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, 12 Jul 2010

This Week on Straight to the Bar

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, you’ll enjoy these :

Ready to add your own opinion, workout log or training article? Just head over to the Forums, Training Logs, or swing by the Article Submissions page. They’re fantastic ways to share your ideas.

NB : if you enjoy the articles, show the authors your appreciation by voting (using the Like, Digg and Retweet icons). Cheers.


Video : Kettlebell Sit-up and Press on GHR

This is the first exercise in the Diesel Crew‘s Hardest Core Exercise EVER series – the Kettlebell Sit-up and Press on GHR. Good stuff.


Deal of the Week : APT Heavy Duty Adjustable Pulley Straps

APT Heavy Duty Universal Adjustable Stack Weight Pulley Straps

APT Adjustable Pulley Straps.

APT are currently giving away their Adjustable Pulley Straps (pictured) – one per order. Anyone here tried them? Would love to hear your thoughts.
Oh, and to grab one for yourself, head over to prowriststraps.com and enter the coupon code AdjustStrap when you’re checking out. Good stuff.
Want more? As a bonus, they’re also knocking 15% off the price of your order. Perfect.

Coming Events

Robert DeCillis

Robert DeCillis.

Twitterchat 74 – Conditioning

I love a dose of conditioning work, especially the outdoor varieties. Sandbags, tyres, ropes and so on.
This week we’re taking a close look at the world of Conditioning– everything from ‘what it is‘ and ‘the benefits it can bring‘ to the many, many great ways to get a dose in your own training. Helping us explore this fascinating topic is certified strength and conditioning coach Rob DeCillis, better known as Combat Trainer (@CombatTrainer). Fantastic.


Details –
Who : Strength-training fans
Topic : Conditioning
When : Wed Jul 14, 9pm EDT (1am UTC)
How : Include #sbgym in your tweets.
To see when it’s on in your timezone, head over to the twitterchat calendar.

Ryan Pitts

Ryan Pitts.

Quick update on last week’s twitterchat : Thanks once again to Ryan Pitts (@strongergrip) and everyone else who took part in the discussion on Training with Clubs. Some superb ideas in there.
For those who missed out on the conversation, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Are clubs a part of your current training? Fixed-weight, or the loadable variety?

Reading : The Big Book of Clubbell Training

The Big Book of Clubbell Training

The Big Book of Clubbell Training.

There were several great books mentioned during last week’s discussion on Training with Clubs, but one we didn’t get to was Scott Sonnon‘s The Big Book of Clubbell Training. I’m about to dive into it here, and would love to hear your own thoughts.
Anyone read it? What did you think?

Exercise of the Week : GHR Variations

While you’re using the GHR, try a few of these : several great GHR Variations from the guys at Octogen. Nice one.