This could have been misleading, of course, but it looked to me as though he were straining hard.

Straining hard, he managed to get their body off the boulder.

He was straining hard, but the stob wouldn't come out.

The sun has been out for a while after straining hard through moody skies and my skin is warming.

She was breathing hard, straining hard, crying out in pain.

Max strained harder, wishing his wounds had not weakened him so.

He started to shove, his leg muscles straining hard.

Heather strained harder, trying to make them out.

Kevin strained harder against his ropes until they were cutting into him like wet rawhide.

Disappointing, then, that I have to strain hard to hear them.

He says he does not strain very hard to hear them.

Why would they strain so hard to come up with 250 varieties of this thing?

As though something internal had been strained too hard and had given way.

For the part of her life that was behind her now, though she had strained so hard to pull away.

He strained so hard to pull them up, he nearly lost his balance.

The beauty of the casting is that the two young women do not have to strain very hard to fit their assigned roles.

Max strained harder, wishing his wounds had not weakened him so.

All the networks strained so hard to avoid repeating the early and flawed projections of 2000 that it was almost painful.

Perhaps the players feel a little cuddlier about each other and they won't strain so hard to project levity, but their play belies them.