were holding court on a bar stool drinking beer all those years, I was running three miles every morning.”

To Read The Rest Of The Article Click On The Link Below;

https://physicalstrategies.medium.com/every-day-e1ed2cb0e743

Sunday, January 18, 2026

Sunday With Blackthorn - Mitigating The Recoil Of Shotguns - The 'Push-Pull' Method

I am not a fan of recoil. I made the mistake of learning how to shoot long Gun on a Winchester Model 670 Lightweight bolt action chambered in .30-06 caliber. Doing that left me with a life long dislike of heavy recoil. This has carried over to my choice in both rifles and shotguns. It is the reason I favor 20 Gauge shotguns. However, if you prefer a shotgun in 12 Gauge, the "Push-Pull" method provides a simple and effective way of reducing the recoil of Buckshot and Slug loads.

Using “Push-Pull” For Recoil Control

For those who dread the recoil of a 12-gauge shotgun, there’s a technique that can help.

by Jeff Johnston posted on October 11, 2022

Unlike the mythical pushmipullyu from “Dr. Doolittle,” the push/pull technique for shotguns is quite real and will help tame the felt recoil of a 12-gauge.

Over the course of this column, I’ve described myriad ways to mitigate a shotgun’s recoil, including increasing gun weight, installing a quality pad, ensuring proper fit and others. But, one that’s likely the easiest to perform, one of the most effective yet the least understood, is a shooting technique commonly called “push/pull.”

A brief internet search will reveal plenty of modern defensive-shotgun gurus preaching the push/pull’s value, and while it may be little known, it definitely isn’t new. More than 35 years ago, my godfather—a quail and big-game hunter of some repute—taught it to me, and he had been using it since he was a boy. He’s 85 at the time of this writing.

Charlie says the push/pull technique—along with his outstanding eyesight and hand-eye coordination—is what allowed him to routinely take three or more quail on a single covey rise; it allowed fast, nearly seamless follow-up shots from his 20-gauge semi-automatic as he downed one bird and moved to the next with minimal disturbance to his swing.

Defensive shotgunners can use the technique to even greater effect with heavy-recoiling 12-gauge shotguns. Here’s how it’s done:

With the strong-side hand (the trigger hand), pull the shotgun into the shoulder pocket just so it’s snug. The goal is to prevent the buttstock from moving in the pocket to keep recoil-induced momentum to a minimum. What you want to avoid is death-gripping the gun as if you were holding onto it for dear life. This is where the “pull” portion of the technique comes from.

The key, however, is in the support-hand grip. Instead of gripping the shotgun’s fore-end to pull the gun back into the shoulder pocket in unison with the strong hand, the support hand should firmly push the gun forward, toward the target. Basically, the two hands should fight each other as they figuratively try to stretch the gun’s receiver (sometimes described as “try to break the gun in half”). To try another analogy, think of it like shooting a bow: When drawing a bow, the grip hand actually pushes the bow out about as hard as the string hand pulls rearward; and when the bow is held back at full draw, both arms are holding equal tension. It should be the same with the shotgun.

In this way, the forward hand pushes directly against the force of recoil, thereby canceling a part of it before it reaches the body. Meanwhile, the trigger hand makes sure the gun is secure to the cheek and shoulder while performing its trigger duties.

While the technique seems so simple, the results are dramatic. Some people claim it can decrease felt-recoil by as much as 50 percent, although that’s tough to actually quantify. Certainly, it makes a noticeable difference. If you don’t believe me, go to the range with your shotgun of choice and try it yourself. Record yourself trying both techniques; you’ll feel and even see less muzzle rise and rearward push. This allows faster follow-up shots and makes the shotgun much more friendly to shoot in general.

Keep in mind that the shooter does not need to hold the gun like this for long, as it is very taxing on the muscles. Rather, the fore-end hand should push forward only in the microseconds before the shot. Once the technique is learned, practice will allow mastery of it, at which time there will be little reason to return to any other shotgun shooting technique whether hunting, target shooting or practicing for home-defense.

Friday, January 16, 2026

Training Advice From Tom Furman

Tom Furman is a Strength and Conditioning coach who is actually the Nephew of Charles (Death Wish) Bronson. The Actor, not the Convicted felon in the UK.

Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Training and eating to manage Father Time and your ego.

By Tom Furman

Gabby Reece, Born in 1970.
“I’m too young to be old and too old to be young” ~ Fried Green Tomatoes

The days march relentlessly. Near the beginning, a day doing nothing is like an island of solitude in a sea of chaos. When you get older, you wish that you had that day back.

We can pine away about disappearing youth, but we can’t stop it. Despite the idea of anti aging and age reversal, the very fact that aging is multifactorial is largely ignored. What we really want is healthy aging. That means we understand the difference between lifespan and healthspan. If the winter years of your life are severely limited from medical intervention, the quality is less glamorous.

I’ll skip over the important ideas of socialization, avoiding depression, lifelong learning and new skill acquisition. Those are beyond the scope of this article. Instead I’ll focus on habits, diet and exercise. Those are under your control. That’s right, you are in charge. Former Navy SEAL, Jocko Willink, calls this, “Extreme Ownership”. YOU are in charge. You can’t blame the stars, numerology, the tarot or being an Indigo child. The wonderful part is that you are at the steering wheel and there is no one to blame. YOU are to blame.

To see the rest of this article, click on the link below;

https://physicalstrategies.medium.com/fasten-your-seatbelts-its-going-to-be-a-bumpy-ride-c013ccb23d28