Strength & Fitness Newsletter

What's This?

The Strength & Fitness Newsletter is a weekly email newsletter which summarises the things added to Straight to the Bar (as well as a few gems from the archives). Absolutely free.

btw, I’d love to hear your feedback – both on the individual items and the newsletters themselves. Drop a comment below the relevant issue, or swing by Twitter ( I’m @scottbird ).

 

cheers,

Scott

DragonDoor Workshops

Ready To Learn Even More?

I love learning new skills, and the many seminars & workshops available are a great way to do that. If you’re looking for a specific type of workshop nearby, check out the ones on Dragon Door. Great mix of kettlebell and calisthenics-based offerings.

Podcasts

I listen to an ever-changing pool of podcasts, discussing the many aspects of training and nutrition possible. Most recently :
FoundMyFitness (Dr Matthew Walker on Sleep)

Over to you. Any you’d recommend?

Strength Training on Instagram

It’s fair to say that we’ve checked out quite a few images over the years – on Flickr & Smugmug in particular.

A friend of mine just pointed me to Chris Stanciu ‘s Instagram feed, which contains a great mix of nutrition and workout images :

instagram.com/officialgainsthetics.

NB : if you’d like to share your own images, just add them to one of the sites noted above and send us a link.

Strength Training on Facebook

I suspect you love talking about strength training constantly (certainly the case here), and you’re always on the lookout for places to do that. Comments on various sites, forums as well as various in-person communities.

Online, I gravitate toward both Twitter and Facebook. In addition to the SttB offerings, here’s another one you may wish to check out :

Garage Gym Reviews (Cooper Mitchell’s page)

We’ve noted a few of his videos in the past, and they’re great for diving in deep on a particular type of equipment. Nice one.

Twitter Lists

I use Twitter for a number of things, as I’m sure everyone else here does. To talk about strength training, nutrition and many other topics. Works well.

To make this a little easier – and so people can dive right in to the topics that interest them – I use Twitter’s ‘List‘ functionality quite a bit. There’s a full list of them here :

https://twitter.com/scottbird/lists

Whatever you’re in to, it’s all there.

NB : the above lists are always being fine-tuned. If you know of someone who tweets regularly about a particular subject and should be on one of them, let me know.

Other (Daily) Newsletters You Might Like

Finally, for a daily dose of tangentially-related information – check out the following. All are compiled daily, and cover the following topics :

Aging & Longevity (living for a very, very long time)
Electric Cars in Australia (great way to help tackle air-pollution)
Better Sleep Nightly (my favourite form of recovery)

And yes, they’re absolutely free.

Bruce Lee : The Art of Expressing the Human Body (Bruce Lee & John Little)

If you’ve ever watched a Bruce Lee film and marveled at his strength, speed, agility, endurance, flexibility or muscularity, this book should take pride of place in your collection. Unlike many other writings covering everything from Lee’s training methods to nutrition, this book is based not on the recollections of people around him; but on Lee’s own notes. Brilliant.

Definitely worthy of a place on the fitness shelf.

Bruce Lee : The Art of Expressing the Human Body.

Monday, 25 January 2010

On the Forums

I’m constantly amazed at just how much my training is influenced by the people on this site. Whether you’re looking for a new piece of equipment, an unusual exercise variation or just an idea of how others approach things, head over to the forums :

Ready to add your own workout log or training article? Just head over to the Articles & Logs page and log in, and click ‘Post to Your Blog‘. That’s all there is to it.

NB : if you like what you see, show the authors your appreciation by voting (using the icons for Digg, StumbleUpon etc above each article). Cheers.

Video – Dynamic TKEs

Knees feeling a little beaten up? Smitty looks at a great way to incorporate an old favourite into your workous. Nice one.

Deal of the Week – Convict Conditioning

Convict ConditioningMy ‘books to read‘ list piled up over the past month or so (and yes, both Christmas and my birthday had more than a little to do with it), and one I’ve been extremely keen to dive in to is Convict Conditioning. As Josh points out (excellent review incidentally), the book teaches progressions for several challenging bodyweight exercises.
Chief among them – for me personally – is the One-Armed Handstand Push-up. Yep, one arm.
Fantastic.

Coming Events

Twitterchat 50 – Nutrition for Combat Athletes : What should you eat when you’re getting ready for a fight? How about the rest of the time?
This week we’re discussing the nutrition side of training – specifically for combat athletes. Cutting weight, getting ready for an upcoming battle, or simply keeping yourself in great condition year-round. Helping us to navigate this fascinating world is TDA Training’s Nathan Teodoro. Fantastic.
Details –
Who : Strength-training fans
Topic : Nutrition for Combat Athletes
When : Wed Jan 27, 9pm EST (1am UTC)
How : include #sbgym in your tweets (here’s how)
To see when it’s on in your timezone, head over to the twitterchat calendar.
See you there.
Got an event that you’d like to add? Let me know.

Exercise of the Week : Hise Shrug

Joseph Curtis Hise (often called The Father of American Weight Training) popularised a number of great ideas in the west, including the flat-footed squat. Here’s another one of his great legacies – the Hise Shrug.
The Hise Shrug is essentially a shrug performed with the bar resting across the traps, as if you were about to perform a high-bar squat. Note that it’s not exactly a comfortable, pain-free movement; though it’s certainly an effective one when it comes to building (and toughening up) the traps.
For that reason alone, it’s definitely a keeper.

Good fun. Give it a shot.