Originally Posted by
Mr Punch
This thread takes me back.
Used to cut a lot of wood as a forester and for my hearth at home. And hedging, which I would suggest is also very good for some aspects of strike power. With chopping you go all out to go through the wood, with hedging you have to leave the vital strip of bark at one side of the main stem or trunk but quickly (when you have several hundred metres of hedge to lay), so you need the strength, penetration if you like and a tweak of control at the end, then you have to grab and pull/bend/twist the stem down into shape. Even better than climbing for variation of forearm work I'd say.